Monday, July 21, 2008

The Right View of Man

"...they have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven image, and pray unto a god that cannot save...there is no other God beside me; a just God and a Savior. There is none beside me. Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else." Isaiah 45:20-22

Why are those who trust in anything but God fools? Because they do not (or will not) understand their true condition, and consequently their true need. There are many beautiful, noble, and logical sounding thoughts out there (some even claim to be the Gospel of Christ), but they are all heresies, idols, and false hopes that cannot save. They cannot save because they do not know humanity's true condition; they say that we are poor, or unhealthy, or uneducated, or oppressed, or in need of augmentation or social reforms, or that we need to go through the next stage of evolution, etc., etc. Any ideology or belief system that does not begin with the Fall, with the doctrine of Sin, with "as in Adam all die"(I Corinthians 15:22a) will lead mankind into the ditch every time.
Why is God the only savior? Because He alone can do anything about Sin, and Sin is our real problem as humans; it is the eternal monkey wrench in our plans, the "amartia," the tragic flaw that undoes us every time. We are not poor, sick, uneducated, oppressed, or evolving. We are sinners, and God alone can save us from that.

"Not sick, but sin sick.
Not poor, but lost.
Not stupid, but foolish without You.
Not unevolved, but in need of Forgiveness,
And Atonement..."

-Jon Vowell

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