photo credit: NKPhillipsProblem/Solution
Most of us have heard the old saying,”for every problem there is a solution”! Many times it helps us discern the solution much better if we completely understand the problem. I have found through the years when discussing the Bible and sharing my faith in Jesus that I encounter many now that have believed the lie that there are many roads or paths to God, and Christ’s sacrifice has simply been added as just, one of the ways to God. I have heard the analogy that every road or path leads to God. I travel quite a bit with my occupation and I can tell you of a truth that I cannot get to California driving on Interstate I-75 north or South! All roads, paths, trains, cars, planes, streams, or rivers DO NOT lead to the same destination! I can assure you that these other religions will lead you to “a” god but not to The God of Heaven, Earth, the Seas and all that are contained in them!
There are several points I want to make to this pagan new-ageism approach. First, you must ask yourself these questions. What is the problem? What is separating me from God? What has come between us and how do I now approach God? The answer to this problem is found in the Bible. Please take a look at Genesis Chapter 3 with me. Adam and Eve have been given a great privilege to have complete dominion over all the Earth and everything living. God was also intimately involved with his kids. It is said that He would come to the garden in the evening. We believe that the Lord of all creation had a personal and intimate relationship with them and they walked through the garden and spent time together. God had spoken early on to Adam and gave him the pleasure of everything in the garden yet He just placed one item there that had a restriction. It was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The Lord asks his child not to partake of this fruit for in the day that he did eat, he would SURELY die. Let’s fast forward a bit and you see Eve being tempted by the enemy and partaking of this forbidden fruit. She did not have to go very far to find Adam and offer this fruit to him because the Bible says that she turned and gave to Adam and he ate.
So, you have what appears to be a contradiction. God said emphatically that, “in the day that you eat thereof you will ‘surely” die. If you study the genealogy of Adam, the Bible clearly shows that he continued to have physical life until he was 930 years of age. So, if God said he would surely die, in that day, and he didn’t, then what is going on here? Well, I have found that if you see what appears to be a contradiction in the Bible, there is usually something more there and I need to study a little bit deeper. There was a death that day. We do know that eventually a physical death caught up with Adam and he did die. However, there was another death that day and it is called, “Spiritual Death.” Spiritual death simply put is a separation from a Holy God. That day Adam died spiritually and was eternally separated from a holy God. He could no longer have face-to-face fellowship anymore because if sin. As a matter-of-fact the Lord created the only way man could approach him and that was through the sacrifice of an innocent life for the guilty. The Bible says in Leviticus that, “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” That day God took an innocent lamb and took its life in the place of Adam’s. Then the Lord brought skins of the animal for them to cover themselves. Adam had attempted to approach God just after this sin by taking fig leaves and covering himself which was the first human act of “self-righteousness and God would have none of it. You see, this is today’s religious approach to God. They attempt to approach God with their own terms and not His design. This is called works based salvation. Cain approached God this way and his sacrifice and attitude was rejected by God but Abel’s sacrifice, the shed blood of an innocent lamb and his attitude of pleasing God, was accepted.
Now for the solution part of our story the Bible goes on to teach us that God gave to Moses a commandment for the children of Israel to annually make a sacrifice of a young lamb to Him to atone or cover their sins and transgressions. So, every year a family had to take a perfect and spotless lamb and sacrifice it for the family’s sins. This was a temporary design from God to point to a more perfect sacrifice. Because a perfect man, Adam, sinned there had to be another perfect man, Jesus, to live a sinless life and die in the place of His fallen and helpless creation. The Bible clearly states in several places that Jesus was the Lamb of God who was slain from the foundation of the World.
God is Holy and He requires complete justice. God stated to Adam that when you eat of the tree there will truly be a death. God knew there would have to be a death and not just any death. There were many men crucified in the first Century. Jesus was not alone in this type of death but He was different in the fact that He chose to die this awful death for us and He was not guilty. No one could condemn Him of sin. No one was able to bring any accusation against Him that could be justified. Finally, the statement that was used to judge Him of sin was a statement of truth from His own lips in answering the religious men that were trying to find a way to kill him saying, “You will see the Son of man descending on the clouds of Glory with power and authority.” Again, Jesus declaring that He was very God of Very God! There is no other religious leader at any time in history that claimed to be God, to prophesy of his own sacrificial death, to rise again from the grave and be seen of more than 500 men ascending to His Father in Heaven in a cloud, and do it! I like what C.S. Lewis said about Jesus’ claims of being very God of very God. Lewis stated that, “Jesus is either a lunatic, liar or Lord, He can only be one of these”!
Now you know the problem is sin which has come between you and the Holy God and the only solution that has been given to man is trusting Jesus alone who died in your place, by taking on your debt of sin, was buried and arose on the third day, because sin could not hold Him there,
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man can come to the Father (who resides in Heaven) except through me.” John 14
I am persuaded that He is the only way! What path are you on?
J.J.Clay
