Why Jesus is to be valued above all else, part i :: because we have issues

Posted by Erik in Gospel on Aug 6th, 2007 | 2 responses

The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is tightly woven with the threads of exclusivity and urgency. His message is not one that is to be considered as ‘an’ option for religious experience but rather ‘the only’ option for eternal deliverance.

Throughout the Scriptures God maintains an uninterrupted resolve towards the display of his own glory. He values himself supremely and will not tolerate any disagreement on the matter. For indeed this valuing of divine preeminence is also our chief responsibility as the creation. We are to agree with God as to his supremacy and beauty and then respond to him with an affectionate and sincere explosion of delight in the God who is beautiful.

But if the truth be told our lives have represented the opposite of this divinely desired posture. Instead of uninterrupted love and delight in God we find ourselves experiencing our highest exhilaration and satisfaction on the things that God has created rather than upon God himself. In the Scriptures God calls this idolatry. There is scarcely little else that provokes God’s holy and justified anger more than to demote him from this position of unrivaled supremacy in favor of stuff that he, himself has made! (cf. Romans 1.18-27)

So the outlook is bleak, to say the least. Here we have a God who has demonstrated that he is far more committed to the promotion and defense of his own glory than he is to the accommodation of our own disregard for him. So what will he do? How will he respond to all of us who have been shaking our fist in his face since we have had umbilical chords?

One of the kindest things that God does is communicate. He has told us that there is a problem. Instead of allowing us to continue walking blindly into the muzzle of his wrath he has sent messengers ahead to warn us. They have come throughout the ages to warn respective generations of the devastating reality of enduring the just penalty for sin. So indeed God is kind to speak to us through such men (Matt. 3.5-10).

However, if God had only said, “Flee from my wrath!” and had not told us where to flee to we would still be in the unenviable position of attempting to run from God’s ever-seeing eye. But no, God has done far more.

God has inspected our “goodness” and called it utterly unacceptable to his divine standards (Romans 3.10-18). Therefore, we as humanity are left with two options:

/1) God forgets our sin

/2) We get some help from someone perfect.

Sadly, too many people bank their eternal lives on the foolish possibility that God might be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. This they do as if God might forget all of the bad that we have done while also forgetting his perfect holy and righteous standards. This option is about as likely as God forgetting that he is in fact God. It’s not going to happen.

So we are realistically left with only one option. We need help. And we need help from a qualified individual.

What are the qualifications? Simply put, the qualification for satisfying God’s own perfect standard is perfection. Well, would all of those who are perfect please step forward? We are a people who have a lot of things; however, perfect righteousness in accordance with the divine standard is not one of them.

However, there is one who has this qualification. I will pick up here tomorrow.

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2 Responses to “Why Jesus is to be valued above all else, part i :: because we have issues”

ENGAGING CULTURE » Great Value says:

August 6, 2007 at 9:23 pm

[...] Erik Raymond a.k.a the Irish Calvinist is beginning a new series on “Why Jesus is to be valued above all else.” [...]
anonymous says:

August 7, 2007 at 2:45 am

It’s “umbilical cords” not “umbilical chords”, unless you’re trying to state that we have musically inclined navels.