What Is The Basis For Your Faith? Man or God?

We give thanks to God and the Father of our 

Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, 

since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus,

 and of the love which ye have to all the saints, 

for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, 

whereof ye heard before in the word of the 

truth of the Gospel; which is come unto you, 

as it is in all the world; and bringeth forth fruit, 

as it doth also in you, since the day ye heard of it, 

and knew the grace of God in truth: as ye also 

learned of Epaphras our dear fellow servant,

 who is for you a faithful minister of Christ; 

who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit.

Colossians 1:3-8 

     The early Church had the witness of those who were alive when Jesus was alive and had come to know by personal living experience the Messiah promised from of old. The Church had this witness as if from "the horse' mouth," we do not have that luxury, but we have what those men wrote for the early Church and extends down to us and our progeny. Paul is telling the Colossian Church had it was so good to hear of their love, not a love like the world, no, a love that had sprung from the word of truth, the Gospel. I must point out that there are those who will object to the words of Paul that the Gospel had come to them like it had done to the world. So, allow me to give some opinion on this point: the word world is not always speaking about the whole earth, such as the islands of the Pacific, or into Russia, or China, but rather as we use the word "world" it can mean people. Furthermore, Paul did not say that this was the "whole world" as in its largest meaning, rather that the Gospel (what is the Gospel? Is it not Jesus Christ come in the flesh as promised?)? The Greek is very clear and here is a literal translation: "which ye heard of before in the word of the truth of the glad tidings, which are come to you, even as also in the all the world" (vs. 6a). Jesus is the "glad tidings," the "good news" and the promised One that came to the world for the whole world that was, and is, under the debt of sin. It was by His coming that the whole world can know of Him. Of course, here is where you and I come in: we have the command to go and make disciples, teaching them in the name of Jesus Christ. We do not go to save, rather we go to teach. God saves! 

      In the Bible we learn that Jesus did not keep His Person out of His Gospel, but presented Himself as the Savior of men. Those who would object to this about Jesus or consider Jesus to be just an "historical" Jesus cannot remove themselves from this fact: Jesus plainly presented Himself, not just as an example of faith, rather as the object of faith. Jesus did not say or invite to give confidence to men by minimizing why He had to come and that He was, and did, bear Himself; He offered Himself to the world. Jesus did not say: "Trust in Me to give you acceptance with God.  Acceptance with God is not difficult, says the liberal Christian, and by this makes the point that god does not regard sin to be so serious. When you read the Bible you will come to understand that that is not Scriptural for Jesus presented to us the wrath of God and it is that which the writers of the Bible declare to us in their letters to the Churches, to us today in our Churches. The liberal Christian teaches a "teddy bear" Christ, a mild-mannered exponent of indiscriminating love. For instance: When I speak to students at the Bethel School of the Supernatural and ask them why and what are they doing by going around attempting to pray for anyone who will allow them to do so. The answer is almost universal: they come to spread the love of Jesus. Sounds good on the surface. Jesus was and is love, for He died for us because He first loved us, but, and this is important: Jesus spoke of the outer darkness and of Gehenna, the everlasting fire, of the sin that shall not be forgiven either in this world or the world to come. Jesus is not some soft cuddly "teddy bear" but is love and gave us this warning of doom and shows us the way to avoid that doom that God has appointed for all who will not believe in Him and in His Son the Savior. 

     Think upon this but not as the liberal Christian pastor or teacher who teach that nothing in Jesus' teaching about the character of God which can evoke us trust. It cannot! Trust in God only comes when we attend to God's way of salvation. That way? Is found in Jesus. We cannot see or speak to Jesus as those disciples did, but we have His words recorded for us in the Bible. Jesus did not minimize His presentation of what is necessary so that sinners could stand before God and be faultless. No, on the contrary, Jesus invited confidence by presenting Himself, His own wonderous Person. Sin, the guilt of sin is so great, that which we cannot remove from ourselves, we cannot pay this debt owed to God, but we have that which can, that which is greater than us, we have Jesus Christ. 

      God is a loving Father, this is also what Jesus taught us, but not loving a sinful world, only to those He brought into His kingdom through His Son, Jesus Christ. The truth that we need to have, to know, to accept, to internalize is the witness of Jesus as recorded in Scripture. No one can remove this by some criticism process. No! Jesus spoken of in the New Testament did not come to just teach us righteousness only, to teach as a new religious life, but is the One who we must come to acknowledge, that is if we read the Bible and allow the Holy Spirit to guide us into the truth found in the Bible and not some man-made religion, rather Jesus regarded Himself as the Savior of whom we can trust. 

      

Also I said, It is not good that ye do;

     ought ye not to walk in the fear

of our God because of the reproach

     our enemies?

                  Nehemiah 5:9

The Grace of God: found in Scripture alone

Richard L. Crumb