What is Christianity?

Genesis 3:6-21; 15:5-6; Romans:3:20-30 – Justified by Faith alone

In college, I came to the conclusion that I was an agnostic.  Maybe God was there, maybe not.  But I was sure that I knew too much to believe the fables of Christianity.  Then as a young Air Force officer I heard the late Paul Little do a talk called, The Credibility of Christianity, and I came to an intellectual assent that Jesus was who he claimed to be.  As a new airline pilot, I visited a little Presbyterian Church in Homestead Florida where they introduced me to the love and forgiveness of God.  I believe it was the work of the Holy Spirit as I came to an overwhelming sense of my own guilt and I still remember the elation I felt as I came to the understanding that I was completely forgiven by God because of the work of Christ.

Years later, I had the opportunity to go to seminary and afterward I went back to flying for Pan American Airlines and later Delta Airlines.  As a way of sharing my faith, I made it a habit to ask pilots, flight attendants and agents I worked with a question.  It went something like this, “Suppose I were a Moslem.  I am from a small village outside Lahore, Pakistan.  I am here visiting my cousin, your neighbor.  We meet and I ask you, ‘What is it to be a Christian?  How is your religion different from my religion of obedience to Allah?” 

Most often, the response went like this, “Well, We believe in Jesus.”

“We also believe in Jesus, We believe that he was a great prophet.”

“Well, We believe in obeying the Ten Commandments.”

“We too believe in obeying the commandments of Allah”

“Well, . . . I guess I don’t know”

Over more than 20 years of asking this question, I discovered that very few, less than one in ten had any idea of how to describe the Christian faith.  For most, their answer boiled down to their works, how good a person they were.  And that is not a description of the Christian faith.  Most of these individuals were members of churches and would have described themselves as Christians.

My experience that most in our culture and many who attend churches don’t know what Christianity is was confirmed when I heard a broadcast of the White Horse Inn.  They sent their program engineer down to the floor of the Christian Booksellers convention to ask folks, “What is the Gospel.”  Now if there were a place you would expect to hear a correct answer, it would be the Christian Booksellers Convention.  Out of 60 respondents, they got one correct answer.  Listen to a portion of that broadcast . . . (3 min)

What is the gospel?  How are we justified before God?  What is Christianity?  These are all essentially the same question.  Let’s go to our Genesis 3 text.  In verse 2 we see the woman being tempted by this one called “the serpent.”  We need to be aware that there is much more to the account given than a story of a talking snake and an apple.  Hebrew word translated as serpent is nachash is an early Hebrew word whose primary meaning is “a shining one.”  Behind this simple story is a deeper meaning.  

Theologians and linguists will differ on how literal we are to take the account and the events depicted, but the theological meaning is clear.  The first couple violated the will of God.  When He sought them out they hid.  Why?  In the account Adam says it’s because they are naked.  What’s going on here?  You might remember that at the end of chapter 2 it said that they were naked and unashamed. 

The nakedness of the first couple represents their exposure before God.  Before their sin they were exposed but innocent so there was no shame.  After their sin they attempted a cover-up.  That failing, they hid.  While the account depicts this as some sort of game of hide-and-seek, we know God didn’t need to ask where they were.  What is going on here is that God is calling them, as it were, to the judicial bar to account for themselves.  “The court is now in session, Adam and Eve approach the bench.” 

Both were complicit in sin, but Adam was more at fault and throughout scripture the fall is laid at his feet.  He becomes our federal head, our representative.  While Eve was tricked, Adam knowingly sinned and tried to blame his sin on God himself.  It was the woman you gave me, Lord. 

The Lord pronounces judgment in turn against the serpent, the man and the woman, but in that judgment is a very important window of hope for mankind.  In verse 15 the Lord says,

         I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and hers;

         He will crush your head and you will strike his heel.

There was hope.  All was not lost.  Adam and Eve were being promised a savior who would bring redemption. One would come who would crush the head of Satan, their enemy, and who would be wounded in the process. This promise is often referred to as the protoeuangelion, the first gospel, and it would be fleshed out as the revelation of God in the Old Testament continues to describe God’s promise of redemption and the coming Messiah.

We see Adam’s profession of faith in God’s promise in verse 20.  “Adam named his wife Eve,” which means ‘living’, “because she would be the mother of all the living.”  Adam believed God’s promise and responded out of his belief.  In Genesis 15:6 we see a principle that is also at work here.  There God repeats his covenant promise to Abraham and it says, “Abraham believed the Lord and [God] credited it to him as righteousness.”  The promise of God to Abraham, as with the promise of God to Adam, ultimately pointed forward to one who would come, the promised Messiah, the Christ.  In God’s economy he was counting men and women as righteous based on their trust in his promise because it pointed forward to God’s remedy for sin.

Adam’s profession of faith in God’s promise brings a response from God.  In verse 21 the Lord God, the Creator of the universe Himself, performs the first sacrifice and covers the nakedness of Adam and Eve.  This covering in both the Old and New Testaments will be showing to be the provision of forgiveness as the covering of sin which ultimately looks forward to our being covered in Jesus Christ, the ultimate sacrifice for sin whom all other sacrifices were but a model or foreshadowing.

Initially, Eve thinks her first son, Cain, would be the promised deliverer.  A better translation for 4:1 would be, “I have brought forth a man, even the deliverer.”  She didn’t realize that he would be the seed of the Serpent and a murderer.  Cain was of the same line as the Pharisees to whom Jesus said, “You are of your father, the devil.”  Later it would be the line of Seth that would produce the Messianic line and the hope of the future promise.  The account of scripture is the account of two humanities, two kingdoms, two rules, two objects of worship and two loyalties.  There is warfare between those two kingdoms and that story continues to this day and you and I are in the midst of the battle. 

Now turn with me, if you would, to or text in Romans chapter 3

In Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, he lays out a very organized, systematic presentation of Christian theology.  He begins by demonstrating that everyone, all humanity, is sinful and estranged from God.  Our text brings up the end of that discussion as he says,

“No one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by observing the law: rather through the law we become conscious of Sin.”

In other words, we can’t be good enough for God.  Our inherited sin nature will not allow it.  Contrary to the individual in our interview who insisted that God doesn’t require perfection, that is exactly what He does require.”  Jesus said, “Be ye perfect, even as your heavenly father is perfect.”  God’s standard is perfection and we all fall short of that standard.  And the law of God is just a reminder of how much we fall short.

But then, in verse 21, Paul says, “A righteousness from God, apart from the law has been made known.”  In other words, there is a source of righteousness apart from what we do, apart from our goodness or lack thereof.  This source is testified to in the Old Testament, the law and the prophets.  And in verse 22 he says, “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.”  This is the same righteousness which was at work in the forgiveness of Adam and Eve.  This is the same righteousness which was credited to Abraham because he had faith in the promise of God.

What we are talking about is a foreign righteousness, a righteousness that comes from outside of us and which is credited to our account.  The older theologians referred to this as “forensic righteousness.”  It is a judicial righteousness or a righteousness that comes by a legal declaration. 

Now, one would ask, how does this work?  Paul explains starting in verse 23.  “For all have sinned and fallen sort of the Glory of God and are justified freely by his grace.  God presented Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood.”   While men and women stand guilty, God redeems or purchases us back by providing a sacrifice of atonement.  A better word here would be the word propitiation.  A propitiation is a sacrifice which offsets the wrath of God against sin.

In the Passover the wrath of God came over Egypt and brought death as a judgment for their idolatry.  That judgment passed over the homes marked by the blood of a lamb.  That blood was a sign of their faith.  It showed that they trusted in the promise of God and accordingly, just as was Abraham, they were credited with righteousness. 

Many centuries later, John the Baptizer pointed to Jesus and said, “Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”  He was saying that the sacrifice in the Passover and all the sacrifices for thousands of years were but a model of who Jesus was, the one true sacrifice to come.  So the true covering enjoyed by faithful believers in the Old Testament was Jesus, just as in the new covenant.

In the atonement Jesus propitiates or satisfies the wrath of God.  Wrath is the necessary response of a holy God against sin.  God is holy.  His nature demands a wrathful response to sin.  Now, one might object,  “But isn’t he a loving God?  Doesn’t scripture say, ‘God is love?’”  Yes, God is perfect in his love as in all his attributes.  But He is also perfect in his justice and his holiness.  In verse 26, speaking of the propitiation, Paul says, “He did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”  In the propitiation, we not only see the wrath, holiness and justice of God, we also see His love.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  But God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him.  Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already.

In the perfect life that Jesus lived, he became our substitute and satisfied the law on our behalf.  In the death that Jesus died, he satisfied the justice of God and paid the penalty for our sin.  That, my friends, is the gospel and that is the essential truth of Christianity.

Listen to these statements from our church’s book of confessions:

The Heidelberg Catechism – Q. 60. How are you righteous before God?

A. Only by true faith in Jesus Christ. In spite of the fact that my conscience accuses me that I have grievously sinned against all the commandments of God, and have not kept any one of them, and that I am still ever prone to all that is evil, nevertheless, God, without any merit of my own, out of pure grace, grants me the benefits of the perfect expiation of Christ, imputing to me his righteousness and holiness as if I had never committed a single sin or had ever been sinful, having fulfilled myself all the obedience which Christ has carried out for me, if only I accept such favor with a trusting heart.

The Second Helvetic Confession

5.089 – WHAT IS THE GOSPEL PROPERLY SPEAKING?  The catechism first confirms that the gospel was contained in the Old Testament which also taught salvation by faith and says at the bottom of the paragraph: God has now performed what he promised from the beginning of the world, and has sent, nay more, has given us his only Son and in him reconciliation with the Father, the remission of sins, all fullness and everlasting life.

 Westminster Shorter Catechism – Q. 33. What is justification?

A. Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardons all our sins, and accepts us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.

Very often, at a funeral or after the death of some individual, you might hear something like, “So and so was such a wonderful person, they were so giving and caring.  I know we will see him or her again when we get to heaven.”  But folks, that isn’t the way it works.  Scripture goes to great pains to tell us that the starting point for all of us is the same.  We each, in and of ourselves, are on our way to hell.  Stan, you might be thinking, isn’t that a bit harsh?  Have you ever purchased a diamond.  Do they just plop that puppy on top of the glass counter.  No, the salesman will first take out a black felt pad or cloth and then lay the diamond on that.  That is what Paul is doing in his letter to the Roman church.  Against the blackness of our sin and our estrangement from God, he then lays out the glistening diamond of the gospel and shows us each wonderful facet.

In Romans 4: 5 Paul says, “to the man (or woman) who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, that persons faith is credited as righteousness.”  Your eternal destiny is not dependent on how good a person you might be, matter of fact, it has nothing to do with it.  It is also not dependent on how great your sins have been.  Your relationship with God is solely dependent on whether or not you have received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

While I was in the Air Force, I was rerouted on a flight to a major command base to pick up a special load of cargo.  We hadn't eaten all day, so we were famished.  After freshening up at our quarters we went out eat.  The only place that was open was the Officers Club dining room and it was the fanciest club I had seen. We felt a little awkward there in slacks and sport shirts but that was all we had and this was the only place available to us.  However, as we entered the dining room the club steward informed us that coat and tie were required and that we could not enter the dining room as we were.  But he then showed us to the coatroom where there was a supply of extra coats and ties for just such an occasion.  Dressed in the apparel he provided we enjoyed an outstanding meal.

In a similar way, the Lord has set standards for admission to his kingdom.  One needs only to be perfect as He is perfect, a standard which none can meet.  But God has graciously shown us a way.  If we but clothe ourselves in Jesus Christ, we are seen in his perfection and are accepted into the kingdom of God.