The Big Lie

Stacie,

Just to clarify, is it a lie of Satan that God the Son took the punishment that was due us in order to save us? In fact God the Father and God the Son made a covenant before time began that Christ was to be the lamb slain from the foundation of the world, that God himself, in human flesh, would live a perfect life, take the punishment on the cross that was due to us, and then he was raised for our justification, now seated at the right hand of the Father, ever living to make intercession for us. Does this simple presentation of the gospel give you a problem, or would this be part of the big lie?

I ran across a quote from nationally syndicated radio teacher Alistair Begg that I found helpful and would like to share it to see what you think:

"A few months ago I worshiped in another church far from here, at least a thousand miles from here for those who are always trying to find out where it was. And in the course in the worship…the gentleman who was a well-meaning gentleman did a credible job of explaining to the congregation and to me that God loved me. And on the strength of the fact that God loved me, which he tried to make as much of as he could, he then exhorted me to give my life to God, in response to God's love. And he explained that the extent of God's love was so vast that Jesus died on a cross. I was sitting there thinking to myself, 'Imagine that I wasn't a believer and I'm listening to this message. How am I supposed to put two and two together here and get four? How do I get from the fact of God's love, to the death of Jesus, to the fact that I'm supposed to give my life to him?' You see, if Susan (my wife) comes to me and says 'I love you with all my heart and as a result of that I'm going to jump off a ten storey building to the ground below to show you how much I love you.' I'd say 'What possible value would there be in that? That's a strange way to express love.' But if she was to say, 'I love you with all my heart, and your need is so vast physically that I'm prepared to give a part of my life to you in order that in your potential death you can find in me your life,' I'd say, 'I can understand why you'd give yourself away because there is a need.'

But until men and women are confronted with the Law of God, which shows them to be sinners, the idea of a savior dying on the cross doesn't really make sense. 'What is he doing up there?' 'Well he loves you.' Yeah I understand that, but wasn't there another way he could have done this? Why die on a cross? Because without the shedding of blood there will be no remission of sin. Of what? Of sin. Like what? Like stealing, lying, lusting, not loving God with all your heart and so on. You mean like breaking some of the ten commandments? Yes! So the Law of God is proclaimed to the well-healed middle class suburbanite in Cleveland who grades himself or herself on the curve. Driving in my car away from service I say to myself, 'Well I do have a few little things that probably need attention,' but I looked along the road and I saw old Billy boy there and frankly he is a disaster zone compared to me. So presumably however he gets graded, I'm gonna be OK. 'Because [God] will bring [the curve] way down and I'll be somewhere where I'll get through.'"
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But thanks for another thought provoking article.

Stan

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