“What right do mortals have to decide of their own accord in a matter
that is far above the world?”
John
Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion
One thing that all man-made religions have in common is
their insistence that man’s own works are what makes them acceptable in the
sight of God. Islam demands that man do good works if he expects to gain God’s
favor. Unless a man’s good works outweigh the bad, he is not likely to be
saved. And even then, God can decide at the last minute that he does not want
to accept the man and he will be eternally lost. Thus, a Muslim is never sure
whether he has been accepted by God or not. The Eastern religions are no less
work-centered. Since an individual needs to work out his karma from one
existence to the next, what he does becomes the center of whether he will
progress or digress in the various stages of enlightenment. All the same, if
you cannot remember what you did in a previous life, how can you know whether
you’re progressing or not? Not only that, you can never know just how far along
the path you’ve gone since there’s no objective standard that guides your
actions.
As the quote at the beginning of this article attests, man
is always seeking to determine for himself what God will accept. Paul tells his
readers in the first chapter of Romans that man became darkened in his
understanding and went after a myriad of false gods even though God had clearly
manifested himself in creation. Today, the pursuit of eternity continues apace,
and although the methods that man has devised in his pursuit of eternity may
have changed, they all have one thing in common: man is the final arbiter of
what is good and what is not. But an immediate problem raises its head in this
model. If man is the final determiner of what God is to accept, then man
becomes God. If he can dictate to God what God must accept and what he must
approve, then God is at the mercy of man and not the other way around. Thus, humanity
places itself at the center of creation and shouts to God orders he expects God
to follow!
The Bible clearly tells us that God is sovereign and that we
are his creation. The psalmist declared it in words that cannot be improved
upon “Know that the Lord he is God. It is He who has made us and not we
ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture” (Psalms 100:3). But
instead of acknowledging that fact, man has decided that he knows better.
Witness the ascent of secular humanism with its belief that man can attain
great heights of morality and goodness without an objective standard outside
himself. Try as they might, they are unable to ground their beliefs simply
because, without God, there cannot be any such thing as objective morality.
What is good and proper today, will not be so tomorrow. And even today, what is
good in one society will not be in another.
Everyone who is even slightly acquainted with the Bible (and
anyone who has watched more than a couple of minutes of a football game) no
doubt has read John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only
begotten Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal
life.” Imagine how foolish that scripture would be if the rest of the gospel of
John gave the impression that anything will get you to heaven. Paul told the
Galatians in chapter two of his book that “if righteousness comes by the law
(i.e. doing good works), then Christ is dead in vain” (Galatians 2:21). Again,
the point that the apostle is making is that, without Christ, no salvation can
be attained. If we leave it up to today’s crowd, what Paul really should have
said was “pick something that appeals to you and sounds good and run with it.” People
just do not want to contemplate the foolishness of their “whatever works for
you” philosophy. In no other realm of life is that attitude usually entertained,
but when it comes to spiritual matters, that’s exactly how many feel.
Let’s do a thought experiment. Since anything goes, how
about Islam? The primary tenet of Islam is Tawhid, the oneness of God. It
further explains that God is one and that he is supreme and sovereign. No one
can come into his presence and He alone determines whom He will accept. Thus,
Islam is an exclusive religion that demands the worship and service of Allah
for his own sake. Okay, so Islam is too restrictive. How about Buddhism?
Buddhism does not accept the existence of a personal, living God. Rather, it
speaks of the divine spark that resides within each of us and in the end seeks
to be absorb into the great spark in the sky, so to speak! Well, Islam and
Buddhism are contradictory and are not compatible. How about Judaism? With
Judaism, you’re still awaiting your Messiah. Not only that, but the Jews
consider themselves the exclusive people of God. If you want to be accepted by
Yahweh, you will have to be circumcised, if you’re a male, and become a
proselyte. Nothing else will do.
In our pluralistic society we’re so used to seeing Muslims,
Buddhists and Jews, among many others, who are only nominally such that we have
come to believe that that is what those religions are all about. Since the
majority of what passes for Muslims, Buddhists or Jews in America are of the
“anything goes” variety (and I hasten to add, many so-called Christian also
fall into this category), we believe that it must be okay to have that mindset.
Unfortunately for those who so think, the truth of the matter is that those
religions are just as exclusive as Christianity when followed to their logical
end.
The prophet Isaiah spoke of those who build idols to
themselves to worship. In chapter 44 he spoke of idols built out of wood and
stone which can neither see nor hear. The great Greek Writer Homer wrote of the
foolishness of those who make a chair out of wood in the morning, and then in
the afternoon build a god out of whatever material is left. When we seek to
build a “religion” in our own image, we are no less idolatrous than those
Isaiah and Homer spoke about. We may not build the image, but in our souls we
have decided that the gods we build to our own liking are superior to the only
true and living God. On the day of judgment, it is not those “tolerant” gods
you will have to face. It will be the great and terrible God you have been
avoiding!
