“The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.” Luke 24:7
In this one verse is contained the very backbone of true faith. The power of true faith is found in the simple reality that the Son of Man, betrayed by sinful man, has conquered death. What irony—the one betrayed by sinful man has purchased redemption for sinful man. Of course, it isn’t this verse ripped from its context that is the backbone of our faith, but this verse considered in the context of a grand epic. And yet, though epic, it isn’t a distant story, but one that is meaningful for me on the most intimate and personal level. For, apart from Christ, I am a sinful man guilty of betraying God. I betrayed my maker by preferring my will to His will, my rationalizations to His righteousness, my temporary pleasures to His eternal joy. As a result, I am a dead man walking—not only because death is my destiny, as a sinner, but because death is my reality as one separated from God. But even as Adam’s sin is my sin and his death is my death, so now Christ’s righteousness is my righteousness and Christ’s resurrection is my resurrection. For not only does His victory over death mean that this body, my body, will one day be raised to life, but at this very moment this soul, my soul, which was dead in sin, is alive in Jesus. I have been reconciled to my Maker by the blood of the Lamb. This is the crux of our faith. Crux derives from the same word as cross. Truly, the cross is the crux. What Jesus accomplished there as the sinless God of all creation, by paying the penalty for sin through His body on the tree, is what it is all about. Certainly, faith in Christ is more than this, but it can never be boiled down to less than this. And this is the basis for our unity in Christ. We are not unified by denominational structures or Bible versions or worship styles or shared beliefs about the end times. We are unified by faith in Jesus Christ. One of my favorite instructors from Multnomah University, Rex Koivisto, in his book, One Lord, One Faith, boiled it down to this: God sent His Son into the world to die as an atonement for sin, and God raised Him from the dead, so that anyone who places faith in Him receives the free gift of salvation In other words, the doctrinal basis for our unity as Christians is our shared belief that Jesus saves! There is a tendency to either require more than this for unity, which leads to unbiblical separatism, or to require less than this for unity, which leads to unbiblical yoking together (2 Cor 6:14–15) . But the biblical testimony places the basis for unity on the message of the cross. However, the basis for the expression of Christian unity is not only in a shared adherence to Gospel doctrine, but in a shared obedience to the clear moral teachings of Scripture. It was a careful study of church unity and purity in the New Testament, twenty years ago*, which led me to these two bases for expressing unity: belief in the Gospel and obedience to the Bible’s clear moral teachings. Ironically, I recently came across a post, written by a well-known Christian singer, which said, “I don’t think scripture ‘clearly’ states much of anything regarding morality.” Really? The Bible says nothing clear regarding morality? What about the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7)? Or Paul’s discussion of life by the Spirit (Gal. 5:13-26)? Surely there are clear statements regarding morality there. Yet this is the perspective all too pervasive among those who place themselves over God’s Word, embracing a man-made revision of truth, rather than standing under God’s Word, letting the Bible speak for itself. And it is the same spirit which dominates an age in which God’s Word is, at best, read as a “living document” subject to human wisdom or, at worst, relegated to the dung heap of world religions. But for those of us who are actively seeking to follow Jesus, albeit imperfectly, who embrace the simple message of the Gospel and who seek to obey the clear moral teachings of God’s Word, we share in a unity that is far greater than the superficial unity of the ecumenical movement or the unbiblically narrow unity of the separatists. For our unity is centered on the life-changing message of the cross of Christ. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for rescuing us from a life of death. Thank you for coming near to us, living within us, and by your Spirit, giving life to us so that we may obey your teachings. Thank you for conquering the grave as a means of purchasing our redemption and securing our eternal hope. Amen! Pastor Dan *See theological paper @ www.rentonbiblechurch.org/Articles-and-Papers
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Dan GannonDan has ministered at Renton Bible Church, with his wife Debbie, since 2003. Archives
June 2022
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