Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:17-21)
What is the most pathetic spectacle you have ever seen? Is it a whimpering animal bleeding to its death? A starving child? Or is it the victim of a raging disease, reduced to mere skin and bones? Perhaps the most pathetic spectacle that I have ever seen is a satisfied and confident non-Christian. His whole life is in conflict with God, and judgment looms over him. Yet, like an imbecile, he laughs, and he skips and hops all over the war zone, not knowing that at any moment an explosion of divine wrath will blow him to smithereens. Meanwhile, sin eats away at his innards as maggots feast on a corpse. Oh, what a foolish and worthless person you are, if you are content to live without Jesus Christ!
How bitter and afraid I was, before I was reconciled to God by Jesus Christ. It was not because I was, naturally speaking, dealt an inferior lot in life; rather, by God’s grace I was given a better grasp of reality than the happy infidel. If you understand the depravity of man and the futility of his sinful existence, then God has also given you this perception. A man ought to hate life and fear death at the same time, as long as he is estranged from God. The thief comes to steal and to kill, but Jesus Christ came to give us life, even life in abundance.
There is great conflict between God and the sinner. The unbeliever is oblivious, and an early step in our presentation of the gospel is to tell him about it: “Man, do you know nothing? You are at war with God. The calm that you feel is a lie based on ignorance and guarded by intellectual blindness. You are too stupid to see what is true, even what is plainly before you. Don’t you know that, if you continue this way, you will fall into the bottomless pit?”
Then there are those who are openly hostile toward God. They know that they are in a war, and they enjoy every minute of the fight. But they are not any smarter than the others, and perhaps even more stupid. We say to them, “You are fighting God and blaspheming him, but you are the one in the wrong. He is the creator and you are the creature, but you deny him the rights of a maker and the rights of an owner, and you rise up in rebellion against him. You have transgressed his laws, but you are proud of it. You oppose him and harass those who follow him. Yes, right now he is your enemy – he stands against your view of the world and your way of life. But why would you want him to be your enemy? Don’t you know that the devil has blinded your mind, and you are as a pawn in his hands, charging ahead in a fight that will ultimately destroy yourself? You are fighting the wrong person, and you cannot win. Stop being so self-righteous! Your whole life is headed toward the wrong direction.”
Jesus Christ is the only mediator between God and man, and thus the only hope for reconciliation. Since God has always remained perfect in his wisdom and holiness, but it is man that has become depraved through and through, this reconciliation entails a complete transformation of man’s nature, so that he becomes a new creation by the power of God. And since God has done no wrong, but it is man that has transgressed the divine command, the reconciliation involves the forgiveness of sins, so that God would no longer count man’s sins against him.
Such a reconciliation is not without cost. Sin must be punished, but any meaningful punishment would forever crush the sin-wrecked soul of man, who can never pay the debt that he owes to satisfy divine justice. Therefore, according to God’s own design, which he ordained before the creation of the world, he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to die for the wicked. He was without sin, but for a time he suffered death and rejection as a substitute as if he was a sinner, so that through him perfect righteousness might be imputed to our account.
Therefore, a message that brings assurance before repentance and faith is dangerously misleading. Instead of effecting a reconciliation, it hardens the sinner and aggravates the conflict. Without repentance and faith in Christ, we cannot say, “God loves you and has saved you! I have come to proclaim peace throughout the land and to your soul. There is no more war.” No, the war continues, and we must say, “As long as you remain a non-Christian, as long as you run after your idols and religions, or your own beliefs and desires, and as long as you pursue those dreams and ambitions that arise from your wicked heart, you are a spiritual whore, a spiritual slut. But now if you will admit your sins and depend solely on Jesus Christ, then even someone like you will be saved. And as Hosea married Gomer you are one of those for whom he died, and God is forgiving your sins and bringing you back to him now.”
God has committed to us this message of reconciliation. What power we have in Jesus Christ! It is a power to produce real and lasting good, a power to build an eternal foundation in people’s lives. So many say that they want to make a difference, but their aspirations are infantile. All their projects are trivial and unimportant, and in the long-term entirely insignificant. Only the Christian mandate of converting the nations and educating them in the faith is worth the energy, the money, the sweat and the blood. Any enterprise that is not a natural outgrowth of this gospel mission is really humanity’s foolish and rebellious effort to save itself. This will only result in a greater delusion and confirm men in their eternal doom.