In my last post I discussed the explanatory power of Christianity, why it better explains reality as we experience it than any other religion or worldview. I wasn’t able to address why it isn’t only Christianity as a worldview that makes sense of everything, but specifically the gospel. Let’s start with our own consciousness. There are many common threads to how human beings encounter themselves and the world, but none as common as conscience. We, at almost every moment of our existence, encounter the notion of right and wrong, good and evil, and that none of us measure up to the standard, whatever we think that is. Because the moral law is built into the universe and into our beings, nobody lives up to their own standards, let alone those of a holy God. I don’t often quote Immanel Kant approvingly, but he got it right when he wrote in the Critique of Practical Reason:
Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. I do not seek or conjecture either of them as if they were veiled obscurities or extravagances beyond the horizon of my vision; I see them before me and connect them immediately with the consciousness of my existence.
This cannot be, and never is or has been, denied by anybody, no matter what they believe. Every human being lives in a moral universe, within and without, at every moment of their existence. Most importantly for my argument, everyone knows they do not and cannot measure up to whatever moral standard that exists in that universe. Every single one.
In the most simple terms we’ve all done this, especially when we were children. Somebody takes something from us, or does something we don’t like, and we react with, “That’s not fair!” According to whom? The sense of morality in our being is complimented with a sense of justice. Wrong must be righted. We know it, feel it, believe it, demand it, even if we can’t articulate why that is. Christianity is the only explanation for why, and the gospel is the only answer.
The human condition is defined by our relationship to God. Thus, everything in life is explained to us by Paul in the first chapter of Romans:
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
All human beings know they are without excuse, and by nature they attempt to deny it, ignore it, or distract themselves so they don’t have to even think about it. Unless God in his sovereign grace reveals their guilt to them. We see this everywhere, the drama of sin and guilt and redemption. It is the struggle of the human condition. All great art, literature, movies, paintings, stories told ancient and modern deal with this drama, even if most never get to the answer, the good news that we can be saved from our dilemma. Life without Christ is what Winston Churchill said about the Soviet Union in 1939, “It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” Yet people every day, in art and life, try to solve it without the key that unlocks the door to the ultimate explanation of what it all means.
Without the gospel this moral struggle at the heart of every human being, 24/7, sometimes interrupted by sleep, is hopeless and endless, until death. It is a struggle for nothing going nowhere because without the gospel there is no answer, just endless futility. Although people certainly try find meaning, hope, fulfillment, and purpose in any and every thing apart from the gospel, they can’t find it. That life is ultimately like the end of every Woody Allen movie, resignation and despair. You win the Super Bowl (I’m told one of these is happening soon), then wake up the next day and think, that’s it? The gospel, however, puts everything in it’s ultimate perspective. It makes sense to what many people think is senseless, life, all of it, and death. Man alienated from God because of his sin, reconciled to God by God himself in Christ, we now have peace with our maker, life now in all of its many manifestations makes sense. No more guessing, no more wondering, no more futility in trying to measure up because we can’t. Our only hope is that “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
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