Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
The Christian church is divided into many denominations and sects, but all would agree on one statement: the Gospel is Good News. The angels at Bethlehem said so: it's "good tidings of great joy ... to all people" (Luke 2:10). But how good? There's where we split off into contentions and conflicts.
A writer of great acclaim once penned a little book, Steps to Christ. She blew the lid off of legalism; speaking on one page several times about what the cross of Christ means, she said: "The sinner may resist this love, may refuse to be drawn to Christ; but if he does not resist he will be drawn to Jesus; ... to the foot of the cross in repentance for his sins" (p. 27).
Can the Good News be that good--that you have to "resist" Christ, reject Him, in order to be lost? There's the "Armageddon" battlefield over the teachings of righteousness by faith. "No way!" some contend; to say that you have to resist Him in order to be lost will open the gates of the New Jerusalem and admit hordes who don't deserve to get in. So let's go to the Bible, trusting we can settle the question there:
"I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you" (Jer. 31:3). Speaking of what Paul meant when he said, "I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2), the Lord Jesus said: "I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself" (John 12:32; that's the Loud Cry!). Yes, that's a huge "IF"!
"God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them" (2 Cor. 5:19), but instead "He has borne our ... transgressions, ... was bruised for our iniquities; ... the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isa. 53:4-6). The Father "imputed" our guilt onto Him so that Christ who "knew no sin" was "made to be sin for us" (that's everybody! 2 Cor. 5:21). In that act on His cross, Christ died "the second death" of "every man" in the world (Heb. 2:9). He did it before any of us were even born, for He is "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev. 13:8).
The logic follows as day follows night: If He has already died your second death, paid the penalty for your sin, the only way you can be lost is to reject what He has done for you.
And there's the mountain-high problem: your "carnal mind" is "enmity against God" (Rom. 8:7). Hang on to it, and you are wearing out your life in re-crucifying Christ "afresh," and in your blind selfishness you are putting Him "to open shame" before the world and before the universe (Heb. 6:6, KJV). What you are doing is so "hard" you are "kicking against the goads," forcing yourself into premature old age, disabilities, and death (Acts 26:14), demonstrating for the final Judgment what you really choose--eternal death.
The "hardest" thing in the world for anyone to do is to resist the seeking love of Christ.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: January 1, 2007.
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