America is afflicted with a moral crisis. Crime is the No. 1 crisis. Morality has limped along on crutches. We are victims of the disease of change (previously called future shock). Moral distortion is on hand where good is evil and evil is good.
Lack of moral certitude infiltrates and saturates our land today. Yes, we are experiencing a conflict of moral crisis. We are not experiencing moral progress. This moral crisis of our time is the loss of the dimension of the depth of the Christian faith. This has been called “cheap grace.” The road to renewal and change is repentance.
Root of crisis
The root of the moral crisis is found in Proverbs 29:18: “without a vision the people perish.” Without submission to the authority of the Word of God, people become unruly. Some are saying that we are not capable of responding to the moral challenge of our time. The traditional biblical ethic has been either rejected or ignored. It needs to be reexamined. We need to recover the faith once delivered to the saints.
Popular secular theories about morality focus on pleasure, power, duty and existentialism where our own rules and principles determine the proper course of action. Biblical/Christian ethics focuses on “divine commands in the Scriptures which are universal and applicable to all situations” (Carl Henry). Emil Brunner defines this ethic as “the science of human conduct as it is determined by divine conduct.”
However else one may define it, biblical/Christian ethics seeks to clarify the grounds, guidelines and goals of human character and conduct in terms of response to the will of God as revealed in Jesus and made possible by the Holy Spirit.
Sadly enough, this generation is not concerned with biblical authority but with freedom and emancipation from any ethical guidelines which cramp one’s personal preferences.
Listen: the Bible is the Word of God. It is the record of God Himself and His purposes for mankind which reached its climax in the person of His Son. Through Him we can accept our acceptance even though we are unacceptable.
Honest book
Indeed, in the Bible the Master’s voice comes through. It has survived much shoddy preaching as it is used by the Holy Spirit to radically change lives. It is an honest book and does not seek to cover up the sins of the saints. It tells it like it is.
Jesus is the supreme and ultimate moral authority in the Christian’s life. Any effort to sever Christian authority from Him is heretical. He alone is the ultimate criteria for Christian authority. Indeed, the Bible presents Him as the only One who can provide revolutionary ethical and moral changes in one’s life. Christ is the Lord of life, and apart from Him moral crises, distortions, corruptions and evils abound.
He is the window through which we see God, and He reveals to us God’s moral will and way. Refusal to see and do God’s will and way is a perversion of our humanity for Jesus was truly man. Christian conduct grows out of our relationship with Him. The moral situation cannot find satisfaction and fulfillment apart from Him, for Jesus is truly God.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This article was written by Morris Murray Jr. in Jasper, Alabama.
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