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A wonderfully good morning to you all. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, sir, for your kind welcome, and all of you for the invitation and the honor of being asked to come and address you this morning. Let me first, I think, answer a few of your unspoken questions. It is my experience when a visitor comes to a gathering like this, certain questions fly around people's heads, do you see, and are apt to get into the way of what is subsequently said until those unspoken questions are answered. Well, let me answer some of them. No, I am not an Irishman.
I cannot claim that dignity. It is not my fault, of course. I was born in England and I'm an Englishman. Yet I'm not just an ordinary Englishman, run-of-the-mill type. I'm what the Irish call an improved Englishman, because I have lived in Ireland for forty-plus plus years. In fact, a little bit more Irish than the Irish themselves. Yes, I am a Christian. Not a very good one, but a Christian nonetheless, by the grace of God. No, I'm not a professional theologian. Eh, I am by profession a classicist, and for many years a student and a teacher of Greek and Latin languages, Greek and Latin languages, and Greek and Latin literature.
And in addition, some of the philosophers from an historical point of view. I found the Greek literature absorbingly interesting, particularly the tragedies, because in them, unlike some modern, uh, equivalents, here were men who were trying to think through some of the very big issues that life raises for us. Whether, for instance, we are merely machines with no free will, and everything is determined. Or whether, in fact, we do have free will. And whether this universe is just an accidental thing, and everything happens by chance, you see.
I am particularly proud as a classicist of some of the early philosophers, particularly what we call in the trade the natural philosophers. For in Europe, some five hundred years before Christ and then on, there rose in Greece and Ionia, western Sicily and Italy, men who were no longer content to sit there and see the sun get up every day and take it for granted. They wanted to know what this universe was about, how it worked, what it was made of. It's extraordinary how some people, not you of course, but how some people can go through life and not really ask themselves the big questions, what this universe is all about, and why are we here anyway, do you see?
So, I was a student of that too, of Plato and the, uh, Stoics and the Epicureans. I'm very interested as a Christian to notice that the historian Luke, in his record that we call the Acts of the Apostles, tells us that on one occasion, Paul, the Christian apostle, was in Athens, talking, of course, as he usually did, about our Lord Jesus Christ, his life and death and resurrection. When he was accosted by some of these philosophers, and particularly members of the school of the Stoics and Epicureans, and they wanted to know what on earth he was talking about and what he meant by talking about Jesus and the resurrection, do you see?
And so they invited him to come and meet them, and he went to the court of the Areopagus and told them and spoke to them about Jesus Christ. Presently, I'm going to read to you, if you will bear it, some of the things he said to those philosophers. But let me tell you a bit more about those philosophers, so you'll see how it makes sense what Paul said to them. I say I'm proud of them because, oh, somewhere about five hundred centuries before Christ, some of these men that were trying to think through what the universe is made of and what makes it work and go, invented the atomic theory.
Some of you young folks may think that the atomic theory is a modern invention. Well, far from it. In times BC, Leucippus and Democritus were already inventing the atomic theory, that everything we can see is composed of tiny atoms that you can't see. Well, of course, we've improved on that since, haven't we? They call them atoms, saying that you can't split them. Well, we know that atoms can be split, but that merely puts the problem a little bit backward, doesn't it? Because inside the atoms are nucleus, and inside the nucleus are quarks and things, whatever they are. Do you see? Marvelous fun, isn't it, finding out what the universe is made of and how it works.
I remember friends of mine who boys were given watches, and nothing would s- satisfy them but taking the watches to bits to see how it worked. Whether it ever worked again, they didn't care, you'll see. Well, that was that, you'll see. And indeed, around five BC, there were those who questioned the notion that the sun goes round the earth, and tended to think that, uh, the earth wasn't the center of our solar system, and that the earth went round the sun. That wasn't bad going for five hundred BC odd, was it? Mm. You know, some people think that the Bible was written in an unscientific age, when men believed in a three-decker universe with heaven up here and earth in the middle and hell somewhere beneath Australia.
But of course they, the Bible wasn't written in such an age, you'll see. Long since Eratosthenes and so on had measured the distance between the earth and the moon. And according to their predictions, Julius Caesar had altered the calendar. It's quite false to think that the Bible was written in an unscientific age, and Luke, whose history we shall read in a moment, was a doctor, of course, trained in the medical science of the day. Where were we? Oh, I was talking about, yes, s- uh, Stoics and thi- uh, Leucippus and Democritus and how they invented the atomic theory. But you see, they weren't just interested, these men, in how the universe works.
They were, some of them, even more interested in what we human beings are here for. What's the point of living, they said? What are we meant to be aiming at? The Latins, when they thought of that topic, what is the real goal in life, what should be life's main purpose, called it in their Latin tongue the summum bonum. Well, don't you worry about that, but I might be asking you whether you have a summum bonum. You've got as far as thinking that in the year two thousand and one? You got clear in your mind what life is all about.
What are we meant to be at? What is it for? These philosophers, you see, said to themselves, whatever it is, this great purpose in life that we're meant to be aiming at, it must be something, as they put it, as an end in itself, and not just a means to some other end. Well, let me tell you what they meant, or illustrate it at any rate. We classicists, you know, who studied the classics in school and university, we used to be have our legs pulled by the doctors and the scientists, and they said, you lot of classicists, what do you think you're at?
You go up to university to study Greek and Latin so that you can come down to the schools and teach boys and girls Greek and Latin, so that they can go to university and read Greek and Latin, so that they can come down to the schools and teach Greek and Latin. We were going round in circles, wasn't it? And the scientists thought they had a point, particularly the doctors. But you could turn it on the doctors, couldn't you? They come up to university or whatever they do and learn to, to, to, to, um, uh, uh, cure our bodies, see after our bodies and make our bodies go. That's very kind of them and good. We're all, uh, marvelously grateful to them. But then the question arises, why have bodies?
Or what we are meant to do with them? You'll say if a man has a car, we are very odd if he spent all his time titivating it up and putting it right and cleaning the plugs and adjusting the petrol and all this kind of thing, and never went anywhere in the car. The mechanics are jolly helpful keeping the thing going, but that raises the question, what is it for? Where's it meant to be going? All thanks to the doctors for keeping our bodies in trim, but then raises a point, doesn't it? What is life for? Perhaps a young man will say to me now, well, we haven't time to think about that way.
Our studies are so, uh, demanding. We've got to study hard to get our exams in computers or electricity or something, and uh, we haven't time to think about those things. I see. Why do you have to study so hard? Well, you say I want to get a good degree. Oh? What do you want to get a good degree for? Well, you say I want to get a good job. Oh, I see. A well-paid job? Yes. Ah. Why, why do you want a well-paid job? Well, you say I hope to get married and uh, have a home, have a wife, you see, and have children, and it's very expensive bringing up children. Oh yes, I think it is. Uh, why is it so expensive?
Well, you say, I want them to go to a good school and uh, to some college and get a qualification. What for? Well, so they can get a good job. Why do they need a good job? Well, they hope to get married and have children. Oh, I see. Um, that's expensive, and they want enough, uh, money to... Oh, I see. We're going round in circles, aren't we? You see, ladies and gentlemen, if we step aside from the old whirly gig of life for a moment, there is this big question, isn't it? What are we here for? Have we got it straight in our sights?
What is the real purpose of life? If you would ask the st- the Epicureans, these philosophers chaps, if you would ask these, uh, Epicureans, what is the purpose of life, the thing to aim at in life, they said it was pleasure. Now, they didn't mean getting drunk or excesses in any way or any kind of debauchery. They meant the chief aim in life was so to live that the whole thing is pleasurable, calm, not excited, not troubled by worries and anxieties and that kind of thing. That's the best life to go in for. So generally they stayed out of politics and trade because they can be distressing and give you ulcers.
And so they, uh, they aimed at pleasure, Julesy. Spent most of their time philosophizing in what came to be known as the garden. Gentle souls on the whole they were, but that was their aim. There are many people in life whose aim is precisely that, isn't it still? Would it be yours by any chance? That the main end of life is simply pleasure? Enjoyment. Well, I wish you tons of it. But we can't hide it from our fa- our our minds, can we?
That sometimes life can be very far from pleasurable. Enjoy it while it lasts, people say. You know, you can enjoy an ice cream even though you know it isn't going to last forever. Okay. But for many people, life isn't even an ice cream, is it? And life has its pains and problems. Is pleasure enough for the goal in life? And what hope is there beyond it? Has life itself, when we come to its end, has life itself some goal?
Is it just the grave? The Epicureans said yes, there was nothing beyond the grave. They said they could prove it to you by their science. They said, you see, there's nothing in this universe but atoms and space. And everything, including human beings, are made of atoms. Part of that's true. And they said, what happens when you die is the atoms come adrift and come apart, you see. And some of the atoms fall into the ground and grow up as grass, and then the cows eat the grass, and uh, where are you?
As for man's soul, they says, well, it's made of atoms as well. When you die, it comes to bits, and you don't survive death. They like to think that. And there are many people still today, aren't there, who like to think that, that that's all we are. And when we die, that's it. Finish. No hope beyond the grave. I'll tell you why some of the ancients, uh, Epicureans like that point of view. There was a Roman poet at one stage, his name was Lucretius, and he had embraced this atomic theory.
That's jolly good. But I'll tell you why he liked it, because, uh, uh, we know because he wrote five books of poems, if you please, on the atomic theory. Ha. I suppose some people read them. And he tells us in the beginning why he liked this theory. He says, you see, it proves that when you die, that's a finish. There is no judgment to come. No God to be feared who will call you to account. No heaven, of course. But more important to his point of view, no hell.
There are many people that hold the same prejudice, aren't there? They hope science has proved that when we die, there's nothing left. Because if there is a future beyond the grave, their conscience tells them that they may well have to give an account of themselves for the way they have behaved and give an account to their creator. That's a serious point that these philosophers raised, isn't it?
It's with us still. It makes me, and it should make you, of course. Ask yourself the question. When I die, shall I just be wiped out? Or shall I be called to meet my maker and account to him for what I have done in my life. Well, let's think, uh, about the opposites. These were Epicureans. Let's think about the Stoics. What about them? Uh, they too had their theories about the universe.
And they had their summum bonum. You remember that, don't you? It's what you're meant to be aiming at in life. And they said these Epicureans were nonsense. I fancy any intelligent person ever thinking that pleasure is the main thing to aim at in life. That seems to them to be very unworthy. I think sometimes we agree with them, don't we? We feel that merely enjoying yourself, okay, let's enjoy ourselves, but we feel that human beings are more important than mere entertainment and enjoying yourself. When the Stoics looked at the universe and saw the marvel of the way it's designed, they of course didn't know as much as we know now about the human body and the human cell.
The more science tells us about that, the more the wonder grows, doesn't it? The sheer fantastic design of the human cell, let alone the rest of the human body and the brain. And when the Stoics thought about, uh, the universe and thought its design, they said, you know, there must be an intelligence behind the universe. They were right, of course, weren't they? Alas, they were wrong in this, that they then concluded that the intelligence is merely part of the stuff of the universe. In other words, no God supreme.
Because they felt that the universe was a result of intelligent design, they had to believe that everything that happened was planned by this intelligence. Everything in life goes according to reason, they said. And then they got really muddled up. Because they had to believe that all the very bad things that happened are also designed by the intelligence behind the universe. And ah, the goal we should be aiming at, they said, is to live according to reason. Ah, there are some folks to whom that appeals.
Logic, none of this old entertainment stuff, sheer logic. That's how you ought to guide life. But it landed the Stoics in a muddle. They said if you saw a child drown, beginning to drown in a river, it would be an intelligent thing, a reasonable thing, to try to save the child. But if in spite of your effort the child got drowned, you mustn't grieve over it. Because this has been caused by the great intelligence behind the universe. And if you they had seen six million Jews about to be gassed by Adolf Hitler, they would have said it's a reasonable thing to try and stop it, but if you can't stop it, don't you grieve over it.
Because that also has been designed by the intelligence behind the universe. And our business is to agree with that reason and live according to reason. They were hard granite-like figures, were stoics. They wouldn't allow themselves to grieve, not over the b- uh, the loss of their loved ones. They had to believe that this world is the best of all possible worlds. That isn't true, is it? That is not the Christian view, ladies and gentlemen, anyway. This world, according to the Bible, has been spoiled by malevolent powers that have induced men and women to disobey God, to try to live independently of God, and go their own way, rather than the serving the Creator.
And that has led to endless tears and frustrations, and a broken world. The Bible says, to those that love God, that are called according to his purpose, God will work all things together for good. For those who trust Christ, God is able to make all of life, its sorrows as well as its joys. Under his skillful ability, God is able to make all things work together for good. But the Bible doesn't hold this present world is the best of all possible worlds. Indeed not. The Bible speaks, uh, you know, very down to earth realistically.
The whole of creation, it says, groans in travail until now. But there is hope, says the Bible. One day even creation shall be delivered from her bondage to futility and corruption. And of course, the Bible holds out hope for the individual. There shall be a resurrection of the dead, and more of that's not. But ask the Stoics, if you would ask them, what hope have you for life after death? What hope for the universe? None, they would have said.
Some of them got a view, a very funny view to us, that the universe is going round in cycles. And one day the whole thing will go up in flames and then start again, and everything that has happened hitherto will happen exactly the same again. Going round in circles. Isn't that a funny thing? How so many people's lives, if you start to think, amount to this, that they're just going round in circles. They have no ultimate hope. It was to men like that, Stoics and Epicureans, that Paul was invited to explain the Christian gospel.
And I'm now going to read to you, if you care to listen, if you want to find it in the Bible itself, it's the Acts of the Apostles and chapter seventeen. Acts of the Apostles, chapter seventeen. And I begin to read in verse twenty two. My translation is an old translation because I'm an old man, and you younger folks, modern, you'll have to put up with me, unfortunately. But here it is. Acts seventeen, chapter, uh, verse two. Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, you men of Athens, in all things I perceive that you are somewhat superstitious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, to the unknown God.
What therefore you worship in ignorance, this set I forth unto you. The God that made the world and all things therein, he being Lord of heaven and earth, dwells not in temples made with hands, neither is he served by men's hands as though he needed anything. Seeing he himself giveth to all life and breath and all things, and he made of one every nation of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons and the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek after God, if happily they might feel after him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
For in him we live and move and have our being, as certain even of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring. Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone, graven by art and device of man. The times of this ignorance, therefore, God overlooked. But now he commands men that they should all everywhere repent, inasmuch as he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
And if we were to examine what Paul said in detail and think what lies behind it, we shall very clearly see how he knew what the Stoics believed and what the Epicureans believed, and was addressing the Christ- Christian gospel to these pagan philosophers in a way that would make sense to them. We hadn't the time to do that this morning here. So I select from what he said four salient points. One, what is God like? What is the true God like? And the first point that Paul makes is that God is personal.
He is a person. Pointing to the old idols around the place, he said, you know, we oughtn't to think that the Godhead is like silver, gold, or stone, or wood, or idols carved by man. Why should we not think that? Because, says Paul, we are his offspring, in the sense that all we are creatures of God. And because we are God's creatures, you can argue certain things about God from what we know of ourselves. Madam, you've often seen the sun up in the sky, haven't you? I'm not flattering you.
I'd say it of myself even, without any pride. My little brain is very small. You could get it inside a shoebox. And the sun is tremendous. My little brain is more significant than the sun. The sun is so much gas, you know. Huh. The sun doesn't know I'm here. It would shine a bit more if it did. Eh, do see. I know the sun is there. Yes. The sun doesn't know how I work. Thanks to the scientists, I know a bit about how the sun works.
And I know, and you know it too, don't you? We are far more significant than the sun. Why? Because the sun is just non-personal matter. We're more than that, aren't we? We are persons. And no good talking to your car if it refuses to go and say, look here, car, get going and kick it. Well, it might work, but not, not for any good reason. Because a car isn't a person. Huh? We are persons, aren't we? You could take all the galaxies in the sky, thousands of millions of them, without hesitation, I say, madam, sir, you are far more significant than any one of them or all of them put together.
They are just stuff, impersonal stuff. And we know it in our bones that people, human beings, are persons, and persons are more significant than mere matter. And if we, God's creatures, are persons, it would be foolish to imagine that God is less than personal. More than personal, yes, but person. And having made us as persons, he made us as persons that can have fellowship with God. That is the first magnificent thing about creation.
Made by God, who made us as persons, that we might be able to have personal fellowship with him, and he with us. And there lies the wonderful claim of Jesus Christ, our Lord. He says he can give us eternal life, and he finds it as this, not merely existing forever. This is eternal life, says he, that men and women may know thee, the true and living God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. The next thing Paul talked about to them was the way God has made and runs this universe, and how he has made us, and how we tick.
Was it true, as the Stoics said, that everything is fixed, so that we have no free will? Some people like to think that, don't they? I can't help how I behave. God made me, that's his fault if I don't go right. Everything is fixed. Que sera, sera. What is going to be is going to be, there's nothing we can do about it. That isn't true. Certainly God has made us, made the systems of our body, that some of them are automatic, and overrules our circumstances.
That is perfectly true. Not to put too fine a point on it, ladies and gentlemen, your presence here this morning is not by chance either. For God, it says, says Paul, has appointed the bounds of our habitation. God has overruled the timing of our birth, the place of our birth. He watches over our circumstances, and behind the scenes he orders things. What for? How about listen to the next thing. He's appointed the bounds of our habitation if we might seek after him. Paul uses a very vivid word.
He uses a word like a blind man groping for something. There must be something there, and he's sort of feeling for it. You know, even the atheist sometimes gets that feeling. As he looks at the universe around him, the atheist gets an uncomfortable feeling. There must be something, someone there. When Francis Crick, the discoverer of DNA, wrote about the marvels of the cell, he said it's... he warned his fellow scientists. He said, the apparent design of it is so overwhelming that you'll get the impression it was deliberately designed if you weren't careful.
Now we have the sense that there's something, and not something, only someone there. But notice what Paul told them. Yes, God fixes, God overrules our circumstances, and has set the scene and set the stage, and given us minds as well as bodies. But for this purpose, and here comes our free will, that we might seek after him. We're not computers, you know. I don't know, sir, if your computer at home rushes to the door when you come in and says, I've been looking for you all day or something.
Perhaps they do, they can get machines like that, but we're not computers. God has done us the honor of giving us free will and expects us to seek him. You see, if you came home, and every time you came home from your work, you found a glorious bunch of flowers on the table, said good wishes, but nobody signed it. And this kept on happening every week, a bunch of beautiful flowers on your table. Good wishes, nobody signed it. What would your reaction be?
Would you say, well, that's one of those things, you know, perhaps it fell through the window, it's all by chance. You wouldn't, would you? You would be consumed with interest. Who on earth is putting these flowers here, and how did they get in the window or the door, or what happened? And how do they happen to know me, and who is it? And you would want to seek, wouldn't you? With the evidence around us of creation that there is a God, and the evidence of design, God expects us to turn round and seek. Seek you the Lord, says Holy Scripture.
Oh, pray don't say I can't be bothered, I'm not interested. You're not interested to find your creator. You're just not interested in your creator. That is cardinal sin number one. To be a creature of God and not be interested enough to seek him and find him. It is the charge, number one charge, that the God of heaven, personal, he expects us to think, to seek him.
Thirdly, he's a God that one day is going to judge the world. Times of his ignorance he overlooked, but now he commands all men everywhere to repent because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he has appointed, even Jesus Christ, of which he's given us assurance that he has raised Christ from the dead. There's going to be a day of judgment. I wonder how you react to that, sir, madam. You say, now you are getting very gloomy, Mr. Lecturer, talking about the day of judgment. Are you some Jeremiah or something?
It's interesting that you should find the talk of the day of judgment gloomy. When you read some of the Old Testament poets and prophets, you know, and they thought of the prospect of a coming judgment, they've got to clap their hands. And in their poetic language, they say, oh, you trees and you mountains and you, you lakes, clap your hands, for the Lord cometh. He comes to judge the world in righteousness. They found it marvelously exhilarating, the thought there's going to be a, a coming judgment. Don't you really? The last century has seen some horrors, hasn't it?
To name the most colorful of them, Hitler with his sixty million Jews gassed and the multi-millions dying through the world, uh, World War II. Stalin with his elimination of more millions, sixty plus millions. Pol Pot slaughtering all the intellectuals because he didn't happen to like intellectuals. And Chairman Mao. And Ceaușescu. Not to talk about that half madman Enver Hoxha of Albania. What do you think about that? Do you just lift up your hands and say, I can't help it, it's over now, let's forget it?
When you think of those millions unjustly persecuted and executed, wouldn't you be glad if there could be proved to you there's going to come a day of judgment when those wrongs can be put right? Or are you on the side of wrong? Do you ultimately say that wrong doesn't matter? Suppose it had been your mother, sir, gassed in Hitler's gas chambers. Would you simply say, well, she's dead now and that nothing could be done about it, and let's forget it and enjoy ourselves while life lasts? Does your moral conscience say to you that such activity ought to be punished? And if there's a God in heaven who really loves humanity, he will one day call those people to judgment and deal with them.
Which side are you on? God has given assurance that when Jesus Christ was so unjustly executed and murdered by sinful men at Calvary, that wasn't the end. There's going to be a day of judgment, you may be sure. We haven't seen the last of Jesus Christ, God's son, yet. If this world is a moral world, if our moral judgments as human beings can be relied upon, and that sense of morality comes from our Creator, you can be utterly sure there's going to be a day of judgment. And God has given assurance that he has reversed what men did to Christ at Calvary, raised him from the dead.
Why is it, do you think, that some people, when they hear of the final judgment, don't clap their hands and shout hurrah. I think I know. Because the Bible tells us, and our own conscience says so, doesn't it? That if God starts to judge, it won't be just Hitler he judges, will it? I too have sinned. I too have broken God's law. And conscience and the Bible combine to tell us that after death comes the judgment.
It's a serious thing, isn't it? The great destination of life is to meet our Creator. What shall happen to me then? All the wonder of this, the Bible says, it is appointed to men once to die, and after that the judgment. But the Bible doesn't just say that, does it? It says, as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after that the judgment.
So Christ, God's son, was once offered, sacrificed, Died. to bear the sin of many. That is the gospel. Creatures of God. Made to live and serve God. We have turned each one to his own way. That's the charge. Not that we've murdered our mother-in-laws or robbed banks, bashed policemen, or committed unnatural vice.
The heart of the matter is this. We were made by a creator to serve his pleasure and will. We have turned, says the scripture, all we like sheep have gone astray, turned everyone to his own way. Is that serious? I remember just after the war, being on a train journey in England, food was short, and in my compartment there was a young man. I was young too, of course, eh, and uh, I shared my sandwiches with him, and he shared his coffee with me, and we got to talking, and eventually I happened to say something about sin or something, and he said, ah, sin, he said, that's a silly term, that is.
I don't think anything about sin at all. Well, he said, is that so, old boy? Well, yes, he thought that was stupid. So I changed the subject. I said, old chap, would you think you were ever clever enough to make a motor car? Yes, he thought perhaps he would. I said, suppose you made a car, old chap, and five times out of s- five times out of ten, when you sat in the driving seat and you turned the steering wheel one way, the car went another way. What would you do with that? He said, I'd scrap it. I said, I thought you would. I said, but ah, wait a minute, old chap. Suppose nine times out of ten, if the car went where you wanted it to go, but once in every ten times it took no notice of you and went where it wanted to go itself.
What would you do? He said, I'd scrap that too. If I made a car, I should want the car to go hundred percent times where I wanted it to go, or I should scrap it. We were made to do God's will. The trouble is that we've gone our own way. We haven't even sought him very often. I said, old chap, you better be very careful that God doesn't put you on the scrap heap of eternity.
Ah, but then listen to the gospel. As it is appointed unto men once to die, and after death the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. There's a possibility of reconciliation, of putting the account right, of being forgiven, of receiving eternal life, becoming a child of God, indwelt by God's spirit, with the absolute certain hope that when life ends, we shall be with the Savior, shall see him and be like him. What are the terms?
Repentance, of course. But to make things clear, Paul said one thing more. God, being the author of everything we have, is not served by men's hands as though he needed anything. What for many people makes what they think of as religion hard is they have the impression that you have to earn your salvation. You have to buy heaven, so to speak, by the good works you do, and they're jolly hard to do. That, of course, is false. You couldn't buy anything from God. He's not in business. He doesn't sell salvation to the best behaved.
We've all sinned, he says. He doesn't need us to pay him anything. And the magnificence of salvation is that it is free, just like our physical birth was free. We did nothing to earn our physical birth, did we? Don't remember doing it myself. And salvation is likewise absolutely free. The wages of sin is death, but says God, the free, the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. If God made you pay for salvation, he would be ashamed of himself.
He's God. We've nothing to pay him with. But he wants our repentance. He wants us to seek him. He wants us to find him. And his hands are outstretched towards us as we come with the offer of forgiveness and peace and pardon and love and salvation and a certain hope for all eternity.
