People often wrestle with the idea of God sending His Son Jesus to live on earth and die for sin. They ask questions like: If God is all powerful, why would He choose this method for “saving” people? Why not “just forgive” people? Or why not do it another way? Why Jesus?

The Bible offers a simple answer to these difficult questions: Jesus’ coming and dying provided the ONLY sufficient solution to an infinite problem.

The answer begins with God and two important aspects of His nature.

God is perfect. His every thought is perfect. Every action from Him is perfect. He can only exist in perfect places. Perfection is not merely a standard of activity that God must maintain; rather, perfection is an attribute of God. He cannot ignore perfection or act in a way that contradicts it because doing so contradicts His nature. In other words, for God to ignore His perfection in any way destroys His God-ness. An imperfect “god” is no “god” at all.

Again, God is perfect. If He settles for less than perfection, He will stop being God.

God is love. With an undying and infinite love, God loves people and wants to bring them close to Him. He longs to welcome people to Him. Love is not a standard of activity that God must maintain; rather, love is an attribute of God. He cannot ignore love or act in a way that contradicts it because doing so contradicts His nature. In other words, for God to ignore His love in any way destroys His God-ness. An unloving “god” is no “god” at all.

Again, God is love. If He settles for less than love, He will stop being God.

As attributes of God, therefore, both perfection and love must be upheld at all times. One cannot dominate or destroy the other. He cannot ignore one to satisfy the other. Both are completely true of God at all times.

Thus, the infinite problem emerges from the fact that people are imperfect. Even though God loves us, by virtue of His “God-ness” He cannot just ignore our imperfection. Again, if He allows imperfection, He stops being God. At the same time, God cannot just ignore us. If He fails to love, He stops being God.

So our sin creates a barrier for God. He must overcome the imperfection of our sin if He is to maintain His love for us. This barrier is the first step to understanding, Why Jesus?

More to come…

“We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.”

Hebrews 6:19a (ESV)

On the heels of one of the most oft-debated paragraphs in the New Testament, God offers a powerful comfort in the form of a vivid image.

Earlier in this chapter (6:4-8), the writer offers a stern warning to men and women about the judgment that awaits those who abandon Jesus as the Christ and Savior. Again, these verses have sparked much discussion throughout the centuries regarding the security of a person’s salvation. And while the language of these verses provides sufficient ambiguity to support a number of interpretations, the closing promise points us in the right direction.

Beginning in verse 13, the writer explains that the promises of God are based on two unchangeable things: His word and His character. Therefore, those men and women who like Abraham have placed their hope in God (through genuine repentance and faith) live with under the certainty of God’s unchangeableness. And those men and women who only appeared to place their hope in God live under the certainty of God’s coming judgment.

Thus, men and women who have life-altering, saving faith in God cling the dual “anchor” of God’s unchanging word and character. Take heart believers, your salvation is secure. Not because you can hold on to God, but because God will hold onto to you!

From the daily web devotional published from his writings, we get a gem regarding leadership. As my friend Curt suggested, think of the contrast between his view and the contemporary ideas about leadership.

“I believe that it might be accepted as a fairly reliable rule of thumb that the man who is ambitious to lead is disqualified as a leader. The Church of the Firstborn is no place for the demagogue or the petty religious dictator. The true leader will have no wish to lord it over God’s heritage, but will be humble, gentle, self-sacrificing and altogether as ready to follow as to lead when the Spirit makes it plain to him that a wiser and more gifted man than himself has appeared.

It is undoubtedly true, as I have said so often, that the church is languishing not for leaders but for the right kind of leaders; for the wrong kind is worse than none at all. Better to stand still than to follow a blind man over a precipice. History will show that the church has prospered most when blessed with strong leaders and suffered the greatest decline when her leaders were weak and time serving. The sheep rarely go much farther than the Shepherd.”

Read the full entry on the Christian and Missionary Alliance’s website.

“You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, ⁶but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

Exodus 20:5-6 (ESV)

Many people struggle to embrace “jealousy” as an aspect of God’s character. Once again J.I. Packer sheds some helpful light on understanding God.

“God’s jealousy is not a compound of frustration, envy and spite, as human jealousy so often is, but appears instead as a (literally) praiseworthy zeal to preserve something supremely precious.”

Jealousy can be “zeal to protect a love relationship or to avenge it when broken. This jealousy also operates in the sphere of sex; there, however, it appears not as the blind reaction of wounded pride but as the fruit of marital affection . . . . This sort of jealousy is a positive virtue, for it shows a grasp of the true meaning of the husband-wife relationship, together with a proper zeal to keep it intact.”

“God’s jealousy over his people . . . . presupposes his covenant love; and this love is no transitory affection, accidental and aimless, but is the expression of a sovereign purpose.”

J.I. Packer, Knowing God, 170-172.

Far from being offensive, God’s jealousy is a fundamental expression of His sovereign love for us and His desire to keep our covenant relationship intact.

Jim Elliot was martyred in Ecuador at age 29.

Jim was fueled by a passion to see the nations praise the Lord Jesus. He trusted Jesus as Savior at age 8 and as a teenager began to feel a call to missions. His wife wrote that his aim in life was “to know God.”

Jim’s other great aim in life was to exalt God. In a letter to his parents that he wrote as a 21 year-old, he described missionaries as normal people. He called them, “a bunch of nobodies trying to exalt Somebody.”

On January 8, 1956, Jim and 4 other missionaries waited for the chance to meet with the Auca or Huaorani Indians. They longed to exalt Somebody to a group of men who had never heard His name.

Even thought Jim was carrying a gun, he refused to use it. Suspecting danger his wife asked him before his last journey if he would use his gun to defend himself against the Indians. Jim replied, “We will not use our guns!” When asked why he replied, “Because we are ready for heaven, but they are not.”

Jim’s short life certainly exalted God and His purposes.

Who does your life exalt?

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*Elliot’s remarkable story was made more popular by the 2006 motion picture, End of the Spear. If you have never invested much time into missionary biographies, give a couple of hours to watching this movie and it might just pique your interest.

**For this entry I am in debt to Daniel Akin’s Five Who Changed the World.

The last three posts began to answer a simple, yet critical question. What are the essential elements of the gospel?

The Gospel is the message of God’s plan and work to save sinners from His wrath and bring them into a relationship with Himself through the work of Jesus Christ and the offer of that gift to all who will turn from sin and trust in Christ.

This very pregnant sentence demands unpacking so I began commenting on each phrase. Thus far we have made six statements. First, the “gospel” has a singular definition. Second, the “gospel” is a message or a definitive collection of concepts that relate a specific joyous announcement. Third, the “gospel” relates God’s plan. Fourth, the “gospel” tells of God’s work. Fifth, the “gospel” tells of God’s work to save. Sixth, the “gospel” offers salvation to sinners. Seventh, the “gospel” offers salvation from God’s wrath. Eighth, the “gospel” tells of God’s work to bring sinners into a right relationship with Himself.

Ninth, the “gospel” tells of the “work of Jesus Christ.” God’s work to save was accomplished through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. He is only way to salvation thus the message about salvation must center on Him and His work.

Tenth, the “gospel” offers a gift. This message announces the solution to the deepest problem in our soul (our separation from God because of our sin). And this gift is FREE. It requires no work or merit. In fact, any attempt to earn the gift prevents a person from receiving it.

Eleventh, the “gospel” offers a gift to “all.” The only requirement for eligibility is to be a human being.

Twelfth, the “gospel” invites a person to repent from sin. Repentance is a change of mind resulting in a turn from sin. To receive the gospel a person must reorient their will away from sin. Don’t misunderstand, however, repentance is not work or merit. Rather it is a reaction to sin by a person who hears and believes the gospel.

Thirteenth and finally, the “gospel” offers a gift that is received by faith. In other words, faith is the means by which God appropriates salvation. The work of Jesus to cover our sin and reestablish our relationship with God is only applied to persons who trust fully in Christ. This trust is beyond mental acknowledgement of facts about His life, death, and resurrection. Faith in Jesus is life-altering causing us to rely solely on the work of Jesus to deal with our sin and to surrender absolutely to follow Him at any cost. When a person places his faith in Jesus, God applies Jesus’ work to him and saves him.

Therefore, the gospel is the message about salvation for salvation.

Again, read these statements and consider your beliefs regarding the gospel because this message lies at the heart of what it means to be “Christian.”

The last two posts began to answer a simple, yet critical question. What are the essential elements of the gospel?

The Gospel is the message of God’s plan and work to save sinners from His wrath and bring them into a relationship with Himself through the work of Jesus Christ and the offer of that gift to all who will turn from sin and trust in Christ.

This very pregnant sentence demands unpacking so I began commenting on each phrase. Thus far we have made six statements. First, the “gospel” has a singular definition. Second, the “gospel” is a message or a definitive collection of concepts that relate a specific joyous announcement. Third, the “gospel” relates God’s plan. Fourth, the “gospel” tells of God’s work. Fifth, the “gospel” tells of God’s work to save. Sixth, the “gospel” offers salvation to sinners.

Seventh, the “gospel” offers salvation from “God’s wrath.” The wrath of God is best understood as His settled reaction toward sin. Unlike human wrath, His is never out-of-control, never lacks wisdom, and is never cool or indifferent. God’s wrath is His directed, intense, just reaction to sin. It is not an impulsive, flying off the handle, fit of rage.

The practical result of this wrath is death. We die physically as we pay the penalty for our sin. We also die spiritually as we pay the penalty for our sin. In the Bible, spiritual death is described as separation from God. So, God’s wrath is a reaction to sin that brings us physical death and separation from God. The agony of this separation from God will reach its highest (or we might say lowest) point when God judges all people and brings everlasting punishment upon those men and women who rejected Him. The Bible calls the place where these people will suffer for eternity “hell” and describes it as a lake of unquenchable fire. So, the gospel is the message of God’s work to save people from His wrath, which they justly deserve because of their sin.

Eighth, the “gospel” tells of God’s work to bring sinners into a right “relationship with Himself.” Isaiah 59:2 makes a clear and alarming proclamation about sin and its effect on a person’s relationship to God.

“but your iniquities have made a separation
between you and your God,
and your sins have hidden his face from you
so that he does not hear.” (ESV)

As we have just seen in looking at wrath and death, we are hopelessly separated from God because we are sinful and He is perfect. To overlook our sin and welcome us anyway would tarnish His perfection. The gospel is the message of how God has crossed this chasm created by our sin and built a bridge for us to return to Him.

Again, read these statements and consider your beliefs regarding the gospel because this message lies at the heart of what it means to be “Christian.”

Last time I began answering a simple, yet critical question. What are the essential elements of the gospel?

The Gospel is the message of God’s plan and work to save sinners from His wrath and bring them into a relationship with Himself through the work of Jesus Christ and the offer of that gift to all who will turn from sin and trust in Christ.

This very pregnant sentence demands unpacking so I began commenting on each phrase. Thus far we have made two statements. First, the “gospel” has a singular definition. Second, the “gospel” is a message or a definitive collection of concepts that relate a specific joyous announcement.

Third, the “gospel” relates “God’s plan.” This message has been unfolding from the foundation of the world. God is not reacting to man’s whims or figuring it out as He goes along. Through Jesus Christ God is working out His plan and the gospel tells this story. Jesus teaches this truth in Matthew 25:34: “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (ESV).

Fourth, the “gospel” tells of “God’s work.” This message tells of God’s activity. He is not a mere bystander nor does He simply direct the affairs of salvation from afar. God is active and the message of the gospel reveals His activity.

Fifth, the “gospel” tells of “God’s work to save.” He is not merely making moral people or helping people find their purpose in life. God is first rescuing men and women from the penalty and power of sin. People are drowning in the lake of their rebellion and God is reaching into the water to “save” them.

Sixth, the “gospel” offers salvation to “sinners.” As Jesus said, “For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:13b ESV). This message claims that every person everywhere has offended God’s holy standard and is separated from Him. The gospel makes a strong statement about mankind: namely, all people are sinners and in desperate need of salvation.

Again, read these statements and consider your beliefs regarding the gospel because this message lies at the heart of what it means to be “Christian.”

More than two months ago I introduced a book that deals with seven important topics promising to address each of them in turn. Having written about the first two (truth and evangelism), I come now to #3: the gospel.

With much contemporary debate and misunderstanding about salvation, my goal through these entries is to answer one question. What are the essential elements of the gospel?

Also, please don’t lose sight of our goal with this series and with what will be several entries about the gospel… “I want to challenge you to consider your beliefs regarding seven topics (and now ‘the gospel’) because they provide a foundation for your understanding of Christianity and the Church.”

The Gospel is the message of God’s plan and work to save sinners from His wrath and bring them into a relationship with Himself through the work of Jesus Christ and the offer of that gift to all who will turn from sin and trust in Christ.

This very pregnant sentence demands unpacking. And thus we will over the course of a few entries expound upon the phrases of this important definition. (I’ll try to keep track of my first, second, third, etc. as we move along, but I make no promises.)

First and obvious, the “gospel” has a singular definition. Much of the current discussion about the gospel is an attempt to circumvent any negligible definition. The gospel has become something of a moving target that bends and flexes as we roam along from culture to culture and society to society. However, biblical revelation is our guide to all matters of faith and practice and it most certainly provides a single definition. Thus, one can only embrace or share the ‘gospel’ when he or she has rightly identified it.

Second, the “gospel” is a message or a definitive collection of concepts that relate a specific joyous announcement. Often called the good news, the gospel tells a distinct story. Thus, one can only embrace the gospel as good news when he or she has heard and understood a specific message.

A few words from J.I. Packer’s Knowing God related to God’s wrath.

“To an age which has unashamedly sold itself to the gods of greed, pride, sex and self-will, the church mumbles on about God’s kindness but says virtually nothing about his judgment. . . . What is it that makes us awkward and embarrassed when the subject comes up, that prompts us to soft-pedal it and hedge when we are asked about it?

The root cause of our unhappiness seems to be a disquieting suspicion that ideas of wrath are in one way or another unworthy of God. . . .  [But] God’s wrath is the Bible is never the capricious, self-indulgent, irritable, morally ignoble thing that human anger so often is. It is, instead, a right and necessary reaction to objective moral evil. God is only angry where anger is called for. . . . It is precisely this adverse reaction to evil, which is a necessary part of moral perfection, that the Bible has in view when it speaks of God’s wrath.”

J.I. Packer, Knowing God, 149-151

The contemporary view of God seems to be that wrath is beneath him and that as God he should be ‘better than’ reacting in anger to human sin.

But as Packer points out, it is precisely his God-ness that requires him to react to sin with wrath. When the moral perfection of his God-ness is offended, anger is the only ‘right’ response.

So God’s wrath is not his ‘dark side’ that should shame us as His children. Rather his wrath is wonderful confirmation of his absolute moral purity.