oteriology is a very big word, but a very simple
word really. It is made up of two Greek words – Soterios and Logos.
You have probably heard of logos. Soterios is the Greek word for salvation.
Logos is usually translated as ‘word’, but it can also mean ‘study’,
so by putting Soterios and Logos together we get Soteriology, which means ‘the
study of salvation’. So Soteriology is going to be the study of
salvation. What is salvation?
You say, "Well what is the big deal with the study of
salvation? I always thought that salvation was pretty simple wasn’t it? How
much would you teach on it?"
Well, quite a few studies. You are going to be surprised
how much we are going to cover in this series. In fact Soteriology is at the
heart of everything that we stand for and believe in. It is at the heart of
our whole spiritual lives and it is what we are here for. It is what serving
the Lord is all about. So that is why Soteriology is such an important
subject.
What is Salvation?
Before I get onto it let’s just stop and get your minds
turning a little bit. Saved – what does that mean to you? If I come to you
and say, "Are you saved?" what are you going to say? Well, I hope
all of you are going to say, "Yes," otherwise there is a problem.
All right, "Are you saved? What does that mean?"
If I were to ask you, "What do you mean when you say
you are saved?" we are going to hear things like, "Well I believe if
I died tonight I will go to heaven." In fact that is probably about what
more than 90% of Christians will say.
"Saved – saved from hell. Saved is to go and live
eternally with the Lord in His presence in heaven one day," and that is
what most Christians believe. So to them salvation means getting born again,
getting saved, turning from the path of sin that has taken them to hell, and
now turning to salvation. If that is all your salvation consists of, then I
feel sorry for you because salvation involves a whole lot more than going to
heaven one day. That is why we need to study the subject of Soteriology and
salvation.
But before we can learn what it is that we are saved from,
and what it is that we are saved to, we need to go back to the beginning
again. We need to go right back to the beginning of the Bible and see exactly
what it is that God intended for us in the first place, and what it is that He
intends for us in the end. And what I would like to specially cover here is
the condition that we are now in – every human being is in before they come
to Christ and enter into what we call the experience of salvation.
Creation
So let’s go right back now to Book 1, Chapter 1, Page 1
– right at the beginning of your Bible. I am not going to cover it here
because it will take too long and I have a couple of other Scriptures which I
am going to deal with later, so we are just going to review what we know about
Genesis Chapter 1.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of
the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the waters. And God said,
"Let there be light."
So God began to go through the stages of creation, and we
know the story of the six days of creation and how God made Adam, man, on the
sixth day of creation. Then on the seventh day God rested.
Man in the Garden of Eden
We read that God took this man, He planted a Garden in
Eden, and He placed the man in that Garden. We read how God took the man and
caused him to go to sleep, and removed part of his body. Most translations say
a rib, but the original actually means his side. God took out a half of him
and formed it into a woman, and He brought Eve to Adam and God presented him
with his wife.
And God commanded Adam and Eve and said, "You can eat
of all the trees in the Garden. Whatever you like, there it is. Help yourself.
Enjoy. Just don’t touch that tree there, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good
and Evil, because in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die."
So Adam and Eve started their life in this beautiful
paradise, this wonderful place where everything that you could possibly want
was there. You were living with the best looking person in the world. He was
the most handsome guy that ever lived. She was the most ravishingly beautiful
woman that you had ever seen. And you know what? There was no competition.
There was no-one else that he could be attracted to, nobody else that she
could be attracted to. They were living in this garden paradise with the most
wonderful, luscious fruits that you could possibly have, everything that was
wonderful to eat.
And God did not say, "Thou shalt eat only 2000
calories per day otherwise thou shalt put on weight."
There were no diets. Wow, it was wonderful. None of this
heavy stuff that we suffer with when we eat too much, no diets, no
restriction. No, "Thou shalt push weights three times a day. Thou shalt
do aerobics to make sure that thou keepest fit." There were no gyms
necessary in the Garden of Eden. It was a wonderful paradise and everything
you could ever want was there.
Perfect Peace and Unity
Then Adam and Eve were created with innocence. There was no
guilt, no fear, and no negatives. There was no taking up a person the wrong
way. There was no conflict, no strife, but perfect innocence where they could
walk naked without feeling ashamed. There was perfect openness and honesty
with one another.
I just want to show you this, which is something extra. You
know the thing that brought Adam and Eve together so close was the fact that
they both had a good relationship with God. Consider this little illustration.
If you take a triangle and put God at the top, and Adam and Eve on either side
at the bottom, if you take Adam and move him closer to God, and you take Eve
and move her closer to God, you know what happens? They get closer to each
other. There were no barriers between them and the Lord. No guilt, no sin, and
as a result, there were no barriers between each other. They could come close
to the Lord without any restriction or hindrance, and automatically they would
come closer to each other as well.
You know what? There were no marriage squabbles in the
Garden of Eden. There was no, "Well, Eve, it’s time you learned to
submit to me."
There was no Eve getting on Adam’s case and saying,
"Why did you leave your socks lying on the ground again?"
No, there was just perfect harmony, sinless perfection, not
even the thought of sin entering their minds, and yet total freedom, and total
liberty.
Adam Given Authority
There was authority. The Scripture says that God gave man
authority over the fowls of the air, the fish of the sea, over the whole of
creation. God said to Adam, "You are in charge."
Adam took a look at all of these animals and he did not
say, "God, what am I going to call them? What do I call that big funny
looking thing with the big trunk and the massive feet?"
God said, "That’s up to you."
And Adam said, "I think it looks like an
elephant."
God said, "Great idea."
Adam named them all. He was in charge. Adam did not have to
go to God and say, "What do I do? How do I run this place?"
God said, "I’ve put you in charge. Use the authority
and power that I’ve given you."
The Bible says that Adam was given responsibility to care
for the garden. Now, I do not read anywhere that God supplied him with hedge
clippers, lawnmower, shears, spade and fork. Could you see Adam going through
the Garden of Eden there, trimming the trees? But surely there must have been
a need for something like that? Surely there must have been a need for some
kind of control in the garden? How did Adam do it? He had authority.
What happens when you have authority? What do you do when
you have authority? Come on, who has authority over somebody else? How do you
show your authority over your children?
"John, come here now!" and he comes. "Leave,
sit, jump, run! Go get me this, go get me that!"
Authority means you command. Now if Adam had authority over
the creatures in the earth, and over the vegetation, and over everything in
the earth, Adam had the authority to command. So if this tree was growing just
a little bit close to the other one I think Adam had the right to say,
"Hey, move over NOW!"
I can see the tree saying, "Yes boss!" and
moving.
Same Authority as Jesus
You do not believe me? Just read the New Testament and see
what the last Adam did. He came to a fig tree and He said, "You will not
bear fruit again." That was the end of the fig tree. Did He not? He spoke
to the wind and the waves and He said, "Peace, be still!" Instant
calm.
You say, "Well, that was Jesus. He was the Son of
God."
No, He was the Son of Man. He came to show us what Adam
was. Yes, He also came to show us what God was, but the Scripture says He put
aside His divinity and put on Himself the form of a servant, and humbled
Himself and became a man. Jesus came to show us what man was meant to be in
the first place. Jesus came to show us what Adam was.
The Tree of Life
So God gave to Adam and Eve access to the Tree of Life. If
you want to read more about the Tree of Life go to the book of Revelation
right near the end and have a good read about the New Jerusalem. And you know
what? You are going to read about the Garden of Eden? You are going to read
about the same rivers that flowed in Eden, and you are going to read about the
same Tree of Life that bore its fruits and its leaves were for the healing of
the nations.
The Tree of Life was for health. There was no sickness or
disease in the Garden of Eden, none whatsoever. And as they continued to eat
of the Tree of Life they would have lived eternally and forever. We will look
at that more later. They had access to all things freely. There was nothing to
pay, no price and Adam’s work in the Garden of Eden did not determine
whether the fruit was going to come. Adam did not have to dig around the tree
and put in some manure and make sure that it was well fertilized before the
peaches come out.
He did not have to do that. Yes, he had to care for the
garden. Yes, God gave him a job to do, and Adam did not sit and have holiday
all day. He had a job to do, but he did not have to work hard at it. All he
had to do was to keep control. He had to just exercise his authority. The
trees grew naturally. They bore their fruit naturally. Everything came freely.
I would like to call that prosperity, wouldn’t you? Everything just falling
into place perfectly, everything obeying you, everything flowing with you, and
everything that you touch with your hands prospering and being successful.
Abundance of Everything
They were secure in the Garden of Eden. There was no loss.
You did not have to be afraid that if you left your peach lying there somebody
was going to come and steal it. They did not have to be afraid of anybody
harming them. The animals did not attack in those days. There was no strife,
no strife either amongst Adam and Eve or amongst the animals. The animals did
not tear each other and fight with each other. You know why? There was an
abundance of everything.
We had an experience recently where our dogs started
getting into each other because they had not been fed, and when we gave them
food suddenly they thought this was the last meal they were going to have and
each one tried to grab before the other and there was a terrific fight that
ensued. It was not like that in the Garden of Eden. There was no lack. There
was an abundance of everything.
Fellowship and Communion
And most important of all, there was fellowship and
communion with God. Every day in the cool of the day, the Scripture says, God
would come down and He would walk in the Garden and He would talk with Adam
and Eve. He would fellowship with them and He would share with them. He would
not come down to command or to dominate them. Do you know why? Because Adam
had been put in charge.
All God did was to come down and have fellowship and say,
"Adam, so how is it going?"
And Adam would say, "Well, it’s okay. I found a
couple of species today that I hadn’t named before. And you know what, I
called that funny buzzing thing? I decided to call it a bee."
God probably said, "Great idea, Adam. I like it.
Anything else I can help you with?"
"Yes, well we’ve been having a problem here, and we
don’t know what to do there…"
Whatever the problem was Adam could share with God. God
could give him advice. He could tell him how to run the world, and He would be
off again. There was perfect fellowship and communion with the Father, God not
interfering, just being in control of the universe. But what took place on the
earth was in Adam and Eve’s hands, specifically Adam who was the head.
Satan Was Jealous
But it did not stay that way did it? No, there was another
character on the earth and he did not have the authority and the power that
Adam had, and oh how he wanted it. And his name was Satan, Lucifer, the Devil.
We will look at him another time and learn all about him and his kingdom. But
God had given to Adam the power and the authority in the earth. Why? Because
God had made Adam, man, in His own image and had placed a piece of Himself in
man in his spirit. And we are going to learn that in detail when we get to
Anthropology.
God placed in Adam the ability to be a god in the earth.
Adam was the god of this world. Did you know that? He was the god of this
world. He was in control of this earth. That is the way God made him, and oh
how Satan wanted that power. Man, he wanted that power. And God gave to Adam
and Eve two trees. We looked at the first already - the Tree of Life, and the
Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
There were two trees, in addition to the rest of the trees
in the Garden. And God said, "You can eat of the fruit of the Tree of
Life freely, but of this tree you shall not touch." Why? Because those
two trees were a lot more than just ordinary fruit trees. Those two trees were
gateways. They were gateways into dimensions, into realms, that could have
determined what kind of future man was going to have.
When Adam and Eve had access to the Tree of Life they
gained access to God’s realm. The Scripture calls it the heavenly realm.
They gained access to where God was, and to His power and His blessing, and to
everything that is offered in the heavenly realm. But the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil, if they were to touch that, they would open
another door. They would open a door to a realm that was not of God at all,
but they would open the door to the one who stood against everything that was
of God – the Prince of Darkness himself.
God said, "Don’t you dare touch that tree. Don’t
you dare eat of that fruit, because if you do, death is going to be the
result."
Now I like to think of each of these two trees as doors. It
is very easy to imagine that with the science fiction stories we have these
days where people pass into this warp and they go into another dimension. God
lives in another dimension, so does Satan. It is the dimension of the spirit.
Satan knew that the only way that he was going to get the
power and the authority that was vested in Adam was to somehow draw him into
the place where Adam was under his control. You see, only man has authority in
the earth. Only a spirit living in a physical body that came from this world,
which was made from the elements of the earth – only a spirit living in that
body has the authority and the power to determine what goes on in this world.
And God Himself, being Spirit, though He had spoken forth
the worlds by His spirit, He Himself withdrew and said, "Adam, I will
work through you, because in your spirit, I put of Myself, and I will work
through your spirit in you. But you as a human being living in a physical
body, have the authority and the dominion in the earth."
That is why when God came to visit He did not impose. He
moved through Adam, through his spirit. He gave him instructions by his words
and told him how to live, and Adam then implemented the words that God had
given him.
The Fall
In order for Satan to have control in the world, he had to
tap into the power that was in Adam, and to do that he had to get Adam to
submit to his authority. And that is what the temptation was all about. That
is how he tempted Eve and he drew her aside as a bait, to get Adam to finally
submit to him by partaking of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I am
not going to cover that in detail here because that again is part of
Anthropology, and the creation and fall of man, but I am just trying to show
you exactly why salvation is necessary.
As Adam submitted in sin and partook of the forbidden
fruit, he opened the door to Satan’s realm and gave him access into this
world. He opened the door wide like a Pandora’s box and all the demons of
hell were released into the earth. And Adam submitted himself to his new lord
and master, Satan, and Satan became what Adam was – the god of this world.
Now Satan pulled the strings, now he called the shots, and Adam had to do what
he said, because Adam was now under his control.
Fear, Guilt and Disharmony
The first thing that took place was guilt and fear. As soon
as it was all over the first thing that happened is that Adam and Eve suddenly
realized they were naked. They had never noticed that before strangely enough,
but now they did. And they started covering each other up with fig leaves,
covering from each other. What happened? All of a sudden clouds of guilt came
between them and the Lord.
And do you know what the result was? It was barriers
between them. On that day began the first marital problems. How do I know?
Watch what happened when God came to Eve and said, "Eve, why did you eat
of the fruit?"
"Well…, the serpent tricked me into doing it you
know."
"Adam, why did you eat of the fruit?"
"Well, it was my wife’s fault."
I think a marital squabble started right there don’t you?
There was guilt and fear. They heard the voice of the Lord coming down in the
cool of the day to speak to them and they ran and hid away from Him in fear.
Fear of what? Did God ever say, "I’m going to hurt them."? Did God
ever speak judgement on them? No, all He ever spoke was love and blessing upon
them. But God had said, "In the day that you eat of it you shall surely
die." And I guess when they ate the fruit and they did not fall dead they
figured, well God must have been kidding or something. Or maybe the devil was
right. Maybe God was lying to us. Then when they heard His voice they thought,
"Okay, maybe He’s going to come and kill us."
Effects of Sin
Sin became their master. It began to control them. And you
see it begin to manifest immediately as they began to have children and
started to multiply on the earth. And later on God looked upon man and says He
sees that, ‘the ways of his thoughts are wicked continuously.’ Sin
began to bear forth fruit, sin that entered their bodies at the time that they
partook of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
There was no more sinless perfection. They were barred from
the Tree of Life. No more divine health became their portion, and no more
access to the realm of God. They lost it. And then they were kicked out of the
Garden of Eden. There was no more getting up in the morning and thinking,
"I’ll just go and have a nice plum." No. The bible says that Adam
now had to work in the sweat of his face. You know why? Suddenly weeds started
to grow. They had not been there before.
Have you ever tried to plant a garden? Oh man. You plant
all your seeds and you water it and sure enough, within days you see the
sprouts coming up everywhere. And you get all excited and say, "Whoa,
just look at my wonderful garden!" And you look a little closer and you
see that those seeds are not the ones that you planted. Well where did they
come from? I never planted those things? You did not need to. You do not have
to plant weeds for them to come up automatically. And then when the real seed
finally begins to come up, and the fruit begins to come forth and you see
those wonderful peaches begin to ripen, wow you cannot wait. And you reach and
you grab one and bite it, and what do you get? Worms, because some insect came
and stung it and laid an egg in it.
The Curse of Adam
The curse – the curse of Adam. The whole earth became
cursed as a result of their sin. There was no more security. Instead there was
fear, pain, sorrow and strife. That did not take long with Cain and Abel. Cain
came to bring his offering to God and Abel came to bring his offering and God
showed more regard for Abel’s offering than Cain. And Cain got jealous, and
he got angry and he killed his brother. Strife, hatred, jealousy – all the
negative things that were never there before, suddenly began to show
themselves. There was no more communion with God in the Garden in the cool of
the day, no more close loving fellowship. Instead there was just this
judgement. All of these things were taken away from them.
There are two completely different pictures. And the curse
of Adam is still in the earth today. Oh we know all about the curse of Adam
today don’t we? We know all about sickness and disease. We know all about
poverty and financial lack and things going wrong. We know all about hatred
and strife and theft and destruction and pain and sorrow, and all of the
things that go with it. And we know about trying to reach the Lord and He just
does not seem to be there. He has gone. When you pray it feels like your
prayers are just hitting against the ceiling. He has gone. He is not there.
Plan For Reversal
All of those are the results of the fall. And when God
looked down on man He made a plan. He formulated in His mind a plan by which
He was going to reverse all of the effects of the curse. As I said earlier, if
you read the book of Revelation you will see a picture of the New Jerusalem.
So what has that got to do with us? Aren’t we going to heaven? Heaven? Where
is heaven? Well heaven, that is up in the clouds somewhere isn’t it. That is
where God lives out there on another planet. Does it? Are you sure? Well Jesus
went up there didn’t He?
Read the book of Revelation and you will find out where
heaven is going to be. Because the Bible tells me that the New Jerusalem came
down to the earth and there was a new earth. God is going to restore and
improve on what Adam and Eve had. He is going to bring it all back again and
the curse is going to be removed.
So, what is it that we are saved from? We are saved from
all of the negative effects of the fall, of the sin of Adam and Eve and of the
curse of Adam that came into the earth. We are saved from all of them. That
means that we are saved from the power of sin in our lives. We are saved from
sickness and disease. We are saved from poverty and lack, strife and
destruction and pain and sorrow. We are saved from broken fellowship with God.
All of these things are to be restored, and in Christ all of those things have
been restored, as we will see as we continue with the study.
But because of the sin of Adam, that effect was passed down
onto his children, and to his children’s children, and to his children’s children’s children’s children… right down to you and I. Each one of us, when we are born, are born in a
condition, not like Adam was in the beginning, but like Adam was after he had
sinned – under the control of Satan, under his power, under the curse. And I
am going to show you a few Scriptures now, and I am going to show you the
condition that man is outside of Christ; the condition that every single
person is born into and grows up in until they come to that place where they
appropriate and experience the salvation that Jesus has purchased for them.
Man Outside of Christ
I want you to look at a couple of passages of Scripture
with me now. I want to firstly go to the book of Romans 1:14. Paul says:
"I’m a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians,
both to wise and unwise, so as much as in me I am ready to preach the
gospel to you who are at Rome also."
Paul is writing to Christians here. He is writing to the
church at Rome which has already been established and has been going for a
while, and he says, "I want to come and preach the gospel to
you." Weren’t these people saved yet? Why did Paul want to preach
the gospel to them? Maybe what we thought was the gospel is a little bit more
than what we thought it was. We are going to be speaking about that plenty
more.
Paul says, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of
Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for
the Jew first and for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is
revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, ‘The just shall live by
faith.’ "
These are lovely passages. We will be studying them all in
a little more detail in time to come.
"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth
in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them,
for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, His
invisible attributes are clearly seen, and understood by the things that
are made, even His eternal power and godhead, so that they are without
excuse."
Okay, I am going to just give that to you in a nutshell.
Paul is saying here, "Listen, there is no such thing as an atheist
because everybody, because they’ve got a spirit in them is already aware of
the fact that there is a God. And as they look at the creation round about
them they have proof that there is a God, so there is no excuse."
He says:
"But although they knew God, they did not glorify
Him as God, neither were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts,
and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became
fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made
like corruptible man - and birds and four-footed beasts and creeping
things."
Downward Spiral
What happened? Man had the ability to know and serve the
Creator, but he went down, down, down, until he ended up serving the creation.
Man bows down before his idol in worship and praise to it. The early Egyptians
worshiped the River Nile, they worshiped the frogs and the beetles (not the
singing group), the dung beetles. In fact every one of the plagues that Moses
was told to bring upon them actually hit one of their gods. They worshiped all
of those things.
Man has begun to worship created things instead of God.
That is the depravity that humanity and human nature has sunk to.
You say, "Well, we don’t do that in our modern
times, us well-educated, sophisticated people in the more well-to-do
countries."
No? What about your car? "Nobody else is going to
drive my car. It’s very special that, just for me."
Idols? What do we depend on, what do we count on? So many
things. There are so many things that control our lives that manipulate us and
have become gods in our lives. Man is serving the creation instead of the
creator.
Spiritual Death
I want to go to another passage now and I want to describe
to you a little bit more the condition that man is outside of Christ, and that
is in Ephesians 2:1. It says:
"And you He made alive, who were dead in
trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of
this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit
who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once
conducted ourselves in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of
the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath just as
others."
The first thing Paul says here is you were dead. God said
to Adam, "In the day that you eat of that fruit, you shall surely
die." Well Adam lived about 900 years odd. So was God wrong? No, the
day that Adam partook of that fruit what happened was what we saw there in
Romans Chapter 1. Man’s mind became lifted up against the knowledge of God
and his foolish heart was darkened. Adam died spiritually that day. His spirit
became ineffective and he lost the power and authority that he had. He was
spiritually dead. Every person who is outside of Christ, has a spirit, but
their spirit is dead towards God.
Paul says, "In which you once walked according to
the course of this world." The Greek term ‘according to’
there is a very interesting word. It speaks about a downward motion, or
control, or domination. It means effectively ‘under the domination or
control of’. According to the course of this world – under the control
and dominated by the course, by the way this world does things.
Living in a Rut
So as we grow up it does not take long before we start
living just like everybody else in the world. We are following the course of
this world, and the course is like a rut. You have no choice. You just go in
it all the time, everybody doing what everybody else does. You sin, according
to the prince of the power of the air, and under the control of the prince of
the power of the air – the air, the ether, the heavenlies – where Satan
and his host rule. That is another subject we will look at later, but there
are certain evil powers that are on the earth, and there are other powers that
are in the air, who control. And Satan is called the prince of the power of
the air. Every single person who is outside of Christ is under the control of
the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of
disobedience.
Natural Body Desires
Finally it says, "Among whom we all once conducted
ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and
the mind," under the control of the natural bodily desires.
Food and Nourishment
What are the natural bodily desires? Firstly food, eating,
nourishment. And when that desire begins to dominate and control our whole
lives we live for things. We live for money, we live for pleasure. We live for
all the things that are involved with things and the joy of owning things and
controlling, possessions, and getting.
Reproduction
The other natural function of the body is reproduction, and
when that begins to control our lives we begin to live lives of lust and
sexual desire, leading from normal sexual desire to illicit sex and all sorts
of other aberrations which have become prevalent today. If you go back to
Romans to that other passage that we read, it goes into how women left their
natural function and men left the natural desire of the woman, and burned in
lust towards one another. And it describes the gay movement and the
homosexuality that is so prevalent today.
Self-Preservation
The last function of the body is the self-preservation or
self-defense mechanism, which instead of protecting ourselves from harm
becomes aggression and attack, and hatred, strife, murder and killing. If you
want to see those three, just switch on your TV. Fortune and fame, sex,
murder. Show me a TV program that does not have at least one of those. I have
not seen one yet. They are all there. That is what the world thrives on –
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind.
That is the condition of a person outside of Christ, and
the Bible calls that living in the flesh, living under the domination and
control of the world, under the control of Satan and of his hordes, and living
by the control of the flesh.
No Hope Outside of Christ
The last passage that I want you to look at, and this one
is the one that I really want to emphasize here and end on, is Romans 3:9:
"What then? Are we better than they? Not at all.
For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all
under sin. There is none righteous, no not one."
There is how many righteous? None. Any exceptions here? No.
Do you mean to tell me that there is nobody out there in the world that does
what is right, that is righteous and good? No. What about all these people who
do their charitable deeds and care for the poor and have sacrificed their
lives to help others? No. God says there is none righteous. If you want to try
and do righteous deeds and good works, "They are filthy rags,"
the Bible says, outside of Christ.
"There is none who understands."
There is how many who understand? None. Have you ever sat
down a person who does not know the Lord and explain to them so simply that a
two year old child could have understood it, the way of salvation, and they
have looked at you blankly and said, "I don’t know what you’re
talking about." Have you ever explained blue to a man who was born blind?
I would not even know where to start.
"There is none who understands" the Bible
says. "There is none who seeks after God."
There is none who seeks after God. Hang on, the world is
full of religions. The world is full of people who are all seeking God in
different ways, right? There are the Buddhist’s that are seeking God through
Buddha, and there are the Hindus who are seeking God in a different way. And
there are the Shinto’s and all these different religions, and they are all
seeking God.
No they are not seeking God. They are seeking relief from
the problems of life and they are trying to find a way out.
But aren’t they seeking God? Not according to this
passage. It says there are how many who seek after God? None who seek after
God. Are you starting to get confused yet? I hope so.
"They have all gone out of the way."
Most of them? A lot of them? All! They have all gone out of
God’s way. Have you heard that little verse? "For all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God." I memorized that verse when I
was much younger.
I thought, "Well yes that’s true, everybody has
sinned and come short of God’s glory."
But the verse says more than that and you do not pick it up
in the standard translation. That verse should say, "For all have sinned
and are continually coming short of God’s glory." It is a present
continuous tense the word ‘come short’.
For all have sinned and are still continuously coming short
of God’s glory. Yes, well I did sin back there. Sin is a continual process.
It is at work in you because of the root of sin that was placed into the body
of man when Eve and Adam partook of that fruit. You will read about it in
Romans 7 where Paul says that it is sin dwelling within me. I try to do the
good but I find that I cannot because it is sin dwelling within me.
"They have together become unprofitable."
God has no use for you. He has no use for you at all. I do
not care how much you dress up your sin and how good you become and how much
charitable deeds you do. I do not care if you are caring for the poor and the
sick and you are doing such wonderful things and giving money to charity, and
it is on TV – "And so-and-so gave a check of so many thousand dollars
to such-and-such a charity." Wow, isn’t she wonderful? God says she is
unprofitable. She is no use to Him at all. I do not care how much money she is
giving away or how much she has sacrificed.
"There is no who does good."
None? Any exceptions there? No, not one. It is almost as
though God heard somebody say that. And he answered it again,
"No, not one. Their throat is an open tomb."
Could you imagine an open tomb? We passed by a rotting
animal corpse once and the smell was unbearable. Can you imagine sitting by an
open tomb?
God says, "If you’re unsaved keep your mouth shut.
It’s like an open tomb. It stinks."
"With their tongues they have practiced deceit."
Every time you open your mouth to speak, even when you say
those good wonderful words, those kind tender loving words, God says it
stinks. It stinks bad, too.
"The poison of asps is under their lips, whose
mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed
blood. Destruction and misery is in their ways and the way of peace they
have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes."
Total Depravity
I want to end with a little illustration that pictures it
so beautifully. We often present the gospel in this way. We see the sinner as
a person who is sick. They are sick because of their sin, and in Christ in the
gospel we have the solution to their sin. We have the good news, the medicine
that is going to make them better. And we present it to them like.
"Here is the free gift of salvation in Christ, here is
the medicine. If you would just take this medicine, if you would accept it, if
you would drink it, you would be healed of your sin. Now take it."
The gospel is quite simple really. There is nothing
complicated about it. But I want to tell you a little bit more about this
person, this sick person that you are trying to give the medicine to.
I want you to know firstly that this person is lying in bed
because they are paralyzed and they cannot move. This person is blind so they
do not see the medicine that you are offering them. I want you to know that
this person is deaf so they do not hear you offering the medicine. This person
does not believe in doctors or medicine so that even if they could see and
hear they would not take it, and because they are paralyzed, even if they
wanted to they could not.
Right, now you have a picture of what an unbeliever is
like, and now you have a picture of what the chances are of somebody accepting
the free gift of salvation when you offer it to them. Their eyes have to be
opened first. Their ears have to be opened to hear the Word. There must come a
desire in their hearts to receive. There must come a confidence in the doctor
who prescribed the medicine, and there must come a release from the paralysis
that enables them to reach out freely of their own choice and to take that
medicine, to drink it, and to be healed.
I am going to go quickly through Romans and show you.
"There is none righteous."
They are all sick.
"There is none who understands."
They are deaf.
"There is none who seeks after God."
They do not trust Him.
"They have all gone out of the way; they have
together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, …"
… and the whole description. You see, a person cannot
come to God because sin has so permeated their being as to render them totally
unable to come to Him. They are running their lives by the course of this
world. They are under the control of the prince of the power of the air. They
are being ruled by their own sinful passions.
Why should they come and receive salvation? They are not
seeking after God. It is a condition that theologians call Total Depravity. I
am mentioning that so if you ever hear the term, you will understand what I am
talking about.
Born in Sin
David spoke about it. He said, "I was born in sin,
and in sin my mother conceived me. I was born in iniquity. I was conceived in
sin and in iniquity my mother bore me."
All of us are born in sin. We are born with a tendency to
sin, and you do not have to teach your children to be bad, to be naughty, or
disobedient, or to be sinful. The seed of sin that is in them begins to
manifest itself until eventually it controls their lives. And so each of us,
before we came to the Lord, were in that condition of total depravity, of
being unable to come to Him.
Now how do we move from there to salvation? How do we get a
person to go from that situation to where they are ready and prepared to
receive the gospel? You see, I told you Soteriology is a big subject, and this
is only our first study in the subject. Unless you understand this principle
and this concept well, you are not going to understand what we are going to
teach from hereon. Because unless you understand just how bad man is, how low
and degraded he has fallen through sin; unless you can understand that picture
very clearly you are not going to understand why and how salvation actually
comes to be applied to such a person. So if you can get that picture very
clearly and firmly here on this first study, you are going to have a good
foundation to follow it through and to understand exactly how salvation takes
place.
