Worshiping from Home | Sunday, May 10, 2020
May 9th, 2020The most fatal fallacy of every cult is an unbiblical view of soteriology (the doctrine of salvation). While they often diverge from biblical Christianity on many important doctrines, and even share similarities with Christianity on some aspects of belief, none of them, as a cult, will understand salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone as God’s only provision for the forgiveness of sin.
And this is most always the case because the cults do not have a biblical view of man, i.e., a view of mankind as futile in mind, darkened in understanding, alienated from God, hardhearted, spiritually callous, greedy, and impure (see this list in Eph. 4:17-19).
In fact, because mankind suppresses the truth in unrighteousness and exchanges the truth of God for a lie, people view God the way they should view themselves. God is the one they see as hard-hearted, darkened, futile, callous, hard to please and difficult to get along with.
As R.C. will point out in this lecture, God’s wrath towards mankind seems unfair and unwarranted and, like the idols of pagan cultures, this unfair god needs to be placated and pampered to calm him down and to win him over. But this is not Jesus’ Heavenly Father.
R.C. asks, “saved from what?” And the answer comes from and concerns the doctrine of man, and how the God of Creation has taken the initiative to deal with sinful, rebellious and depraved mankind in His mercy and grace to save many people from the deserved wrath of a holy God.
God’s expressions of His wrath against sin and all forms of ungodliness are just as much expressions of His goodness as are His expressions of love, grace, and mercy. His holiness and righteousness demand that He act in justice without partiality. It is amazing that this holy, just, and forever-and-always-righteous God should and does spare anyone from His deserved wrath.
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus . . . .” (Eph. 2:4-6).
We are blessed to have God as our Father, not because we were able to offer Him something that assuaged His anger towards us or that finally convinced Him we weren’t so bad after all, but because God the Father gave up His only Son to purchase us as His sons and daughters.
“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly . . . but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God” (Rom. 5:6, 8).
God the Father saves us from Himself by offering Himself as God the Son in death on our behalf, and by taking our sins onto Himself, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21). Amazing grace!
Teaching link: When Worlds Collide: The Wrath of God (Lecture 4)
Suggested live-streamed worship service links:
Faith Bible Church (10:30am ET, John Crotts, pastor)
Grace Community Church (1:30pm ET, John MacArthur, pastor)
Grace Immanuel Bible Church (10:45am ET | Jerry Wragg, pastor)
Parkside Church (9:45am ET, Alistair Begg, pastor)