Bringing Clarity to the Term Christian – Part 6

Bringing Clarity to the Term Christian – Part 6

Christians were former sinners – Continued

Hello everyone !! Welcome again to my blog, Powerful God-Practical Faith.

First of all, I would like to say Happy New Year to everyone! I trust that each of you had a pleasant Christmas and I hope that you all have a successful and safe new year. Despite all of the “drama” unfolding in 2016, knowing that God has his plans and purposes still in place give me a comforting level of optimism. I trust that optimism will be yours as well.

Well, this blog will be Part 6 of a continuing series we have started called: “Bringing Clarity to the Term Christian.

As those of you know, who have been following along, we have been “parked” so to speak, on Statement 2 of our 14 Statements we are using to describe what a Christian is. This is the 4th blog for Statement 2 and we hope to complete it here or next time.

As always we remind you of Statement 2:

A Christian is a former slave to sin and an enemy of God.

In our last post, we talked about how through one man, Adam, all of humanity became sinners. We discussed the perhaps unpopular, but biblical truth that although you and I were not present at the beginning, and were not directly active in the original sin of Adam, God considered the whole of humanity as sinners “in” Adam, thus subjecting the whole of humanity, which includes you and I, to a sin nature subject to the consequences of sin, which ultimately leads to death. For those of you who may be new to the blog and want to better understand what I have summarized here, I would encourage you to read my earlier posts on this subject that I hope will help clarify these statements. In this blog however, we want to, finally, focus on the relationship between God and the sinner. So let’s begin.

What is God’s view of sinning people? We all either fit or have fit this category at some time in our lives. There is not a single individual in the world aside from Jesus Christ himself who has not been a sinner. However, it is somewhat amazing, given what we have now learned about sin, how we so often function in life as if God is just a passive observer of our known unrighteous behavior, and either ignores it or “lovingly” tolerates it.  We rarely view God, and may I add, even want to view God, as one with an aggressive attitude toward us with respect to our sin. But when reading the Bible, the Holy Scriptures clearly and without reservation, identifies the the relationship between God and the person who sins.

The sinner is an “enemy” of God.

Now for some of us, I know this can be a very harsh and disturbing statement. We so often in our modern “religious” culture have God portrayed in terms that we favor. We use terms for God like, loving, kind, forgiving, understanding, accepting, and inclusive. Although these attributes are true of God, they are only true within the context of “all” that God is, which also includes His justice, judgment and wrath. So often, to our detriment, we exclude these “other” attributes of God that seem less emotionally appealing, and give ourselves the false impression that God will always be “OK”  with who we are and what we do, despite the fact that what we often do is completely contrary to what He has prescribed for us as His creation.  But God has told us in many ways throughout the Scriptures that He is certainly “Not OK” with our sin. In fact, it angers Him.

I would like to turn your attention to the Scriptures so that you can see what God has to say about man and his sin. Listen to these very strong words God inspired the writers of scripture to use that give us a very clear understanding of his attitude toward sinners…. sinners meaning you and I.

God is a righteous judge,
And a God who has indignation every day.

If a man does not repent, He will sharpen His sword;
He has bent His bow and made it ready.

He has also prepared for Himself deadly weapons;
He makes His arrows fiery shafts.

 Psalm 7:11-13 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,

Romans 1:18 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,

Romans 2:5 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

For many of us who want to only perceive God as “understanding”, “loving”, “forgiving”, compassionate, and especially, “accepting”, this strong, indictment-like language, in regard to the unrighteousness  of men may be surprising.  However, it is imperative to know this side of our Creator, especially if we desire to ever have an honest and real relationship with Him.

In the first Scripture passage (Psalm 7:11-13) we learn that God is a “Righteous Judge”.  God is the “Judge of all the Earth”, as Abraham calls him in Genesis 18.  This means that he declares the guilt or innocence of each and every one of us and his judgment on us is always right.

Then the passage says these somewhat dreadful words:

…. a God who has indignation every day….

also translated….

….God is angry with the wicked every day….. (NKJV)

I  would like to emphasize the obvious in this statement…. the words… “angry” and “every day”.  Have we ever considered the fact that God has been furious with the unrighteousness of men, and is rightly furious with them … every day? This certainly does not sound like the loving, forgiving, and accepting God our modern culture has contrived and grown accustomed to does it? For all who ,essentially, shake their fist at God, and engage in activity after activity that dishonors, disrespects, and contradicts His righteous command and His righteous nature,  God is saying that His anger is “constant” against them.  For those who refuse to turn away from their unrighteous behavior, the writer of the psalm describes God as a warrior preparing for battle against an enemy. God is said to be “sharpening” is sword, “bending” his bow at the ready, and “making” deadly weapons to use against those who, by their unrighteous deeds, stand against Him. This is the language of the pending judgment of God against the sinner. Yes…God is certainly angry with the wicked.

In the next passage, Romans 1:18, God, through the hand of the Apostle Paul wrote that  His wrath, or “anger” is revealed or “made known” against ungodly and unrighteous men who actually know the truth but because of their desire for unrighteousness, hide, or suppress the truth from themselves, willingly refusing to acknowledge and submit to it. This is a perfect description of outright rebellion against God. There is no greater way to describe defiance against God than to know what God commands, and then, in His presence, willfully ignore the command, oppose Him who gave the command, and then, to His face so to speak, replace the righteous commands of God with the practice of ungodly deeds.  It is not surprising that individuals who do this incur the anger of God.

Paul goes on to explain in the third passage, Romans 2:5 that those who are stubbornly unrepentant are literally compounding God’s anger and their impending punishment on themselves with every unrighteous deed. They are essentially adding layers upon layers of God’s anger against them until finally God says,” It is enough”,  and releases his punishment. This is the destiny of an enemy of God.

Although I believe these few passages we’ve discussed here adequately demonstrate the fact that the sinner is God’s enemy, there are many other statements throughout the Scriptures that echo this truth.  I sincerely hope this gives you as a reader pause, as it does me, and encourage a serious moment of reflection on the dreadful nature of a righteous Creator.

One of the tragic realities in our modern culture, is the fact the we have lost the FEAR of God. There has been a great loss of respect for the power, presence and judgment of God, and because of this, sin is handled so often in our society as casual, secondary and unimportant. This attitude toward sin is eternally dangerous. So dangerous in fact that it makes our Creator our enemy.  All of us, at some point in our lives, because of our own sin, have been an enemy of God. Some of us, regretfully, still are. But as we shall see later on in this series, through God’s grace, enemies can become friends and reconciliation has been made possible through Christ Jesus. My prayer is that all those who are taking the time to follow this blog series will find themselves reconciled to God.

Well, of course, there is more to come. In our next blog, we will finally be getting to Statement 3.

Thank you for reading.

God Bless.