Want to know God?

Emmanuel Baptist Church, Tuscaloosa

Just cut to the chase” is an oft-used phrase that basically means, “Get to the point and leave out the unnecessary details.” Regarding salvation, one question that essentially cuts to the chase is, how can sinful people be in a right standing with a holy God? If you consider the religions of the world, though they define salvation differently, all of them answer the question by prescribing things a person must “do” in order to be saved. There are rituals to be observed, paths to be followed, traditions to be kept and a host of actions to be performed, all in the hopes of reaching the desired state of eternal bliss.

In contrast, biblical Christianity answers the question by appealing to what God Himself has done. The good news (gospel) is that Jesus did for sinners what they could never do for themselves. Through His sinless life and sacrificial death on the cross, Jesus demonstrated the justice and love of God; His justice in punishing sin and His love for ruined sinners. Thus Paul writes, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith” (Rom. 3:23–25a).

So to know God, to be in a right standing with Him, the first thing is to recognize your need for righteousness and your inability to meet that need by your own doing. Thus you realize that salvation is not a reward to be earned but a gift to be received by faith. But the gift, while free to the recipient, comes at great cost to the Giver. The redemption of sinners required nothing less and nothing else than the shed blood of Jesus, which is simply too great a price to be paid if there are other ways for sinners to be justified before God. In light of this truth, the only proper response is one of humble repentance and earnest faith, giving all thanks and praise and glory to our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.