You may have noticed how often people observe that things are not going well in the world. Violence, pollution, crime, poverty, disease. The list goes on. How do you explain it? Alistair Begg has an interesting progression he uses to explain the Christian world view: The good, the bad, the new and the perfect.
Begg explains that it all got started with the Good. God created the universe and it was perfect. Six times in the first chapter of Genesis we find “it was good.” Of course that was before humans were created. After that He said “it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31)
Then we have Adam and Eve rebelling against God and sin became a part of creation. Bad. This effected not only all descendants of the pair but the plants and animals also. This would be considered the problem with the world. It is called sin. It is defined many ways but it has to do with things no longer being as God designed them.
Then we come to the new. This is the solution to the problem of sin. Sin was something that no human action or effort was powerful enough to deal with. Sin brought death. Christians believe that Jesus, God become man, gave His life to pay for the debt of sin. This was a sacrifice that was pure enough to pay the price.
The perfect is still in the future. The universe as we know it will come to an end and be remade. Those who have had their sin dealt with will be resurrected into new bodies in a new world and spend an eternity in the presence of God.
The Christian view is different than the secular view. We believe in a personal God who is involved and in control. We believe that things are flawed now but there is a solution. We have an assurance about this life and what comes after.
Obviously thousands of books have been written about this but we have short attention spans. This will need to suffice for today.
homo unius libri
Well said.
ReplyDeleteJust paraphrasing Begg.
DeleteGrace and peace.