Audio restored with Diffio. Diffio processed the original archive recording to reduce noise and produce a cleaner listening version; the original stays available.
Speech quality score (model-estimated, SCOREQ): before 2.53 → restored 4.75
Use the player's Original switch to compare.How Diffio restores old speech recordings
As you will now be aware, in these three seminars we're dealing with four isms: syncretism, pluralism, postmodernism, and hedonism. It is most unlikely that we shall get through all the detail that we should get through in our limited time, hence the notes that you now have in your hand. Uh, we- I shall not comment on everything that is in the notes. The notes were prepared so that, uh, there might be things there that you might care to consider that are not, in fact, covered necessarily in the talks themselves. Now, this morning we talked about syncretism, the mixing of one religion or and philosophy with another religion and or philosophy.
And we dealt in particular with some of those instances where pagan philosophies or other religious ideas have, during the course of the centuries, been mixed, eh, with Christianity. And the examples I chose, I, for the most part, were very bad, of course. I did mention that the great creeds of the church were thought through and then stated in language borrowed from the Greek philosophers, and by and large, that has been a very helpful thing. When we talk about the persons of the Godhead, then we are using the term, uh, a Latin, a term of Latin and Latinized word for philosophical concept, so that not all our borrowings from pagan Greece and Rome, and from the philosophers in particular, have been bad.
They have been put to good use from time to time in our thinking. Nonetheless, the great danger of syncretism is, as we stressed this morning, the bringing over into Christianity of things that are pagan in their origin and are quite clean contrary to the gospel as revealed to us through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Our necessity, therefore, as believers, to be aware of the possibility. The epistles, like the epistle to the Colossians, point this out to us, how easy it is for young converts and not so young, uh, to imbibe doctrines and practices that are not Christian at all, but actually pagan, and that to their great spiritual detriment.
Most of the epistles, somewhere in them, are concerned not only positively to expound the gospel, but also to tell us what the gospel is, but also carefully to point out what the gospel is not. And therefore, not only ourselves as believers, but in our reaching out to men and women, we shall very often find that we need to point out that certain things that they think to be Christian are not, in fact, Christian at all. And therefore to get them studying, uh, God's word, if they are so inclined, to find out exactly what the Bible does say. Now we move on this afternoon, uh, first of all, to pluralism, and in one sense that is the opposite of syncretism.
Syncretism is the mixture of Christianity, in this case, with other things, or other things with Christianity. Pluralism goes in the other direction, doesn't try to mix anything. It says you have your religion, well, good for you, we have ours, and yours is as good as ours, and ours is as good as yours, they are both equally valid. Now, uh, uh, of course, this uh, uh, is uh, emphasis that we are finding increasingly in Britain, certainly, I suspect you'll find it here. Eh, when it comes to, uh, the term pluralism, eh, it is used sometimes simply in a factual sense.
We live in a pluralistic society, meaning, say in England, uh, where I originally come from, uh, Christianity used to be the dominant religion. There were people of other religions, but in my boyhood, Christianity was the main thing, and it was the state religion and taught in the schools and so forth and so on. Nowadays in England, of course, you will find cities where in the day schools the majority of people are from some other country of origin, and they may well be, as far as religion is concerned, practicing Hindus, Sikhs, or or or or Muslims and so forth. And therefore it is simply stating the fact to say that we live in a pluralistic society.
Pluralism, however, is often used with a stronger sense, and that is that, uh, nowadays we have come to see, uh, say so-called authorities, that all religions should be regarded as equally valid. They are simply different paths up the same mountain to the same goal in the end. So one path goes up from the north of the mountain and reaches the summit. The other goes up from the south of the mountain. It's a very different route. Uh, uh, it starts at the bottom on the south and goes up to the summit by the south side, comes to the same point in the end. And that's how religions are, so it is claimed, and how they should be allowed to be.
They are all equally valid. Eh, do see. The, uh, Christian response, therefore, to this claim that all religions are equally valid. Uh, I suppose our first response could well be to say that that is factually nonsense. Ask the religions themselves, and they will come up with a very different story. You'll see. Eh, it is plain contrary to the facts, then. Many religions assert as an essential and indispensable part of their faith that other religions are irreconcilably different from themselves.
The Buddha claimed there is one sole way for the purification of human beings, and also he claimed that the truth is one, there is not a second. Again, some forms of Buddhism, not all, but some forms of Buddhism deny that there is any such thing or possibility as forgiveness. I remember a, a research scientist in my own university, uh, she came from Thailand, a very intelligent woman doing postdoctoral work in chemistry, and she asked if she could come and see me, uh, to talk about religion. She informed me that, uh, uh, she wasn't asking for information so she could get converted.
She wanted to know about Christianity so she could think about it and talk about it intelligently, you see, and they followed a long discussion, in the course of which I began to talk about forgiveness and what an important thing that is in my estimate, you see. I said I don't really need to pay a person to tell me, um, what is that I should be good. I know that on the whole, uh, and I should be good. I don't really need anybody to tell me I ought to be good. My problem is that I haven't been good, you see. So what do I do about that? And how can I find forgiveness, do you see, that will maintain my own standards and God's standards, that won't say sin doesn't matter, but, uh, I can find forgiveness that will satisfy my own values and God's, of course, more importantly.
To which he replied, there's no such thing as forgiveness. You see, I said, I happen to say in an analogy, if you as a mother, your child did something wrong, uh, you would, um, uh, be willing eventually to forgive that child. No, I certainly wouldn't, she said. Who am I to forgive a child or anybody? There's no such thing as forgiveness. You counsel a child not to do wrong, but, um, when the child does wrong, the child will have to bear its own load of consequences and suffer its karma, and that's the only way it can be removed, by actually suffering the results, the karma, uh, and the debt that incurred by the wrongdoing.
And the child will have to suffer it itself. No one can suffer it for it, and the child will suffer it in this life or in some subsequent i- i- uh, reincarnation, you see. No such thing as forgiveness. She's most indignant that there should be any such thing as forgiveness. And therefore, to say that all religions are leading to the same way and are really at heart preaching the same thing is, of course, factual nonsense. And incidentally, you wouldn't actually gain the esteem and respect of seriously minded people who hold to some other faith. If you try to make out that really we are all the same and leading in the same way, an Orthodox Jew who knew his stuff would be sorely disappointed if you compromised over the deity of Christ just to please him.
He would expect you to stand by your faith and regard you as horribly sincere if you didn't, you'll see. So we can pass, uh, be- beyond that, uh, uh, very quickly. It's mere popular talk and is very often contrary to the sheer facts. And then, of course, we must be honest in our response that all religions are equal. Uh, none is right, uh, uh, completely right or completely wrong. Uh, all are right. Uh, by stating the actual claims of our blessed Lord. They are exclusive, are they not? The New Testament affirms, no one comes to the Father but by me, says the Lord Jesus.
There is none other, in none other is there salvation, none other name under heaven whereby we must be saved. Now nowadays, that Christian response is becoming, uh, uh, distinctly disliked, and eh, even in Britain could eventually become dangerous. People in general regard this claim of Christianity to be insufferably arrogant. It is insulting, they say, to other faiths. How dare you tell a Jew that unless he accepts your Jesus Christ as God, that there's no hope of salvation for him. That's insufferably arrogant, you'll see, so they say.
And this, uh, exclusive idea of religion has produced repression and persecution and social unrest and violence and ignorance of the true nature of other world faiths, and is totally unacceptable and fundamentalist, you'll see. And the danger is, at least in Britain, because we are a pluralist society, and, uh, the Muslims are quick to complain at any infringement of their rights. But eventually laws will be passed to stop discrimination. And in university premises, you won't be able to say that Jesus is the only way of salvation, because that will be held to be an insult, say to Islam or or to Hinduism.
It is far from being an innocent little question. You'll see. And on the other hand too, in Christendom itself, uh, there's a growing, uh, contention that conversion, the attempt to convert, that is, sincere Jews, Hindus, Muslims to Christ, is both unnecessary and undesirable. It has long since been, since Vatican II at any rate, in my experience, the modern Catholic attitude to missionary work, that you don't need to convert sindu- sincere Hindus and Muslims. According to Bishop Leslie Newbigin, who served in the Church of South India for many years and had much, uh, philosophical debate with Hindus, and still, uh, uh, uh, insists as a Christian that Hindus need to be converted.
However high and lofty some of their philosophy is, they still need to be saved and converted, and there is salvation only in Christ. He was lecturing in my university some years ago and pointing out that modern Catholic, uh, theory of missions is that now sincere Muslims and Hindus ha- enjoy what they call baptism di- by desire, uh, meaning that so long as they are sincere, uh, God will accept them, do see. I said to one group of monks that was propounding this theory to me at one stage, I said, you mean to say that if people have never heard of Christ and they sincerely wish to please God and would receive Christ if they heard of him, uh, God will accept them.
You're not saying, are you, that if a Hindu knows of Christ and deliberately rejects him, he's all right so long as he's a sincere. They said, yes, we are. As long as he's a sincere Hindu, he doesn't need to accept Christ. Their theory is that the religions of the world are a series of concentric circles. The center point, of course, by definition, is the Pope, understandably. Uh, uh, the first circle around is, uh, Catholicism, of course. The second circle is Protestantism. The third circle is Judaism. The fourth is Islam, the fifth is Hinduism, the th- the sixth is Buddhism, then come the animists, and if there be any other such things, they come in the outer circles.
And that's how it should be and how it should be left. No one needs to convert from one circle to the other. It is, of course, gone a long way towards not the World Council of Churches, but the world join up of world religion. Many years ago now that I was invited to attend a congress of the world, of world, uh, uh, faiths, not the World Council of Churches, but the world faiths, and asked to participate and give a lecture. And at this congress, they had representatives of all the different religions in the world, and they put them on the stage, and the young people got silken threads and tied it all around them as a demonstration that all religions are one and the same, really, at heart, you see.
Uh, when I got the invitation, I honestly couldn't go. I had another, uh, engagement, and I wrote and said so, but I said, had I been free to come, what I would have liked to have known was, um, would I be allowed in the course of the conference to say that there is none other name under heaven given amongst men whereby you must be saved, you see. Well, my invitation was not extended beyond that. You'll see. Now, how shall we answer these things? I have included there what I call a modern popular fallacy. I don't propose to spend long a time on it. It is the notion that some people have that, uh, in the past, Christianity was the dominant religion in our society, and very few people knew much about other religions, and so they thought Christianity was the only, uh, true religion.
But now, in a purer society, we have come to know much, much, much more about other faiths, so that knowing more, we now can no longer honorably, honestly say that Christianity is the only decent religion, you see. And so they think that that's because of the spread of knowledge, that, uh, Christianity's can no, Christianity can can no longer, uh, maintain its exclusive claims. I point out in that second section, a modern popular fallacy, that of course this is built on a a a fallacy, a a a wrong idea. In the world of first century Christianity, the Christians were not ignorant of other world religions.
In the society in which any normal Greek or Roman lived, there were thousands of religions and gods of all kinds, shapes, and sizes. Mystery religions, classical religions, worship of the Olympian gods, worship of the nether gods, uh, objective religions, religions that offered you communion with the gods and a- and the God to come inside you, so that you were entheos, as they called it, enthusiastic, that is with the God inside you, theos in, entheos enthusiastic, God inside you. All kinds of religions. And when Christian- Christians proclaimed Jesus as the only way of salvation, it wasn't because they were ignorant of other religions.
It was because they knew all too much about other religions and the bankruptcy of other religions to put a soul right with God and to bring peace and acceptance with God. We should remember that in our modern age. Our modern age grows very parochial. People are forgetting the past. They forget, because of all our modern inventions, that when it comes to thinking, the ancients were just as intelligent as we are. And many of the things, ideas in philosophy that we think are modern, are in fact as old as old can be. And so, of course, it was with the Old Testament. When the Old Testament declares, look unto me and be you saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is none else.
It is not because the Hebrew prophets didn't know about other religions. They were surrounded with religions of all sorts and kinds, and what is worse, many of the Israelites were constantly sliding into idolatry and taking part and joining in the worship of these idolatrous deities. It was a protest against those many religions that Abraham was called out from among them and became a believer in the one true God. It was a protest right from the start, uh, uh, for which God raised up Israel to be a testimony against the idolatry, idolatrous interpretation of the universe, do you see?
When we go to Russia, we find the need of bringing this home to atheists in Russia, you'll see. Why should we read the Old Testament? Because it's unique in the Middle East. All the other nations involved in idolatry, the idolatrous interpretation of the universe. When the nations let go, lost their grip on the absolute basic fact truth that there is one God, and he is the transcendent Lord creator of the universe. When the nations do- rejected it, didn't like to retain God in their knowledge, they couldn't, uh, proceed to believe in nothing.
If you prick atheists, uh, a centimeter or two beneath the skin, you will find that they don't believe in nothing. It's very difficult to do. If you reject the true God, sooner or later you will make to yourself other gods. And so we pointed out to, we point out to the atheists in Russia that this is what the ancients did, and they deified the forces of nature, the storm god, the moon god, the sun god, uh, uh, and psychological urges within the human heart, and so forth. The god of reproduction, god of sex. Ah. And uh, it led to la- lamentable results, of course.
Then we say, but if you ask a, a modern atheist, what are his beliefs? What are, according to him, the powers that control our universe and control us? We say that, well, you'll find out that they believe the same as the old pagans. They don't keep idols in their drawing room up the corner, you know, watch them overnight. But if you ask an atheist, what are the ultimate powers that control the universe and control us human beings, brought us into existence, will bring us to our end, they will say the forces of nature. Energy, the strong atomic power, the weak atomic power, electromagnetism, gravity, anti-gravity, if there is such a thing, biological forces.
They don't call them gods, they might as well. They regard them as the ultimates in our universe that control everything. You'll see. And, uh, modern, uh, uh, modern atheism in that sense is not anything new. This idea of treating the forces of nature, the forces of the universe, as though they were the ultimate powers, that is idolatry. You'll see. And God raised up the nation of Israel when the other nations were sunk in the idolatrous interpretation of the universe. He raised them up as a protest against it and as a witness to the reality of the one true God creator.
The next thing I would want to say, and do say to folks of other faiths, that the Judeo-Christian claim that there is and can be only one true God creator is not a narrow-minded insult to people of other cultures. That is a point to be made. In our modern world, at least in my country, you so often hear it, that to say that, uh, your faith is an insult to the culture of other nations is not true. Well, it's not true in this sense. No one would dream of saying that you were narrow-minded if you insisted that the laws of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology are universal.
One and one make two, generally, the world through. There's no insult to insist on that, is it? Doesn't insult anybody's culture, you'll see. There happens to be only one universe as far as we are aware. There are some exotic, uh, cosmologists who think there might be alternative universes all over the place. No one has seen anyone yet, and as far as we are know, there is only one universe. Not an insult to anybody's culture to say so, is it? What is more, the pagan Greek philosophers, and here I rejoice in the opportunity to say something good about them. I gave my professional life to teaching the Greeks.
I mean, teaching Greek philosophy in drama and things. Also, the pagan Greek philosophers, the Platonists, Aristotelians, Stoics, proceeding as they did not by revelation but by the investigation of the universe, perceived that behind the vast diversities of nature, there must be what they call the One, or God. To insist that there is only one God, one Creator, is not a narrow-minded insult to people of other cultures. It's worth saying, if only to the government, when they are inclined to bring in laws that banishes your, you, forbids you for saying this in public places, that there is only one God in case you f- uh, offend the Hindus.
Do you see, even modern scientists search for the one grand unified theory that will explain the whole universe. It's instinct to the scientists to say, isn't it, there must be one grand unified theory accounting for the whole thing. Indeed, there are some that claim that certain forms of Hinduism, and I quote you the reference, and you can read the details, that certain forms of Hinduism, uh, are in some sense a form of monotheism. But leaving that now, passing on, I make the observation that even from a merely rational point of view, if there is only one God creator, and if that God is morally perfect, then he must show no favoritism in his judgment.
And that is precisely what the New Testament declares. I give you the references. God is no respecter of persons. There is one God of all the manifold nations of men, and salvation, therefore, if God is without prejudice, without partiality, salvation will be on the same terms for everybody. That's not an insult to anybody to insist upon it. Incidentally, as we pass by, a tremendous, uh, attack has been made on the gospel, and particularly missionary work, by social anthropologists. Now, I have some, uh, uh, social anthropologists that are my friends, so it's a very bad thing to say about anybody, isn't it, what you'll say.
But I remember walking, uh, through my hometown after having been absent for many years, and seeing a museum that I used to go to as a boy, so I went in to see what it was like. And there were the gi- giraffes, the elephants, and the hippopotamuses, and all the rest of them, you'll see, as dusty as they ever had been, and looking very bored. But there was a new section in this museum, and it was on culture and all the different cultural forms connected with the native religions. And you went by each case that showed you the paraphernalia and the dress and some of the rituals of all the different religions, uh, you'll see. And then there was a last showcase, and it merely had a lot of information typed up for the school children to read when they came with their teachers, uh, to see this exhibition.
And it said that unfortunately, at the end of the last century, uh, the Christian missionaries went out, were a very narrow-minded and unbalanced lot, who thought that their religion was the only way of salvation for the whole world, and they used their power to try and stamp out these beautiful cultures. And here is a showcase, and here would come class after class of schoolchildren to be taught about these other cultures, how magnificent they were, and learn the disastrous effect of Christian missionaries who were supposed to be unbalanced people and extremists and trying to convert everybody to their religion. They thought it was the only one.
Because that is so, it is worth pointing out now and again in a very Christian and gentlemanly and gentlewomanly fashion, you know, with charm and whatnot. But there are some things in culture that are bad. There are lots of things in English culture that are bad. But the culture that demanded widows to immolate themselves on the pyre of their deceased husband were very bad. And the cultures that would ostracize, if not eliminate, a woman for bearing twins, that were very bad. And that distasteful habit of cooking Englishmen and eating them. People must be very far gone to eat Englishmen, mustn't they?
Why not the, why not the more healthy flesh of the Americans? But anyway. And to make out that this is all wonderful, these cultures are marvelous, is absolute perverse. Cultures can be as sinful as anything else. And our modern culture, with its deliberate murder, like the pagans of little babies, though our, the ancients murdered them mostly just after they came out of the womb, our modern just before they do. Culture is not neutral, is it?
All cultures need to be tested by God's word, the creator's word, and redeemed. There are lots of lovely things in culture. Let's keep all that is lovely. Some is positively bad. The dispute, therefore, is not so much about is there one God or not, is about the nature of the one true God and the nature of his salvation. And here you have two divisions. The one is self-revelation of God. God has revealed himself. Spoke in times past to the fathers, to the prophets, at the end of these days has spoken in his son, has revealed himself to some extent in creation, revealed himself in his doing good to the nations and giving them fruitful seasons, but finally has revealed himself not only through Abraham and his posterity, but through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
That on the one side. And on the other, all religious and philosophic concepts of God constructed by man on the basis of his own reason and imagination. Now, I hasten to say that some ideas of God that men have come to by the use of their reason, some ideas are good. We should not forget it. When Paul was talking to Athenians on Mars Hill and wanted to show that their idolatry, idolatry was, was nonsense, intellectual nonsense. He reminded them of what their own poets had said, for we are also his offspring.
That was an inadequate statement of man's relation to God, but in as far as it went, it was true. Paul didn't quote it to contradict it, but, uh, used it as a basis to draw an implication. We are also his offering. Since then we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think God is like... Yes, you'll see. So not all ideas of God that men came to by reason were bad by definition. But the test of all, without which we could know nothing certain about God, is the revelation that God himself has made, both through Old Testament and New.
And here, it seems to me, it would be marvelously good tactics of us to preach as we do, but to preach it in this context, some of the tremendous excellences of the great revelation that God has given us through creation and through his word. What I mean by preaching it in this context, you will see, uh, in the things that are given us below. The one God is the creator of all nations. Acts seventeen twenty six, he made of one every nation of men, you'll see.
One God then, creator of all. Not only then are all nations of human beings made by one and the same creator, but they all spring from one and the same original human being he has made of one, that is Adam. Not only produced by the same creator, produced from the same original human parent. They are all made of the same stuff, therefore. This immediately outlaws all color bars and caste systems, for that matter. There is no super race. Been a good thing if Hitler had believed it, wouldn't he, what?
How many millions have died through belief in super races? There's nothing, then, offensive here against any culture, is there? You'll feel the redeeming power of the truth, putting man in his true value by the simple true doctrine of one creator making all mankind out of one original human being. All human beings are made by the one God in the image of the one God, and therefore all human life is equally sacred and inviable. Oh, think of the horrors when the Germans used in the early days to fly over to countries of a- of Africa and shoot the pygmies as game.
The curious notion at the, uh, uh, discovery of South America, when the explorers brought home, uh, to, uh, Europe in those far off days, the fifteen hundreds, brought people back from, uh, uh, South America, and Europe debated, did they have souls or didn't they? Were they animals or or truly human? If they didn't have souls, you could make slaves of them. Dear, dear. Supposedly Christian countries, even considering the matter. Uh, all human life is sacri- sac- sacred, therefore inviable. And secondly, all we have right not to be uh proud in the sense of sticking out our chests.
Well, we needn't be ashamed of this gospel, need we? Human beings are not the unfortunate creation of some lesser deity who mixed pure soul with unworthy matter. That was a notion of some of the Greek philosophers. It is the notion in many interpretations of Hinduism that there is one great creator, and he would never have created anything. He is pure soul. He wouldn't have created matter, but he created other lesser deities, and they also had powers of cre- uh, creatorial powers, and they created still lesser ones. And one stage, one of these unfortunate lesser ones, he hadn't been to Harvard, I think, he, uh, had the stupidity to go and create matter.
What a disaster. And then human beings with their soul, eh, eh, buried, incarcerated in matter. And that's the trouble. And we have to try and escape from matter and merge our souls with the infinite world soul. That's an insult to the human body, isn't it? That is an insult to the material creation around. We Christians have no need to be ashamed of our gospel, that puts such a, a wonderful worth on the human body. Matter is good. The human body is basically good. Things material are good.
I get a little nervous when I hear preachers denouncing materialism. We know what they mean, and accusing believers of materialism. What they mean is that some believers are driven by consumerism. That's a very different thing. Materialism is the false doctrine that says that in this universe there is nothing but matter. That is wrong. God is spirit. Man is more than matter. But, uh, there's nothing wrong with matter. As such, God made it. There will be eternally a new he- a new earth as there will be a new heaven. Oh, what a lovely thing it is to preach to man the beauty of the human body, the goodness of matter, and the fact that our salvation will involve eventually not the destruction of matter, but the redemption of the human body.
That's no insult to anybody, surely. The one God offers his salvation to all mankind and genuinely offers it. Old Testament, look unto me and be you saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God, there is none else. And the New Testament, God our Savior who wills that all men should be saved, for there is one God. Principle that our, that God does not show respect to persons. There's no distinction between Jew and Gentile. The same Lord is Lord of all. Let's not forget it. The nations can have gods galore, but God will claim to be their God.
He is the Lord of all. He made them anyway. And the same Lord over all is rich to all that ca- call upon him, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. There is one God then, and as our verse reminds us from the New Testament, one, uh, reconciliation with one God is made possible through the one mediator on the basis of the one sacrifice. Marvelous good news. There are not ten thousand and one deities that have to be placated and endless evil spirits. What a marvelous gospel this is. There's only one God, and there's only one sacrifice. Isn't that narrow-minded to say there's only one?
No, of course not. Why not? Because the one sacrifice is enough for everybody. That's why you don't need another one. If one checks pays off your check pays off your mortgage, do you find that an insult? Because I would like to have write a few other checks as well. And if you say one check is enough, that that no, no, no, no, that insults me. But don't be silly. If one check will pay the lot, you don't need any other checks. And if one sacrifice is enough, you don't need any other sacrifices. That's not narrow-mindedness. And the wonderful thing is, you'll find in all religions where they offer sacrifices, it's you paying God.
In the gospel that is revealed by God, it's not we ultimately that give the sacrifice, it's God himself that pays it. Marvelous gospel it is, liberating, freeing. There's no insult in it to anybody. The one true God revealed in the Bible is independent of the universe, shown by the fact that God didn't have a beginning. In the beginning, the Word already was. Whereas creation came to be, it did have a beginning. God is not part of the stuff of the universe, nor is the universe part of God, as in Hinduism, Buddhism, Stoicism, and some forms of modern cosmology.
It interests me to see how many modern physicists and cosmologists are coming back to the idea that there is an intelligence behind the universe, but their idea of that intelligence is that it's part of the stuff of the universe. That's a very old idea. The Stoic philosophers held that. There is reason behind the universe, but reason is part of the stuff of the universe. No, no, Christianity says not. The Old Testament says not. God is independent of his universe. In that sense, he doesn't need his universe. If I were hungry, I wouldn't tell you, says God. Doesn't need anything from us. That means you can't buy anything from God. Doesn't need your cash.
If, uh, you are righteous, what do you give him? You don't add to his coffers, or what does he receive from your hand? Who has first given to me that I should repay him, says God? Everything under heaven is mine. That has very important, uh, i- implications when it comes to salvation, as you see. By definition, therefore, you can't buy salvation from God. Salvation and acceptance with God cannot be paid for, bought, earned, or merited from God by the work of men's hands. It must, it is and must be a free gift from God. By definition, that must be so. How could you buy anything from God?
Salvation must be free, therefore, and independent of the works of men's hands. How that vividly contrasts with so many religious, uh, uh, uh, so many religions, where religion, whether in the crude form or the refined philosophical forms, is a question of either giving the gods something to placate them, or it is the work of your hands in perfecting yourself by your religious disciplines. When all is said and done, it is the work of your hands. The ancient Old Testament pilloried that idea, didn't it? Isaiah, with his beautiful sarcasm, or God through him, pictures a man who's making an idol, and this man is a great in technology, you see.
So how will he make his idol? Well, he'll cut down a tree, but not in it just an ill tree. No good making a god out of soft wood, is it? The wood might get eaten up by worms or something, kind of your god eaten up by worms and wood mites and things. Nor a tree that go rotten and corrupt. No, if you're looking for a god in life, you want something solid. Yes. Here's a man expressing his innate instinct. Man is looking for something solid, something reliable. This is the yearning of his heart. Ha. So he cuts down a tree that won't rot. It's going to be his god.
Then what he doesn't want is just an old bit of wood. Uh, I mean, it's got an aesthetic sense. Beauty to him is everything in life, if not everything, it's near everything. Beauty of music, beauty of art. So his God will have to be beautiful. So he gets out his compasses and he designs the design of it, whether it be standard, you know, conservative, or it's modern idealism, or the shape of something he can rave at when he gets down to worshiping it, you see. Halfway through he gets hungry. Well, there's some branches of this tree around, so he puts them on the fire and cooks his breakfast with them. Uh, but the rest of it he makes a god of, says Isaiah. Bit sarcastic, that, don't you think?
Anyway, then the man puts it in its place. Say somebody came and knocked it over. Wouldn't do if your god got knocked over, would it? So he makes chains and chains it down, you see. He's looking for security, stability, and security, and beauty. And having made it and put it in his place, he falls down and worships it. And what's he doing, says Isaiah? He's working, he's worshiping the work of his own hands. The things he desires, he thinks are valuable, but his own hands turn them into gods, and he worships them, and they are powerless to give him what he wants, as ultimately he is himself.
All the pathos of it. Isaiah, in another passage, God behind him, pictures a scene where the nation has been defeated, Babylon, and they're running away, you see, as hard as they can, been defeated by their foes, and they packed all their household belongings onto the household donkey, poor old beast, and uh, they're ready now to run off to escape the invading enemy when they run- turn around and there they're gods. Oh dear, can't leave your household gods behind, can you? So quickly as they can, they hoist the old gods off their pedestals and put them on the beast. Well, his legs are already trembling, loaded up with one or two gods as well.
He is- he's nearly collapsed, poor thing, you'll see. Instead of helping them to escape, their idols are a burden to them, make escape more difficult. That, says God, is the essence of idolatry. It's the work of your hands, you trying to save yourself, and if that's you, then you have to carry your gods. Oh, what a comment that is on religion. But religion as such is so often that man's effort to save himself. But if he, if man could save himself, he wouldn't need salvation, would he? He's got to the place in the mess he's in because he can't save himself.
How could the labor of his hands ever fulfill God's laws demand? And the glorious gospel is they don't have to. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Not an insult to anybody. You'll see. It is therefore a sad thing to hear. I don't know how you hear things in in your way, but uh, listening to broadcast services, as I do from time to time, to hear even Protestant churches, let alone the sacramentalist churches, as they offer what they call the, uh, the sacrifice of the Mass upon the altar.
The new liturgies will phrase it like this. First comes the offertory, when the people bring in the bread and the wine and offer it to God. And they say something to the effect, you see, blessed are you, Lord God of all creation. Through your goodness we have this bread to offer, which earth has given and human hands have made. It will become for us the very body and blood of Christ. Oh, how those words, how is it they don't shout in the ears of the people? What your hands have made is going to be taken by God and turned to the means of your salvation. That is idolatry, pure and simple, in the technical sense of the term.
And then, of course, there is the blessed hope of the gospel itself. How marvelously superior it is to what religion normally offers. It is not an uncertain hope for the future. It is true that salvation by faith and not by works certainly leads to moral effort and spiritual progress. Leads to it, but is not the condition of salvation. When a baby is born, the baby cries, yes? When the doctor or the midwife gets hold of the poor innocent infant, having done nobody any wrong, and holds it up by the legs and smacks it on the hindquarters for some unaccountable reason, and the baby gives out an a- an enormous yell, do you see?
And everybody's delighted to hear the baby cry. Be different later on, but here they're delighted because crying is the evidence that it's alive. It's not the condition, is it? Baby didn't get life by crying. Salvation by faith, yes, salvation is a gift. Salvation as a gift through faith leads to moral progress and endeavor. It's a bad thing if it doesn't, if there's no, because if there's no moral progress nor desire, then the evidence is lacking that the person was ever born again. But you see, our progress can never be the grounds of our acceptance with God.
And the question that therefore is to the point is, where along the line can a person know that he or she is accepted with God? Most religions can be graphically represented by a gate through which you enter at the beginning, a path along which you progress, and a gate at the end. You'll see. Uh, in most religions, the gate at the beginning is some initiatory, uh, ceremony or something, baptism, circumcision, or something of the kind, and you enter through that gate. Uh, in religion, that doesn't mean you're accepted with God forthwith.
You're simply in the running, you'll see. Then there is the pathway along which you're supposed to make progress. Then there's the final gate, which is the final judgment. And if you ask folks of that simple religious frame of mind, now, what point along that progress will you know whether you have been finally accepted by God? And their answer is you can't know until you pass the second gate. It's like our students in universities, isn't it? Well, I don't know how it is here, but in my part of the world, if you want a university degree, you first have to get into a university. You don't get one without. And getting into the university, you have to pass sundry examinations, hard or easy, who knows, do you see?
They who succeed in passing the examination get admitted to the university. They are not thereby given a degree. Nor can they be absolutely certain they will get a degree. Of course, we lecturers, we are very kindly people, all wonderful, and we go out of our way to help students, and none is more pleased than we are if they behave themselves and get a degree. But even we can't guarantee the student is going to pass. He can only be sure he's got the degree when he's passed the finals. And many people, and religion represents a, a, a man's position like that.
You enter into the religion by some initiatory process through the first gate. Then there's the lo- r- uh, the road of effort, trying to improve yourself by the help of the church or the gurus or whatever, your self-discipline. But then there's, you can't be sure that you've succeeded until the final gate. Therein lies the immense difference between that and the gospel of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, there is an introductory gate. By me, if any man enter, he shall be saved. Yes, there is a pathway. The gospel is not that you just trust Christ today and live as you like for the rest of your life, and it doesn't matter how you live.
No, there is a pathway of spiritual progress. But if you raise the question, at what point is acceptance with God to be had? Is it after the final judgment, the judgment seat of Christ? No, no, says scripture. Being justified by faith, the moment you are justified, you have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord, now and forever. A magnificent news, isn't it? Why should we be ashamed of the gospel of Christ? It is the, uh, power of God to salvation.
And the question, salvation in, in question? Here again, we've nothing to be ashamed of, have we? Not escape from the body, as in Platonism and Hinduism and Buddhism. That is not the goal. It is true that absent from the body, a believer is present with the Lord, but in a condition that Paul describes as being naked. And he would prefer to be clothed upon with the body that is from heaven. The final goal of salvation in this respect is not the destruction of the body, but its redemption. What a magnificent gospel.
For the sake of you, my dear, and you, and you, and you. The second person of the Trinity, who originally was not human, has become human and taken a human body. In that body he died and was buried, but he rose again with a glorified body, and to all eternity the second person of the Trinity, blessed be his name, will remain human with a glorified human body forever. Oh, what a compliment God himself has paid to the human body. Nothing to be ashamed of this.
And it's not the loss of self either, as in forms of Hinduism and Buddhism, where the self is submerged in the universal soul. The truth is it will be in the body of Christ, no longer completely an independent, solitary, individual personality, but a human redeemed personality joined in one spirit with all other members in the body of Christ, but retaining personal identity, conform body, soul, and spirit, conform to the image of God's dear Son. And as far as the universe is concerned.
Matter is not an illusion. It's good for Christianity to blow its trumpet sometimes, and for the Old Testament likewise. Matter is not an illusion, as in Christian science, nor eternal, as in the ancient doctrines of Epicureanism. Nor is the material universe an unending cycle like a wheel, as in Hinduism, going round forever and getting nowhere. Nor is the universe, the universe oscillating, increasing, decreasing, and rebounding, as in some modern theories, or indeed in some sense in ancient stoicism.
Nor is ether nature doomed to eventual distinction, as in much hopeless atheism. You're tempted to think that we're the only sane people under the sun, wouldn't you think so? In our attitude to the goodness of the universe ultimately around us. Present Earth is not the best of all possible worlds, as Stoics thought and taught. But while it has fallen and groans, and we who have the first fruits of the spirit groan within ourselves. Something has gone catastrophically wrong. But the end is not p- pessimism or despair. Creation herself shall be delivered from her bondage to corruption.
There shall be a new heaven and a new earth. This is our gospel, and only some of it, of course, as, uh, as, uh, uh, represented to us in God's revealed world. We have no need to be ashamed of it. No need to think that we are being fascist or domineering over other cultures. This is God's revelation. We didn't invent it. We take no credit for it. It's not because the Americans were specifically clever in this direction and they invented Christianity as a Western religion. No, no, no. We were given it, revealed by God, who loves all his creatures.
It is none of our credit. It is for all mankind. Now I have said, I, uh, that, um, the difference is basically between those who invent religion by dint of use of their intellect, their moral thinking, their philosophy, or whatever means they use, on the one hand, and reveal truth on the other. There are two notable exceptions, aren't there? One is Judaism, and one is Islam. I just make a comment before we end this session on Islam. Islam believes that it is a religion revealed by God.
As you know, it regards itself as superior both to Christianity and to Judaism. So it has a specially revealed religion, revealed to the prophet, Tusi. What should we say about that then? It claims to be God's revealed truth. Well, I'm no expert in Islam, nor a missionary to to uh uh uh Muslims, to say. Uh, uh, this I notice, that the Quran advises all the followers of the Prophet to respect the Old Testament and to respect the people of the book, that is the Jews. And when they want to know something about the meaning of the book, they ought to consult the Jews, as they were the people to whom God gave it.
And that the prophet bad people respect the Injeel. That is the gospel preached by the Christians, of course. The book, the Bible, New Testament. They claim, of course, that their revelation to the prophet is superior. But they get that far, they are prepared to admit Old Testament came from God. They do hold, however, that, uh, you cannot be sure of the grace of God. I was in, uh, Jordan just, uh, nearly two years ago, uh, with a couple from our church who are there as doctors, or the man is, thus making an entree into the country for his witness for the Lord.
And when I went to visit them, they introduced me to a number of their colleagues in medicine, uh, who are Muslims, and very gracious men they were, very willing to talk, none of the bitter rancor that sometimes you find, you see. They, one of them said, oh yes, I'm saved by grace, it's by God's grace. I said, marvelous. I said, what is his grace like exactly? Uh, is it, so to speak, reliable? Can you know of it in advance, whether you will be saved and God will exercise the grace or he won't be? Well, no, he said, you can't know in advance. Here we are. This is religion. Talking, however, to other medics, I raised the question of the art life.
How did they, as as medical scientists, define life? They said they didn't try. God made life, and it's not for us to interfere in that and try and find out. They were just medics, and one thing borrowed another. So they said, you know, we we we all believe the same thing. We shouldn't be, we shouldn't be persecuting each other like they do in some Muslim countries, they said. We all religion are the same, really. We're all aiming the same end, aren't we? I said, that's marvelous if we are. Uh, do see, they said, yes. Only you Christians, the trouble is you've changed the Bible. Oh, I said, is that so? Yes. Because you will have it that Jesus died on the cross, won't you? And he didn't die on the cross.
You changed the New Testament to say that Jesus did die on the cross. Whereas things like the Gospel of Thomas and those kind of, uh, uh, gospels, they say he didn't, and God substituted somebody else so that the prophet Jesus didn't die on the cross. I said, is that so? We changed the Bible. So I said, I'll tell you what, if you'll allow me, and I fished out my little Bible from my pocket. I said, I'd like to read you something. This comes, uh, from a book written, uh, hmm, seven, eight hundred years before Christ. I said, we Christians didn't write this bit. And we certainly haven't changed it. I'd like to read it to you, if I may.
I read, of course, from Isaiah fifty three: He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Said one doctor, you're going to say that's Jesus, aren't you? I said, well, I was eventually, but not just yet. I was just going to point out that we Christians didn't write it, you see. And we certainly haven't changed it. And it was written these long centuries before Jesus was born. And listen to it.
You believe in the book of the Old Testament, don't you? And the people of the book, you Muslims? And this is God telling us centuries in advance what the solution to the problem of human sin is. I said it's like those Old Testament sacrifices. You know, when people sin, they're allowed to bring a sacrifice. They said, yes, but what good did those animals do? I said, precisely, precisely, they did no good whatsoever, really. As another psalm tells us in the Old Testament, and I read them Psalm forty, Sacrifices and not burnt offerings I would not require. Then I said, lo, I come. I said, you know, this was God centuries before showing what his solution to the problem of sin would be, the offering of the great sacrifice of the Son of God himself for our sin.
Mm-hmm. Yes. Gone astray, haven't they? But here's a way to get at them without denying what they're claiming. Except in this, that the Old Testament prophesied the death of the Messiah for our sins. Therein is the difference. It's a standard difference between God's revealed salvation and religion thought up by men. Let's pray before we break. Bless our meditations, we beseech thee, Lord, that given an understanding a little more deeply of the world's problems and all its efforts to find peace and salvation, we may come to a a greater and enhanced appreciation of the glory of thy gospel, and filled with the sense of the majesty and wealth of thy gospel, grant us to be impelled by the compassions of Christ to go out to preach it to men and women that sincerely seek, but hitherto have not found their way through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
