“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, (the apostle wrote,) “for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the [Gentile].” (Romans 1:16)
One definition of ‘ashamed’ is to be reluctant or unwilling to do something because of embarrassment. Paul’s text here in Romans 1 cuts to the heart of a growing problem facing many of today’s Christians in America because the media, the educational system, the courts, the marketplace, Hollywood, and even many churches have been slowly squeezing Christians into the mold called ‘religious pluralism.’ That ought to frighten us because that mold has the effect of reducing Jesus the Christ to just one of many religious teachers and prophets.
Religious pluralism is the belief that different religious worldviews are equally valid, equally true, and equally acceptable to God. Therefore, all religious roads lead to God.
If anyone thought that through, that philosophy doesn’t make sense on any level. There can only be one truth, not a half-dozen. For example, the doctrines of Judeo-Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism are not only diverse in their understanding of sin, righteousness, and judgment, but they are each diverse in their understanding of the nature of God.
Tragically – and I use that word purposely – a growing number of Christians in our modern pluralistic era – even those who have been in the Church for decades – are becoming increasingly reluctant to draw a proverbial line in the sand and boldly and unapologetically declare what the Bible declares to be the ONLY truth – that which is found in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures about sin, righteousness, judgment – and specifically what Scripture tells us of the Person and role of Jesus in our eternal destiny.
That's a hard truth for many today to swallow in our age of religious pluralism – but God has never been one to mince words. He has never been one to equivocate or be ambiguous. And neither should we His servants when people ask us the reason for our hope of eternal life.
Only Biblically-based Christianity holds the definitive answer to the question about sin, forgiveness of sins, eternal judgment, and eternal life.
Let me repeat that for emphasis. There are not multiple truths about sin and forgiveness of sins, eternal judgment and eternal life. There is only ONE truth. And that truth is God’s love for humanity is evidenced in His sacrificial offering of His Son Jesus as payment for our sins. Only that gospel message holds the key to eternal life because its specific revelation is rooted in humanity’s nature AND in the nature of God. Humanity’s nature is utterly sick with sin. God’s nature is utterly and ineffably holy. The bad news is, without God's intervention, our utter sinfulness and God’s incomprehensible holiness cannot ever be reconciled. But the good news is, God DID intervene in humanity’s otherwise hopeless situation.
That divine intervention separates Christianity from all other religions past or present.
I wonder if those who sit in the pews each Sunday have heard the apostle Paul’s warning so often that it no longer carries the weight it should: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) He adds later in the same letter to the church at Rome: “The wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)
That preposition, ‘in’ Christ Jesus our Lord is critical. It is only those who are IN Christ Jesus who receive the free gift of God. No one else. Not Muslims. Not Hindus. No one. Not even Jews who reject Messiah Jesus’ sacrificial atonement for their sins. Only Biblically-based Christianity has the answer to the question: What can wash away my sins? What can make me whole again? The answer is: Nothing can make us whole again except the blood of Jesus.
What do we mean when we talk of Jesus’ sacrificial atonement for our sins? God’s utter holiness requires divine justice concerning sin. There is no wiggle room in God’s righteousness to overlook even what we might call minor sins. On the other hand, God’s love calls for mercy and compassion toward the sinner.
The tension between God’s justice and love found reconciliation in the sacrificial system He established through Moses. The last half of Exodus, and the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy especially focus attention on the animal sacrifices which functioned as a substitutionary atonement for the sinner. When the Jewish priests laid their hands on the head of the sacrificial animal, the sins of the penitent were transferred to the animal who then was slain.
According to the New Testament, the Mosaic sacrificial system pointed to what God intended to do centuries later on Calvary’s hill.
Among the many prophetic promises in the Jewish Scriptures of that reconciliation, God told us through Isaiah: “He [the Messiah] was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.” (Isaiah 53:3-6, NLT)
Jesus, the perfect and spotless Lamb of God, took away our sins with His own blood when He died on that cross. His bloody death became a substitutionary atonement for all who call on Jesus for forgiveness of their sins. As the apostle Paul reminds us: [God] made Christ, who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
Humankind bristles at the idea that we are sinners who justly deserve eternal punishment. Many of us think of ourselves as not-so-bad, especially when we compare ourselves with REAL sinners – like rapists and murderers.
But when we compare ourselves with others, we demonstrate our ignorance of the infinite holiness of God. The sun itself, in all its noonday brilliance, is as dark as night when placed next to God’s holiness. And God demands our holiness be as HIS holiness. Jesus was not speaking in hyperbole when He commanded us, “Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48).
Unlike world religions such as Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and even Old Covenant Judaism, only the New Covenant Judaism – also known as Christianity – only Christianity holds the answer to the otherwise irreconcilable problem of sin, God’s holiness, and forgiveness. No other faith addresses sin and judgment as Biblical Christianity addresses it. Other faiths tell their adherents if they pray often enough and in the right way, or if they do enough good deeds to outweigh their bad deeds, they might get into heaven.
Christian faith is uniquely different because in our Scriptures God tells us the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth. God’s word tells us salvation is a gift not based at all on our works or our heritage. Salvation is granted to us solely by God’s grace. And because salvation is His unmerited gift, no one can boast and say, “I deserve eternal life.” (see Ephesians 2:8-10)
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