Humanity’S Restoration
HUMANITY’S RESTORATION
ROMANS 5:15-17
Paul writes about the wonder of amazing grace.
How is the image of God, in which humanity was originally created, restored? The Christian answer, as we have already seen, is: humanity stands under condemnation, and there must be no avoiding that fact in fruitless tribute to human pride. Humanity, too, is conscious of moral freedom, and unless the universe is a vast and incredible mockery, is free and responsible. The will of God has been revealed to humanity, and there is not one who has wholly made that will their own. Humanity stands condemned before God, and to deny the fact makes chaos of God’s righteousness.
Nor, the doctrine continues, is divine holiness an obscure conception to be brushed aside in the name of grace. God’s condemnation of sin, his wrath repelling sin and abiding upon it, are not the notions of ignorance, fear and primitive demonologies. They accompany the loftiest views of the deity, justice and righteousness. They stand or fall with the Christian conception of sin and command no less an authority than Christ himself. They are implicit in the whole New Testament, whose writers insist that God’s condemnation of his creatures is a serious thing dealt with in bitter seriousness by Christ.
Christianity says quite simply that God’s condemnation for sinful humanity is removed “in Christ.” How? The modern mind, anxious for formulae, empirical proof and illustrative analogy, is not content with mere dogma. How can the death of Christ, who was put to death under the rule of Tiberius, by the procurator Pontius Pilate, alter our relationship with God centuries later? Some, confronted with the dilemma, would answer merely with the determination of Galileo, “Nevertheless, it does.” And, in fact, it is common human experience that the gospel works. From Paul on the Damascus Road to Augustine in the Gardens of Milan, to Bunyan, Newton, Moody and Spurgeon, dramatic conversion and the revolution of human character have been common in human experience. To analyze the phenomenon of conversion, to unravel the psychological processes involved, neither explains the fact away nor invalidates its theology. In all history, only the Christian gospel, with its doctrine of redemption, has brought about constant, widespread and far-reaching changes in human lives.
It can be shown in a myriad case histories that Christ has redeemed from fear of death and the dread of God those who in simple faith have accepted his work as being personally significant; that the power of such faith has been a deep fountain of social good and untold personal happiness; that the very image of God has been seen in clear and unmistakable lineaments in all nations who have accepted the forgiveness which the Christian gospel offers in Christ and his finished work.