“It is after you have realized that there is a real moral law, and a power behind the law, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with the power — it is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk.”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
One of the most galling features of Christianity for me, as an unbeliever, was its insistence that we are all sinners. Every time I heard a Christian message on the radio, TV, or in church it seemed to be all about sin and its consequences. Yet they kept calling their message “good news.” It seemed too negative for a supposedly “nice” guy like me.
What was I missing? Perhaps something I was blind to?
God’s Dazzling Holiness
In 2 Corinthians 4:3-5, the Bible makes clear that when sin entered our world, it had the effect of blinding us to God’s holiness: “… the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
To illustrate: Suppose you were a fish, born and raised in the highly polluted Ganges River in India. One day you and your “homey” fish are hanging out when unexpectedly a beautiful rainbow trout, let’s call him Nemo, wanders into your ’hood.
Nemo was accidentally dumped off by a passing ship, ending up a long way from home and deeply disturbed. He approaches you and says, “Wow, the pollution in this river is unbelievable. How can you live like this?” You look back, mystified, and say, “What’s pollution?”
To you guys, this place is home. It’s all you’ve ever known. But for Nemo, who was raised in the pristine, crystal-clear water of the Scottish Highlands, the Ganges looks, smells and tastes like a slow-flowing sewer.
Similarly, we’ve all been born into a sin-infused world, with nothing to compare ourselves against except billions of other sinners in our ’hood. So, how are we to know what real holiness looks like?
Light of the World
One blessed day 2,000 years ago, like a blinding flash in the darkness, came a Person who represented the “gold standard” of comparison to the perfect holiness of God Himself. As it is written in John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
This was not a detached, sterile guru spewing rules to live by, like so many religionists. This was a flesh-and-blood divinely winsome Lover, who grabbed us by the heart and swept us into his arms.
One day, while talking about “qualifying” for heaven, Jesus raised the bar about as high as it gets, when he stated unambiguously in Matthew 5:48, “Therefore, you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Me? Perfect? But How?
Once every 12 years, 100 million Hindus take a pilgrimage to Allahabad, India, where the Ganges and Yamuna rivers meet, and immerse themselves in the water hoping to cleanse their sins.
Because the Ganges is worshipped for its divine connection to the Hindu gods, many leave offerings to float along the river’s surface, including the dead, hoping to speed along the cycle of the afterlife.
Ironic. Millions of people returning repeatedly to one of the world’s most polluted rivers to rid themselves of the stain of sin, only to return home conscience-smitten again.
Likewise, that same pervasive, haunting sense of not being right with God has filled mental institutions, drug and alcohol recovery programs, prisons, jails and psychiatrists’ couches for as long as humans have been around.
God knows that. And He also knows that such soul-deep dysfunction can’t easily be washed away. It requires divine “cosmic cleanser.”
And that is where the sacrificial offering of the lifeblood of a perfect, sinless substitute for sinners comes in, as is written in Hebrews 9:13-15:
“… how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”
How About You?
Still doing “dead works” to get right with God? Look away to Christ — to His blood shed for you — and let God reveal your desperate need for a radical salvation. Consider joining the chorus of those who have been cleansed at the foot of the cross and returned joyously exclaiming:
“… one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
— D.C. Collier is a Bible teacher, discipleship mentor and writer focused on Christian apologetics. A mechanical engineer and Internet entrepreneur, he is the author of My Origin, My Destiny, a book focused on Christianity’s basic “value proposition.” Click here for more information, or contact him at don@peervalue.com. Click here for previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.