If Jesus Is Our Savior...What Is He Saving Us From?
Gary:
You are listening to a special presentation of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Now, our final segment, Understanding the Scriptures, and we return once again to 2000, with Dave and Tom.
UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES
Tom:
If you have been following the program you know that in this segment we deal with major doctrines of biblical Christianity and the most significant of all doctrines is the doctrine of salvation. The gospel which on the one hand is so simple a child can understand it and accept it while on the other hand it’s so profound that not even an eternity will be long enough plum its richness. So what is the biblical doctrine of salvation? Well it covers all that God has done to reconcile mankind to himself as well as what man must do to spend eternity with God. Dave often in Christian settings where unsaved people are present the gospel has been given, but it has been my experience that rarely is the gospel explained. It’s usually a call to receive Jesus as Savior and with a sinner’s prayer added, but I don’t ever remember an explanation that might make sense to someone who has little understanding of biblical Christianity. What I would like to do today is to begin with I Peter 3:18: “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit…” I would like to consider that from the perspective of someone who might say okay, so Christ supposedly did all of this, but why? What’s the problem? I think we have to go to Genesis to get right to the problem.
Dave:
Well of course the first question that a person would ask apropos to what you are saying is be saved? Saved from what? Saved from drowning or saved from the stock market crash?
Tom:
Now people may think this is a little ludicrous, but honestly there are un-churched people who have no foundation—remember we have a generation of parents who said oh I am not going to impose anything on my children. Let them just kind of figure it out as they go along. So they are clueless to a lot of this.
Dave:
Hebrews raises this question, chapter 2. “How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? Escape from what? I think every person knows in their conscious that they have violated God’s laws. There’s a penalty to be paid. That’s what we are talking about. The Bible talks about the wrath of God. Romans 1-The wrath of heaven is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of man. God is holy. The Bible says He is angry with the sinners every day. He doesn’t hate sinners, He loves them, but He doesn’t like their sin and if they persist in it there are consequences. It’s like—Tom you have to have rules for anything even to play a game and the idea that God can’t have any rules for mankind, moral, ethical; I think we recognize that He does. So this is what we are being saved from—God’s judgment.
Tom:
Yes, but let’s go back. Rule—let’s go with the first rule. We know from Genesis going through God creating the world. WE have Him saying it is good; it is good and in Genesis 1:31 the scripture says “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, [it was] very good.” No problem, up to that point.
Dave:
Well, who decides that it’s good? So one thing that we learn from that is that only God can decide what is good.
Tom:
Right, but it is good. Everything that He made was perfect, in other words, there’s no problem—yet.
Dave:
Right.
Tom:
But now for the rule: I think if we are looking for a rule, Genesis 2:17- “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Now here was a rule, here was a condition. Why would God even impose that?
Dave:
If the world, the universe is going to continue to be good and Jesus said only God is good, then we are going to have to be in line with God’s purpose. He created the universe, He must have some idea, you know, He must have some purpose and meaning for this and there must be some parameters within which this thing will function. Just gravity holds—and the atom must be held together—so man now has the power of choice. Whatever man does, it must be in line with God’s will. That makes sense; after all He’s the creator.
Tom:
Well could somebody call this the “law of love” in effect? If love is really going to be love, there has to be volition, there has to be free will, there has to be a condition to see, certainly not in God’s mind, but in the mind of those whom He loves that they are responding to His love.
Dave:
Yes and love does impose regulations. Unfortunately we see in a lot of families where they claim to love their children by letting them run wild and that’s not love, because they’re going to get in trouble. So God knows that the creatures that He has made are going to be in real trouble if they try to be egomaniacs and try to do their own thing. So He’s trying to bring Adam and Eve into line with His will because He loves them and He wants them close to Him. He wants what is best for them. If you love someone, you want what is best for them. Now He gives them the easiest command that He could possibly give. And we have probably talked about this before but there must have been not just thousands but maybe millions of trees in the Garden of every kind of fruit. I don’t believe that the tree of knowledge of good and evil was some special fruit. It could have been an apple tree, pear or whatever. What was wrong with the eating of it was not the quality of fruit or some power that the fruit had within itself. It was an act of disobedience. So God gives man the easiest command He could possibly could just to see if—it’s like putting reins on a horse and when you give the signal or whatever, is the horse going to obey or is it not? If it doesn’t, you’re going to have to put a bit in its mouth or whatever. So just don’t eat of that tree. You can have any other tree in the Garden, but don’t eat of that tree. But when they did, that was rebellion against God.
Tom:
Well before we get to that, because there’s a seduction involved here. But up to that point, there’s no problem. They are walking in fellowship with God and Paradise is still perfect in every way. So there’s no problem yet. But then there’s a test. The test is in Genesis 3 beginning in verse one and we’ll go these verses because there’s a lot here Dave. “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” Now it’s posed as a question, but let’s back up to that. I mean here we have a talking serpent. Does that seem reasonable?
Dave:
It’s amazing that Satan really likes to be known as a serpent. That pagans worship serpents. That’s astonishing to me. You would think that Satan would have come in some other form. I don’t like serpents. They are very frightening, they are poisonous, they are deadly, they are sneaky, but that is the way Satan chose. Now of course people today are trying to communicate with porpoises; they are trying to teach the alphabet to chimpanzees; they say that all is one, some of them even hug trees or try to talk to trees.
Tom:
Try to talk to gorillas—
Dave:
Yes, so the idea that a serpent could talk—well shamans, witchdoctors they have as their spirit guides—it could be a coyote, it could be a jaguar, you can see the consistency of this that mankind is still trying to get in touch with the spirit world through such creatures and here is where it began.
Tom:
Yes and Dave couldn’t it be that after the fall mankind was separated from the animals. There was a fear—that was no longer the same relationship. So we really don’t know whether there could have been communication, or whether this was something very unique and very special.
Dave:
No, Tom I am going to disagree with you on that one, we didn’t rehearse this program, but—
Tom:
You think there is too much of Dr. Doolittle in me here?
Dave:
No, animals do not have the capacity to speak. Man alone has the capacity to come up with conceptual ideas and express them in words. I don’t believe that animals lost that capacity during the fall. It does say that—maybe the serpent like a cobra could walk on it’s tail (sort of) and now on your belly will you walk. But Satan is known as the serpent even in Revelation. That old serpent, the devil, the dragon and you go to the East as you know, you got dragons on the temple, and you’ve got serpents and so forth. So this is not a myth, this is history and we can verify it from that standpoint.
Tom:
Dave we are about out of time for today, but we have the problem here, the problem of man’s sin, which is about to take place, man’s first sin know at least on earth.
Dave:
Rebellion.
Tom:
Rebellion and this is important because this is the reason Christ had to become a man to pay the full penalty for our sins. So next week we’ll pick up with the serpent in the Garden. Genesis 3 starting in verse one and we’ll see what happens.
Gary:
We hope you have enjoyed this special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily a radio ministry of The Berean Call. For nearly 2000 years the Church of Christ has provided comfort and counsel to believers experiencing mental, emotional and behavioral problems by using the teaching of the scriptures and by the power of the Holy Spirit until psychology and psychotherapy arrived on the scene. Contemporary Christianity has embraced this science—so called. In the last 50 years multitudes of pastors have added clinical counseling degrees to their theological credentials. Psychological theories have been preached so often, from so many pulpits that they are accepted without question by increasing numbers of Christians as biblical doctrines. The Christian church in the United States has become a major referral service for clinical psychologists and psychiatrists. Is there something wrong with this picture? Join T.A. McMahon in this groundbreaking documentary from the Berean Call. Psychology and the Church: Critical Questions, Crucial Answers. Also contributing to this latest TBC production are Dr. Martin Bobgan and Deidre Bobgan from Psychoheresy Awareness Ministries.
Dr. Tana Dineen, author of Manufacturing Victims and Dave Hunt author of Judgment Day. Executive Director of The Berean Call and co-author of The Seduction of Christianity, Tom McMahon: For years believers, both pastors and those in the pews have been intimidated by the pseudoscience of psychological counseling and the result has been they have backed away from their God-given mandate to minister to one another. My hope and prayer is that this video will expose the myths of psychology and encourage the church to return to God’s way of counseling through His Word and by His Holy Spirit and with the help of fellow believers in Him.
This powerful new DVD is now available from The Berean Call. Psychology and the Church: Critical Questions, Crucial Answers: information on how to order in just a moment. In addition to this radio program we publish a monthly newsletter which we make available free of charge. We also produce and distribute and wide variety of teaching materials including books in print, e-book and audio book format, CDs, DVDs and other items to encourage the serious study of God’s Word. For a complete list of materials or to get a copy of today’s broadcast write to us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call our toll free order number 800-937-6638, that’s 800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org. If you would like a copy of today’s broadcast on compact disk ask for Program #1909, and be sure to mention the call letters of this station. Get a pen or pencil ready we’ll repeat our contact information in just a moment.
Next week, we will continue our revisits to our 2000 series of programs based on Dave’s book, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith, and “What Are Your Plans for Eternity?” In Religion in the News: “Do the Saints Read the Newspaper?” We’ll take a look at that story and address the question: “Can We Be Buddies with God?” We hope you can join us. If you have questions or comments about this program, we urge you to contact our offices. Search the Scriptures Daily Radio Ministry is made possible by God’s grace, your prayers and your financial support. I’m Gary Carmichael and for Dave, Tom and everyone here at The Berean Call, I would like to thank you for tuning in and invite you to join us again next week. In the meantime, if you desire to know God’s truth search, the scriptures daily. You’ve been listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. For more information about The Berean Call contact us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call our toll free order number 1-800-937-6638, that’s 1-800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org. Join us again next week for Search the Scriptures Daily featuring Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon.
