by

Our modern society is a mirror. A mirror of our souls as a people. A mirror of our souls before God.

And what does our reflection show?

A society full of lines of demarcation, self-imposed separations between those who are “clean or unclean”, “cool or uncool”, “rich or poor”, “gay or straight”, “male or female”… the world’s cliques and tribal borders are both overt and subtle.

But of all the divisive and hurtful rhetoric that spews out of our hearts and carves up our unified humanity into an “us” and a “them”, not one is more disgusting than “who is saved, and who is not“.

We hear over and over in our churches and bible studies that God’s salvation is only for an elect. An elect few who “believe”. Or who “love”. Or those that were baptised as adults. Or who “wear the right clothes”, “watch the right movies”, “keep the right friends”… or who don’t. In fact, the “standards” for who will receive God’s salvation are so truly varied that it leaves only one conclusion: everybody is wrong, and nobody is right.

Nobody has it right. Nothing we do (or don’t do) can keep God’s salvation from us. That would be works. And works negate grace.

And people say,”But God cannot save everyone. Why would He?? He can’t. It’s impossible to think…”

Romans 5: 14. Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come.

15. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many.

16. And the free gift is not like the effect of the one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification.

17. If, because of the one man’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

18. Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.

19. For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

Why, even today, is the world so readily accepting of the fact that one man could doom us to death (Adam’s sin), but one man’s act of compassion and righteousness coudn’t possibly have such a general effect? Oh, and by the way, that man was God. So…

It’s time for us to start reflecting something else to God through the mirror of our society: a final and absolute understanding that His Grace is for all.

And that new absolute understanding will hearken the death knell of all of our cultural borders and spiritual segregation. When we realize that we ALL stand equal before God, the world of “us and them” will fall away.

Galatians 3 28. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

This great leveling, this all-encompassing justification before God is exactly what was meant by the very first things we even learn about Jesus:

Luke 3 4. as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

5. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth;

6. and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'”

The high brought low. The crooked made straight. All has been made equal before God.

The Way is ready. Will we walk it?

<— Previous Post: Who Does God Love? . . . Next Post: Fear and The Kingdom of God–>