The Lie Many Christians Believe – But It’s Not In The Bible | Rc Sproul Sermons On Prayer

When I was a little boy, I was a connoisseur of opera music. I had some cultural tastes and a somewhat precociously advanced ear for, uh, that sort of music. I learned it by listening carefully to the radio. This, of course, was the days before television. And I remember the first, uh, piece of opera music that I learned to love was the William Tell Overture because it introduced my favorite radio program, The Lone Ranger. [laughter] You remember that was my, uh, initiation into opera music. Although I heard some on our gal Sunday in some of the soap operas that were on in the afternoon.

But I used to love the Lone Ranger and in the cold winter nights back in Pittsburgh, uh, we had these heat registers at various places around the house and one of them was on the step between the living room and the den. And I used to curl up in a ball in front of that heat register while it was cold outside and sort of cuddle with my dog that was a fat overgrown dachshund named Soldier because I got him in the middle of World War II. And Soldier and I used to listen to the adventures of, uh, of the Lone Ranger and Jack Armstrong and Hop Harrigan and Captain Midnight and all of the rest. And the thing that was so neat about those radio programs was that you couldn't see anything but the radio dial, but you could only listen to the story with your ears. But as I would listen to these adventures, I would imagine in my mind's eye what all of these characters would look like and what the action scenes would be like if I could really see them with my eyes. Because I grew up in an era where our entertainment was through audio and not video.

And I'll never forget the first time I watched an actual broadcast television program when I was a teenager and, uh, and saw the magic mirror. The Dumont television network, WDTV, channel 2 in Pittsburgh showed people that were miles and miles away that I could actually see by looking at that magic screen. And I didn't understand at that moment that all of civilization was going through a profound change that would affect life in ways that I could never anticipate with the advent of television.

Right now, I'm standing before this group and we are doing this lecture in the confines of a broadcast television studio in Orlando, Florida. Channel 6 in a room perhaps right over here next to me. They're getting ready for the 6:00 news. And there's a control booth in the next, uh, hall down this, down the P way a little piece. And there are all kinds of monitors and sophisticated equipment. And I'm standing now in what looks like a lovely warm room, but it's all fake. These walls here aren't real walls. So I could just push them hard and they'd fall over. The clock over here. We had to make all kinds of gyrations to, to, to give you the image of reality. And before I came in here a few moments ago, I had to go through the onerous process of having some very beautiful woman sit there and apply makeup to my face to hide the blemishes, the warts, the moles, the, the creases that come with age. And so that the R.C. Sproul that you're looking at now on television is someone who's been created by all of these technicians. And after every lecture, they come in here, tell me, "Straighten out your sleeve. Straighten out your tie." See, they hide the wires. They tape them in my coat. Because with the advent of television, people are now responding to impressions.

And philosophers have said about this that we're now living in an age of impressions where accurate perception of reality is not what it's what is important. It's the impression that is communicated. It is the image that is presented that matters. And what this has done, ladies and gentlemen, has provoked a crisis of unprecedented magnitude regarding probably the most fundamental of all human intellectual questions: the question of the nature of truth itself.

We remember the book that shook the academic world by Alan Bloom called *The Closing of the American Mind*. And as an [clears throat] analyst of culture, Professor Bloom opened this book by making the statement that 90-some percent of people who come into college as entering freshmen today, that it is safe to assume that when they arrive on the campus, they come to this initiation to higher education already convinced of and committed to the relativity of truth. 90-some percent of students who graduate from high school who enter the halls of learning come to the university already persuaded the truth is relative, that there is no such thing as objective reality.

Now, I would have hoped that Dr. Bloom would have gone on from there to say, "But the task of higher education, critical thinking, equipping students with the tools of analysis, philosophical inquiry, scientific investigation would have opened their minds and directed them apart from this relativism which makes science ultimately impossible, which makes truth ultimately meaningless. That the, that the tools of higher education would deliver these poor, misguided freshmen from this naive assumption of relativism." Instead, what Dr. Bloom announced was that four years of higher education today simply confirms in the minds of the freshmen that there's no such thing as objective truth, only impressions, only images, only preferences, no objective reality. And so then he articulates the meaning of the book, *The Closing of the American Mind*. That to which the American mind has become closed, ladies and gentlemen, is truth. Truth in any objective sense.

I remember during the life and ministry of Francis Schaeffer, that Schaeffer made popular a phrase that he used frequently when he referred to what he called "true truth." Now, isn't that the silliest thing you've ever heard of? What is true truth? True truth. When someone speaks of true truth, it sounds like somebody talking about beautiful beauty or lovely loveliness or ugly ugliness. True truth or false falsehood. That's what we call in language a redundancy, a tautology where there's nothing added, no synthesis, no new knowledge added to the original terms by the modifiers or the qualifiers. True truth. Did the man stutter? No. What he was trying to do with that odd way of speaking was to say in our culture today, we have a war going on between two different views of truth. The majority view is that truth is what I want it to be. Truth is relative. Truth is again a matter of image or of perception as opposed to those who believe, no, something is either real or it isn't. Schaeffer meant by true truth, objective truth, objective reality. He was trying to, to resurrect, if you will, a classic concept of truth called the correspondence theory of truth. John Locke made this famous, of course, in the rise of British empiricism, but has had its roots far earlier than Locke and his ideas. The correspondence theory of truth in its simplest expression simply says this, and we can all understand it: that truth is that which corresponds to reality. Therefore, to tell the truth would be to tell it like what it is. That there is an isness, not just a seemness, but an isness. And to tell it like it is is to tell it as it as reality determines it. The correspondence theory of truth is that which corresponds to reality.

But the problem with that theory is this: not everybody agrees what reality is. I once saw a program where E.F. Bailey had a television show and, uh, he was demonstrating some of the problems that courtroom lawyers have in determining the truth of one's guilt or innocence in a trial and he, uh, talked about the way evidence is presented in the courtroom and how important in American jurisprudence has been eyewitness testimony. And E.F. Bailey was standing in the middle of a stage giving a lecture about the value of eyewitness testimony when in the midst of his lecture, some guy ran across the stage, interrupted his speech, yelled at him, flailed his arms, and then ran off the stage as suddenly as he had come on the stage. And E.F. Bailey was startled and he stepped back from the podium and he stopped and he said, "Let me forget my speech for a moment." Took a microphone and began to interview people in the audience and said, "Did you see what happened?" Well, yeah. We were watching the whole thing and he began to interview, and he interviewed like five people and all five of them said that this man came in and hit E.F. Bailey and ran off. And then, to make his point, E.F. Bailey had the programmers show the videotape and rerun of what actually had happened. And the man never came within two feet of slapping E.F. Bailey. He waved his arms, but he didn't hit him. But eyewitnesses right there at the very moment, not after their memories were dimmed or influenced by the passing of time. At that very moment, all five of the eyewitness testimonies were wrong. What they perceived did not really happen. So their testimony did not correspond to reality. And so the crisis of the correspondence theory became: truth is that which corresponds to reality as perceived by whom? From your viewpoint, from your viewpoint, from your viewpoint. We don't always have the same perspective. We don't always look at things from the same angle.

So ultimately, from a Christian perspective, the correspondence theory of truth was modified to say this: The truth is that which corresponds to reality as it is perceived by God. Because God sees reality in its fullest measure from the perfect perspective, the depth dimension as well as the surface. All things are known to him. But the point I come to is this: that from the perspective of one who is omniscient, there is such a thing as objective reality. And in fact, our eternal destinies will be determined by God's perception of reality. The reality and the truth about me and the reality and the truth about you. I can do everything I want to to hide my blemishes when I stand before Almighty God, but there's nothing that I can do to present an image that will stop the penetrating glance of his analysis. He will see past the image. He will see past the impression and get to the truth of the matter of me as a person and also of you. That's why Jesus warns that in the final analysis, all truth, reality, that which is hidden, that which is done in secret, that which is distorted, everything that is now hidden and concealed will be made manifest. That's frightening, isn't it?

I talked to a student, uh, a few years ago on a college campus who, uh, we were speaking about the character of God and this student said to me, "I don't believe in the existence of God. She said, for me, the idea of God is meaningless. I don't get any excitement out of thinking about God. I don't go to church. I don't read the Bible. I don't pray. I don't do any of those things. So for me, there is no God. But I don't have any quarrel with you, Dr. Sproul. If you believe in God and if it's meaningful to you, if you enjoy praying and singing hymns and going to church while I'm playing golf on Sunday morning, if you enjoy those things and it means something to your personal life, then for you, God is real. For me, God is not real. It's all relative. If, if, if the idea of God turns you on, then for you, God is true. If it's meaningless to me, then God is not true." I said, "I don't think you understand what I'm talking about." She says, "Why?" I said, "I'm not talking about a God who passes in and out of being according to my pleasure or according to your whim. I'm talking about a God who exists objectively. I'm talking about a God who exists whether I believe in him or not. I'm talking about a God who exists whether you believe in him or not. Don't you see what I'm talking about? We're talking, I'm trying to get at [clears throat] the question of reality. I'm not interested in impressions here. I'm not interested in, in, uh, preferences. I want to get to the truth. Is there a God or isn't there? God cannot be and not be at the same time and at the same relationship." I said, "I'm talking about a God who, if he exists and you don't believe that he exists and you don't pray to him and you don't read his the Bible and you're not interested at all. I'm talking about a God that if he exists, all of your unbelief and all of your disinterest in the matter does not have the power to destroy him. And in like manner, I'm talking about a God who, if he does not exist, I can pray until I'm blue in the face. I can sing hymns until I'm exhausted. I can preach sermons every Sunday for the rest of my life. And none of those things has the power to conjure such a being up if the one does not exist. I'm talking about truth, not preference. I'm talking about reality."

Now, does that sound strange to you? If you're one of those 90-some percent who are already convinced that truth is relative, let me say to you, you don't believe that. Bloom's wrong. Bloom. What? What? Bloom's dealing with an impression here. Bloom is saying when I, when I quiz these students and when I examine these students, they're telling me that they believe in the relativity of truth. No, no, no, no, no, Dr. Bloom. They're saying that they believe in the relativity of truth when it suits them to believe in the relativity of truth. A person can't survive on this planet and believe in the relativity of truth. A person can't live for 15 minutes on this planet and believe in the relativity of truth. That kind of a person is a person we lock up for their own safety in an insane asylum because they've lost their minds. They're not just confused in their mind, they've lost their mind. They're stark raving mad. You believe in the correspondence theory of truth. Every time you drive up to a traffic light and you look at the intersection and you see this great big semi coming down the highway 75 miles an hour and you're saying, "I'm having an impression of a fast-moving car that if I pull out, a truck, if I pull out in front of it, I'm going to be obliterated and knocked to smithereens. But I prefer not all relative. I'll just proceed." Oh, no. All of a sudden, you're committed to objective truth because your life depends on it. No, no, no, no. We only embrace relativism when objective truth is a threat to us. And there's no objective truth more threatening to us than the truth of the holiness of God. Because if that truth is real, we are in trouble. Deep trouble.

And we know that. I think one of the most important and fascinating discussions of truth ever happened took place in a trial in a courtroom where the question of truth was the order of the day, where a Jewish rabbi was on trial for his life before a Roman provincial governor. And this Jewish rabbi had been teaching concepts, truths, as it were, that some people didn't like. And they accused this man of teaching things that were seditious [snorts] and could ultimately be destructive to the Roman Empire itself. And so this teacher was arrested and placed on trial for his life. And the record of that is found in the Gospel according to St. John.

[clears throat] Verse 33 of the 18th chapter of John's gospel, we read this summation of matters during the trial. Pilate therefore entered again into the praetorium and he summoned Jesus and he said to him, "You are the king of the Jews." Now, let's stop right there. Pilate, as it were, is saying, "I'm getting this impression from the charges that are brought against you and the, and the scuttlebutt I'm picking up from the multitudes and the crowds here that have been screaming your name for a week that you're some kind of king. You're some kind of monarch. You know how we Romans who are occupying this land have take a dim view of of you self-appointed kings here." He said, "There's no ruler over you." You understand? Except Caesar. Are you the king of the Jews? It's a question. Jesus is Jewish. He knew from the time he was a child that Jewish people answer questions with questions. And so he answered, "Are you saying this on your own initiative or did others tell you about me?" Is it to say, Jesus said, "Who wants to know? Is this an honest question you're asking me?" Let me just make a parenthetic statement here. Ladies and gentlemen, all of us succumb from time to time to asking insincere questions as a tactic of evasion, of avoiding a penetrating question that makes us uncomfortable. I remember once being engaged in a discussion with a man on matters of theology, philosophy, and he said, "You know, I have, I would like to be a Christian. He said, but I really have some honest questions that I need to have answered, and can you help me?" And I said, "Well, that's my job. I, you know, teach apologetics. That's part of my vocation is to try to give intelligible answers to people that are genuinely puzzled by things." I said, "See if I can help you." And he asked me a question and I, I answered it and, and I said, "Are you satisfied with that answer?" And he said, "Yes, I am." He said, "But I have another question." And he asked me the next question. And, and he was satisfied with the answer to that one and then another one and another one. And after about 40 questions, I said, "Hold it. I said, "I'll continue to try to answer your questions if you want to, but now I'm beginning to get the sense that you're not really honest. I think you, you are trying to find a way to escape the claim of God on your life." Now, if your questions are serious, I will try to engage a discussion with you seriously. But I have to be upfront with you. I have to be honest with you. I don't trust you right now. And the guy broke down right in front of me and admitted that that's exactly what he was doing. I've done that. Haven't you done that? They just keep asking questions forever. When they've lost their sincerity. Paul had answered, "I'm not a Jew, am I? It's your own nation, the chief priests, that delivered you up to me. What have you done?" Jesus ignores that question and goes back to the original question, this question about kingship. And he said to him, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would be fighting that I might not be delivered up to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not of this realm." Boy, what a provocative thing to say to the emissary of, uh, the Roman emperor. Hey, uh, governor, it's like Jesus says to him, "I'm not, my kingdom's not of this world." And boy, are you lucky because if it were of this world, you know, it'd be the end of you, Jack, and the end of the, uh, of the Roman Empire because I got enough strength in my kingdom that's of another world. I could call on the angels. I can call on the heavenly host, and you guys would be history in no time. Can you imagine a prisoner standing there in chains, talking like that to the power of Rome, of Imperial Rome? But Jesus obviously doesn't say that in an arrogant fashion. He's speaking the truth, the unvarnished truth. He said, "My kingdom," he, he acknowledges that he has a kingdom. But he said, "Take it easy, Pilate. My kingdom is not like ordinary kingdoms. My kingdom is not involved with the political machinations and the Machiavellian power plays and and the coup d'états that are such a a normal part of the politics of this world. No, no, no. My kingdom is not like that. If my kingdom were like that, I'd take over. My servants would have been fighting and I wouldn't even have been delivered up to the Jews, let alone to you." So Pilate picks up on this and says back to Jesus, "So, so you are a king. Haven't established where this kingdom is. It's not of this world. It's not of Palestine. Maybe it's, uh, east of the sun and west of the moon. But at least I can understand what you're saying, Jesus. You've, you're saying that you're a king." Huh? Ah, don't try to trick me. You may say that it's a different world, but you've just admitted to being a king. So you are a king. Jesus answered, "You say correctly that I am a king." Do you hear what Jesus is saying? Do you hear what Jesus is saying? Jesus is saying in this trial for his life under oath, this man who would be the last person in human history to commit perjury, he is saying to Rome, "I am a king." That's the truth. I am a king. That's the watershed truth of human history. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the reality upon which the entire Christian faith is established. The affirmation that Jesus Christ is king and he's not just king for a day. And he's not just made up to look like a king, to give the impression of the king, to have an image of kingship. He's not just a king that reigns in people's hearts. He's not a king simply for those who prefer to believe that he is a king. He is the king, the cosmic king, the king of the universe, the king of the kingdom. And that's the objective truth upon which my life stands or falls and upon which your life will stand or fall. "You say correctly that I am a king."

Now listen to what Jesus says to the man. He says, "For this I have been born and for this I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth." You know, have you ever been engaged in any activity and somebody comes up to you, taps you on the shoulder and say, "What are you doing? What are you all about? What are you up to?" We can leave it to people to guess what we're all about. But if they really want to know what's motivating us and what's driving us, the best source that they can learn that from is ourselves. You know, I can remember, uh, when I was in junior high school, we had a, a guest speaker come to our youth group and it was a black woman. And this woman came and she gave a speech to us. And the whole group to whom she was speaking were was white. Everybody was white. And this woman who was a woman of great dignity and obviously highly intelligent, educated, and sophisticated. And in a gentle way, she admonished us. She said, "Friend," she said, "I want to explain something to you about my people. My people are usually referred to by your people as colored people and that hurts us. We're not colored, you know. It's not like we are a group of people that are painted orange or red or chartreuse or purple or anything like that. We are not colored people and it is an insult to us to be called colored people." And then she said, "How do you like it when somebody forgets your name? How do you like it when somebody mispronounces your name?" And I thought, whoa, when somebody calls me Sprout, it's like somebody taking their fingernails on a chalkboard, you know, goes up and down my spine and I say, "People call me Sprout, I growl. My name is Sproul. It rhymes with soul. Is that hard to remember? I hate to be have my name mispronounced." And I think, man, this must really be an indictment of my pride that I get bent out of shape when somebody so overlooks my significance that they don't have the decent courtesy to find out how to say my name. She said, "Nobody likes that." And she said, "Every human being should be called what they want to be called." And then she went on to say, "We prefer to be called Negroes." And so I said, "Okay, from this day forth, I'm never going to refer to Negroes as colored people. They're not colored people. They don't want to be called colored people. I'm not going to be insulting to them, you know." And so I disciplined myself to say Negro. And then the next thing I knew, that was not the preferred thing. It then became black or African-American or whatever. And I don't care if it changes again next week. The principle doesn't change that people should be called by what they want to be called. See, lest we insult their dignity and just simply let our own prejudice, uh, determine these things.

Now, Jesus said, "I want to tell you how you should understand me." I can say, "Well, I think Jesus came into this world for this reason or for that reason." But if we want to get at the truth and if we want to respect him, just as I wanted to respect that woman and and listen to what she wanted to hear, you say, "Okay, Jesus, you tell me what you're all about. What do you want to be called? How do you want to be known? What is the understanding you have of your mission and your vocation? What are you all about?" And how do you answer the question? "Here's why I came to the world." Jesus said, "I came to the world to bear witness to the truth." That's what I'm about. And then he adds to that something unbelievable. Listen to what Jesus said. Please listen to this. "And everyone who is of the truth hears my voice." If you don't believe in Jesus, if you don't follow Jesus, then according to Jesus, you are not of the truth. Now, you may say, "Hey, wait a minute. Don't play games like that. I don't believe that Jesus is true. I don't believe that he is the truth." I understand it. But be careful here. Jesus has the evidence of history on his side in terms of his truthfulness more than any mortal that has ever walked this planet. Be careful before you call him a liar. And I just want you to understand this much at this point. According to his judgment, that if you are of the truth, you will hear him because he bears witness to the truth. You know what he said earlier about this? He said to his disciples when they were confused and and and wanted to know the way. In fact, he said, "I am the way." You know, they said, "What is the way? How can we know the way?" And Jesus said, "I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life."

I'm sometimes amused, although it's a, it's a shallow humor, when I hear people say things like this to me. They'll say, "Well, you know, I don't believe in Jesus as the Son of God, and I don't believe in all that stuff, but I think he was a wonderful teacher, and I think he was a great prophet, and I certainly admire him and respect him." And I want, I want to say, "How in the world, what, what are you thinking about? How can you possibly admire and respect a man if you don't believe the central message that he teaches?" Would you believe, would you, you know, we, I listen to people all the time who are non-Christians and they come to me and they laugh at me when they find out I'm a preacher or a teacher, a Christian. They say, "Oh, are you like those guys on television?" you know, and they have this view of televangelism that's that's scandalous, that's cheap, that's superficial, and all of those things that everybody's reacting to in the culture. See, and I said, "Wait a minute. I'm a teacher, but what would you think if I came on my program on television as a teacher and I said this?" Now look, ladies and gentlemen, today I'm going to teach you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Because I never say anything that's not the truth. Every word that comes out of my mouth is the truth. In fact, I am so closely connected with the truth that it would be true to say I am the truth. Now, no televangelist has gone that far. I've seen guys make claims that were so outrageous on television. You reach across the airways, you touch the front of your television screen, and we'll touch hands of the Holy Spirit, you know, and they'll give you all this stuff or you send in a, a donation to me and, and I promise you God's going to bless it 10 times over and all this magic that they promise you on television. No wonder the world is laughing. But I've yet to see one of them stand up there and say, "I am the truth." And if some teacher or preacher on television stood up there and said that to the world, "I am the truth," I can't think of any intelligent person walking away from that saying, "Well, I certainly don't believe that he's the truth, but he's a great teacher. He's a great prophet." And yet, that's what we say about Jesus. If Jesus is not the Son of God, then he is the worst of all possible false prophets, isn't he? Because he claimed to be the incarnation of truth itself. And here before the authorities of Rome, he is saying, "Pilate, here's what my kingdom's about. Here's what I'm about. I came to bear witness to the truth." And "anyone who is of the truth hears my voice." And the implication is, Pilate, are you concerned? Are you really concerned about truth? Well, what's the next question in Pilate's mouth? "What is truth?"

Pilate says, one of the limitations of any information that comes to us on the written page, sort of like the limitation that I mentioned earlier on in this lecture about radio. I couldn't see what I was imagining. When I read an account of something that takes place in history, I can't hear it. I can't see it. I'm just responding to words about it. And in this case, in this narrative, John has recorded the statement that Pilate makes, but he doesn't give me any visual description of the contours of Pilate's face, the modulation of Pilate's voice. How did he say this? How did he say, "What is truth?" Was this one moment in Pilate's life where he was brought to cold sobriety? We know that his wife had been troubled by a dream. This man who was simply concerned about politics, who would sell his mother to quiet the mob. We know that what kind of character Pontius Pilate was. But did he have one tiny moment of morality when he's stopped in his tracks by Christ? And he looks at him and he said, "I've spent my whole life as a relativist. I spent my whole life dealing with images and impressions and and fakery and politics and all that kind of stuff." You know, I don't even know what truth is anymore. Tell me, what is the truth? Maybe that's how he said it. Or maybe it was ridicule. "Truth. What's that? What's truth?" You know, the bombast of the pseudo-intellectual who tries to be recognized as being intelligent because he's cynical. It's the cheapest form of pseudo-intellectualism in the world. Cynicism. Anybody can be a cynic. Anybody can say, "What is truth?" and not really care about what is truth. The irony is that when Pilate was asking the question, "What is truth?" the very incarnation of truth was standing right in front of his eyes. And he missed it. Completely missed it.

Well, no, he didn't completely miss it because look what he said. "And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and he said to them, 'I find no guilt in him.'" The judge has delivered his verdict. "I can find no fault in him." Truer words were never spoken. For once in his life, Pontius Pilate spoke the truth. Pontius Pilate bore witness to the truth. This was not a political judgment of expediency. Pilate had desperately tried to find some fault in Jesus so that he could save his own conscience by feeding Jesus to this hungry mob. But after the interrogation, he couldn't find anything wrong. Maybe he didn't look hard enough. But the reason why he couldn't find any fault in Jesus is because there wasn't any fault in Jesus. There wasn't any guilt to be found because for the first time in his life, the governor had in front of him a prisoner in chains on trial for his life who was sinless. "I find no guilt in him." One of the most powerful statements of truth Pontius Pilate ever made was the words that he allegedly said in Latin, "Ecce Homo." Behold the man. Behold the man. See, he was saying more than he intended to say because the ultimate meaning of that statement is that here is true man. Here is real humanity. Truth as perceived by God himself. "I find no fault in him." And Pilate therefore took Jesus and scourged him. How's that for a just judge? "I find no fault in him," but I'll whip him. I'll beat him. I'll punish him. I'll kill him. Because the crowd didn't care about the truth, and Pilate wanted to make the right impression on the crowd.

Ladies and gentlemen, most people live their whole lives without spending five minutes in sincere pursuit of truth. And if I can plead with any human being I ever meet, I would plead with them for that one thing, that they would just stop for five minutes and just lay aside the impressions, lay aside the images, lay aside the preferences and ask that question honestly: What is the truth? What's the truth about you? What is the truth about you? And what is the truth about God? If you can handle either one of those or both of those, then you will be of the truth and you will hear his voice and you will run to learn from him who is the truth, who speaks the truth, and who will redeem you. That will be glory when we see him in the power of the resurrection. Let's pray.

Our Father and our God, as we consider now [clears throat] the mighty work that you performed by the power of the Spirit to raise him from the tomb, that certain sign that you have given by which the whole world is judged, we pray that we may see the full import of that moment in history when you raised him from the grave. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Just a couple of days ago, I was reading an article in the newspaper about the recently discovered bones of Jesus, which I refer to as the journalistic phase and sensational phase of theology to get the press's attention in religion. The more bizarre the proposition is, the more attention they give it. And I was somewhat surprised at the beginning of the article that the writer [clears throat] indicated that this, uh, recent assertion had been responded to by scholarly archaeologists with a certain amount of scorn, uh, revealing it for the, uh, absurdity that it was. So I was beginning to warm up to this, uh, journalist thinking, "Wow, finally we find one that fights for the angels." Then he went on to give the results of the most recent poll in which he said 78% of Americans, and that's how we determine truth, you know, by counting noses. 78% of Americans believe in the resurrection of Jesus. [snorts] But the author inserted a little extra phrase there. He said, "78% of Americans believe in the myth of the resurrection of Jesus." He just couldn't hold it back. You know, he had had to get it in there. The myth of resurrection.

Well, one of the oldest questions, if not the oldest question of theology, was the one asked by Job: "If a man dies, shall he live again?" And before we get to the New Testament answer to that question as set forth by the greatest apologist of the Christian church, the Apostle Paul, I want to spend a little bit of time in background to refer your attention to two watershed events that radically changed the world in the decade of the 70s. But I'm not thinking of the 1970s. And I'm not even thinking of the 1870s, [clears throat] but I'm thinking of the [snorts] 1770s, where most Americans believe the most important watershed event took place in that decade when some disgruntled colonists on this side of the ocean rose in protest against certain illegal procedures by Parliament by declaring their independence and inaugurating this country's birth as an independent nation. But I believe that something else happened in that same decade in Europe that had even far greater ramifications than the American Declaration of Independence. It was the work of a single man in Prussia who was a professor whose chief field at the University of Königsberg was the field of astrophysics and he had contributed significantly by way of essays in the 18th century, uh, to the discipline of astrophysics. But his real claim to fame that catapulted him into international significance, this man who never traveled more than a hundred miles from his birthplace and who was known to take a walk every afternoon at exactly the same time. And so punctual indeed, punctilious was he that the villagers would check their timepieces by the afternoon stroll of this gentleman whose name ironically was Emmanuel, which hardly meant "God with us" but came to mean "God unknown to us." This man was Immanuel Kant, who in the decade of the 70s of the 18th century wrote the most definitive and comprehensive critique of the classical arguments for the existence of God in his book that was, uh, titled *Critique of Pure Reason*, the critique of pure reason, in which Immanuel Kant set the bar for the centuries to follow for religious agnosticism. As a scientist, he argued that we cannot move from the visible world to the invisible world. As the Apostle Paul declares, not only that we can, but do in the first chapter of Romans, he said we can't move from the physical to the metaphysical, from the phenomenal world, as he called it, to the noumenal world, which was the residence of God, the self, and the thing-in-itself. And so this critique of the classical arguments for the existence of God, given by Kant in an effort not to save theology, but to save science from the skepticism of David Hume, uh, was, as I say, a watershed moment in Western history because thereafter there was a seemingly, uh, unreachable, uh, rift between science and theology.

But though Kant is known for [clears throat] uh, ex, uh, ushering God out of the front door of the house, he ran around to the kitchen and opened the back door and tried to let God in through that entrance by the root not of, uh, metaphysical pursuit, but by reason of practical thinking. Kant was very much concerned about morality and and ethics. By the way, he, when he considered his skeptical stance on knowing of God, the one argument that he felt was most impressive was the argument to design, that which he could not, uh, explain. But he was concerned with the study of man, that it would seem that in the heart of every human being there was this universally present sense of duty or sense of "oughtness," which for which he's famous for identifying as the categorical imperative. It was Kant's Germanic, uh, version of the Golden Rule, if you will. But then he asked this question from a practical viewpoint, thinking transcendentally: What would be the necessary conditions to make this sense of "oughtness," this sense of duty which provokes the pangs of conscience in human beings? What would be transcendentally necessary for this sense of duty to be meaningful? That is, he asked the question, "What would have to be for ethics to be meaningful?" And his concern, as I say, was practical because what he was concerned about was the survival of civilization, and he understood that without some sense of ethics, civilization cannot survive for very long, as some of the other speakers have already addressed. And so, as he pondered that question, "What would be necessary for ethics to be meaningful?" He said, "The first thing is that there would have to be justice." Because if there is no justice, then in the final analysis, the person who acts according to this sense of ethic, this sense of duty, would be involved in a fool's errand, in an exercise of meaninglessness. So for ethics to be meaningful, there must be justice. And so then he looked around and he says, "But in the phenomenal world in which I live, I notice that justice does not always prevail." And people were asking then, as the Old Testament sages were asking, "Why do the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer?" And Kant said, "For justice to be true, we must survive the grave." And not only must we survive the grave in order for justice to prevail, but there must be beyond the grave to ensure justice, a judge who would meet out and dispense pure justice. And then he went on to say, "Well, what would be the necessary conditions for such a judge to ensure the distribution of justice?" And he said, "Well, that first of all, that judge would have to be perfectly righteous and above reproach because if the judge on the other side were an unjust judge, then we would have no guarantee of the victory of justice and therefore no foundation for a meaningful ethic." Then he went on to say that judge would not only have to be righteous, but he would also have to be omniscient because for a judge to execute perfect justice, he not only would have to be judged, but he would just himself, but he would have to be free from being misinformed. A just judge could be responsible for a miscarriage of justice if he erred in his understanding of the case. And then he went on to say, even if you had a perfectly righteous, omniscient judge, those two conditions would not guarantee the triumph of justice because it would be possible that that perfect, adjust, and omniscient judge could give the correct sentence but [clears throat] be powerless to carry it out. So that judge in the next world would also have to have all power and authority within himself to guarantee justice. You see where Kant's going? He's saying though on the basis of theoretical thought, we can't affirm the existence of God metaphysically, nevertheless on the basis of practical considerations for a meaningful ethic, we must, we must assume the existence of God. Otherwise life is meaningless. And so we must live as if there were a God.

Now, that, as it were, was the dike that held back the full torrent of skepticism for a few years at the end of the Enlightenment. But there were cracks in that dike that soon gave way and a metaphysical and ethical Katrina happened in Western theoretical thought. Now, that's by way of introduction. Now I'd like to show some parallel thinking that goes on between Kant and the Apostle Paul by looking at the 15th chapter of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. [clears throat] Here the word of God in chapter 15, verse 12, and I don't know which is going to come to an end first, my message or my voice. So far, the voice is losing. But we read in the text, [clears throat] "Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?" That's the question. "If Christ has proclaimed that God has raised him from the dead, how is it that some of you," and he's writing to people in the church who were trying to have a Christianity without resurrection? He says, "How can some of you say that there is no resurrection from the dead?" Now what follows is a particular kind of argument, a particular form of debate common to ancient philosophers and one that was used regularly by the Apostle Paul as an apologist. It is called the ad hominem form of argumentation. Now, be careful. Some of you studied logic in college or in high school, perhaps, and you [clears throat] learn to identify certain fallacies of reasoning, both formal and informal. And one of the most frequent informal fallacies is the fallacy of reasoning called ad hominem abusive, where if you can't attack the coherency of a man's argument, you attack the man. You say, "How can you believe what this speaker says when he's an adulterer?" Well, even adulterers who do not live the truth can from time to time argue cogently. And so, the man's character does not vitiate the man's argument. But we do that all the time, particularly in the criminalization of politics as we witness every day in Washington D.C. So there is a fallacious form of argument that is called ad hominem abusive and frequently to save breath and time, there is a kind of shorthand that refers to that fallacy by simply calling it the ad hominem fallacy without qualifying it by the term abusive. Now, I mention all this for this reason. There is another form of ad hominem reasoning that is a sound form and that is a form that has been in use by philosophers from time immemorial and that is simply called arguing to the man. And that means that I step into the shoes of my opponent. We stipulate at the beginning agreement on certain premises. And now I take my opponent's premise and I say, "I grant you your premise. But let's see where this premise leads out of logical necessity." And so I take my opponent's argument to its logical conclusion, showing that if his premise is sound and true, his conclusion will be absurd. Again, going back to Zeno, the ancient philosopher, this form of

The argument was called *reductio ad absurdum*, again arguing from the opponent's premise, taking it to its logical conclusion, and showing by a resistless logic that the conclusion would be absurd. That's exactly what the Apostle Paul is doing here with these folks in Corinth who are denying the resurrection.

And they say, "There is no resurrection of the dead." That's a universal negative. That means it admits to no exceptions. It is universal in the sense that it encompasses everybody because no one escapes it. It's so it's called a universal negative because it's articulated in the negative form.

If, let's go now. If there is no resurrection of the dead, that's premise A, no resurrection of the dead. If that's true, then what else would be true? If there's no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. Obviously, that's from the laws of necessary inference. If there's a universal negative, there cannot be one positive. So, if there's no resurrection, then that means Christ cannot have been raised.

So let's see where that leads us. If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. So, let's face facts. The apostle's saying, "Let's not live like Alice in Wonderland in some kind of religious dream world." If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is an exercise in futility. I'm wasting my breath. I'm wasting my time. We're all here wasting our time at a conference like this if Christ has not been raised. And not only is my preaching an exercise in meaninglessness, my faith is useless and worthless, as is yours. Your faith is in vain because you've invested your trust and your hope and your faith in a man whose bones have just been dug up, uh, along with Mary Magdalene's. So recently.

Not only that, but we are found, he says, to be misrepresenting God because we've said and testified that it is God who has raised him from the dead. And if he has not been raised from the dead, then we ought to change the name of our church to Jehovah's false witnesses because we have been attributing the power of this resurrection of Jesus to God. And that attribution is a false one. We've testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise.

If it is true that the dead are not raised, he has to keep rubbing our noses in the consequences there. For if the dead are not raised, if you missed it the first time and the second time, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is feudal again. And you are still in your sins. You're still in it. You're still contained in sin. You're still enshed in sin. You are still in jail to sin without bail. Because our justification does not end with the cross. But Jesus was raised for our justification. The resurrection is God's apologia, certifying to the world that he accepted the atonement that Jesus made on the cross. But if he is not raised from the dead, you're still in your sins.

So you look at the world religions today: Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism. The thing that they don't have is an atonement. And because they don't have an atonement, you can't expect them to have a resurrection either. It wouldn't cause any crisis of faith for any Muslim to dig up the bones of Muhammad. Muhammad's dead. Buddha is dead. Confucius is dead. But Christianity stands or falls with a resurrected Jesus. And that's what Paul is saying here. If he's not raised, your faith is nonsense. You're still in your sins.

Not only that, those also who have fallen asleep in Christ. Let's, let's face it, our beloved ones, our husbands, our wives, our children, our children, our parents who have died, our friends who have died in the faith have perished. That's the grim reality. If there is no resurrection from the dead, if in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we have, of all people, the most to be pitied. I say to the enemies of the Christian faith, if you don't like what we preach, if you don't like what we teach, don't be mad at us. Pity us. Because if we are preaching a false doctrine of resurrection, if we are conjuring up a hope with no real foundation for it, then we forfeit much of the fun supposedly of this world where you only go around once and you might as well go around and get all the gusto you can because you're on a fast pace to oblivion, to perishing without hope. It's a pitiable condition to be in. That's why the Bible says, "Without Christ, you are without hope."

So, I'm just going to stop for a second and consider what Paul has just done here. Paul has drawn for us a ghastly picture of the consequences of no resurrection, no life after death. He's saying that if there is no resurrection, then life itself under the sun is meaningless. As Kant understood, your ethic, your sense of duty, your conscience is meaningless. And without ethics, society, civilization cannot last. You're doomed ultimately to barbarism, which our nation right now is rushing toward with such a velocity. One wonders if anything other than the direct intervention of God will ever restrain it and stop it.

Dostoevsky understood what Kant was arguing for in his practical reasoning, that if there is no God, all things are permitted. The postmodernist understands that if there is no God, and since there is no God, and since there is no resurrection from the dead, then what is left are personal preferences, which can only be maintained that if enough of you can exercise power for your complete liberty, you will make what is right by your might, for you now have no other recourse.

Now, what Kant was saying was this: Since the alternative to life after death is so grim, since the alternative to life after death would make ethics impossible except for the fool, and since life without ethics is meaningless, we must live as if there's a God. Talk about a justification for using religion as a broomstick or as a crutch against facing meaninglessness. Here it is with a vengeance. As I say, this put up a dike that only lasted a little bit of time in Western Heaven. A guy like Nietzsche comes along and says, "Hey, let's quit playing Alice in Wonderland. I'm not going to affirm the existence of God or the existence of life after death simply because the alternatives are grim and unbearable. Why don't we just face it? There is no God. There is no afterlife. There is no meaning. We are left with dust, the nothingness, the knee-hill, the abyss of absurdity." Which motion was seconded by Jean-Paul Sartre, particularly in his little monograph, which title gave to the world his final evaluation of human existence: *Nausea*. That's the end of human existence. *Nausea*. Albert Camus said, "The only serious question left for philosophers to examine is the question of suicide because we're overwhelmed with the pressing and oppressing reality of the absence of God and the absence of hope."

So you see, Kant's arguments didn't stand up for the next generation. They said, "Kant, guard up your loins like a man. Face the inevitable." Who's trying to argue for the practical necessity of believing in God? And some can look at what Paul is doing here as the same thing, where he's saying, "If there's no resurrection, your faith is in vain. You're false witnesses. Your preaching is an exercise in futility." But Paul does not argue for the resurrection on the basis of the hopelessness of life without it. Yes, in the section I just read, he agrees with Kant that without it, life is hopeless, but that's not the foundation for his assertion that Christ is risen.

He goes on to talk about the analogy that exists in nature with animals and plants and grass and human beings, that you put a seed in the ground, and before the life can come out of the ground, there's a sense in which, at least metaphorically, that seed must die. It must rot to such a point that it releases and germinates the essence of life within it. And in like manner, when our bones go into the ground, they await their final metamorphosis, where God takes that which was mortal, sown in mortality, is raised in immortality, sown in corruption, raised in incorruption. And this analogy that the apostle uses in this same chapter closely resembles the argument that Plato had used centuries before in arguing for life after death based upon analogies drawn from nature.

When you think of the almost, almost infinite varieties of life forms on this planet, it's hard to imagine that our life form, as high as it is, is the zenith of all life in the universe. It could be, but what are the odds? But again, Paul doesn't rest his case on analogies drawn from the butterfly or the seed.

But why does he assert the reality of the resurrection? The beginning of the chapter, he reminds his readers of something. He said, "I remind you, brothers, of the gospel. I want to remind you of the gospel that I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of the first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures." Now, that was a compelling thing to the Jew of the first century, and it ought to be compelling to us. I said yesterday, or the day before, that the two major tasks of apologetics is the defense of the existence of God and, secondly, the defense of the scriptures as the word of God. And Paul now appeals, appeals to the scriptures: "Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. That he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures." So Paul's first line of apologetics is an appeal to sacred scripture. He's saying, "I believe in the first instance in the resurrection of Christ because the word of God proclaims it." That's why I said it's so vital that we address this question of the veracity and authenticity and trustworthiness of the scriptures, because if you have that, the rest is easy.

[sighs and gasps] That he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and then listen to this: "And that he appeared to Cephas, then to the 12. Then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. And last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me."

When Peter wrote to the church, he says, "My brethren, I declare to you, not cleverly conceived myths and fables. What we declare to you, what we have seen with our eyes and heard with our ears. We're not declaring to you an unsubstantiated theory or even a religious proposition that we learned in Sunday school. We're declaring something of which we had an empirical experience. We saw it. We heard it. We beheld his glory on the plane of history." And this is what Paul is recounting here. He's saying, [clears throat] "that he appeared to Cephas, that is to Peter, then to the 12." He appeared again. It's not like the disciples and the story of the resurrection is that the disciples ran to the tomb on Sunday morning, and the stone was rolled away, and they ran inside the tomb, and they found the grave clothes still in such beautiful arrangement, but there was no Jesus there. There was nobody. Nobody, nobody there. There was nobody home. And then they came back and they scratched their heads and they said, "What happened to the body? We found an empty tomb. What could that possibly mean?" And they figured it out. Oh, it must mean that he is risen. So let's go tell everybody that he is risen and let's start celebrating Easter Sunday based on an inference drawn from an empty tomb. No, it's not the empty tomb that created the faith of the early church. It was the appearance of the risen Christ. He appeared to Peter, then to the 12. Well, these two could have cooked this up among themselves, but Paul says, "Wait a minute. He appeared to more than 500 people at one time. Most of them are still alive. Go and ask them. That's their story and they're sticking to it." Eyewitnesses, 500 of them. We have more witnesses of his from history to the resurrection of Christ than we had to the life of Plato. Then he appeared to James and to all the apostles.

But what I'm writing to you, my dear friends in Corinth, is not something that I believe on the basis of hearsay. It's good hearsay. These are good witnesses who told me this. I trust James. I trust Peter. I trust the 12. And you understand my credentials, that I was the number one enemy of this new Christian sect that was running around proclaiming that Christ was raised from the dead. I was dragging them from prison, breathing out fire. But last of all, as one born out of due time, he appeared unto me. See, the text that I just read to you was written by an eyewitness of the resurrection. You're going to have to decide whether this is a credible witness or not.

Now, the one reason why the newspaper reporter says that this is a myth is not because he thinks that Paul was an idiot who fell out of the stupid tree and hit his head on every branch along the way, or that he was just an uneducated fanatic from the first century. They understand that Paul was the most educated man in Palestine when he wrote this apology for the resurrection of Christ. His scholarly credentials were impeccable. But the reason why the newspaper reporter would say it's a myth is because, judging from our 21st-century understanding of biology, if there's anything we know now that primitive, pre-scientific people in the first century didn't know was that when people die, they stay dead. And that it is impossible for the dead to rise. Given that it's impossible for the dead to rise, then obviously the New Testament story of the resurrection of Jesus has to be a myth. What else could it possibly be? Well, calling it a myth is being kind. It could be an outright lie if it's impossible for the dead to rise.

What a different view of reality and of life we find in the New Testament, where there the impossibility, according to the New Testament writers, was for him *not* to rise. The impossibility that premise in the New Testament is that it was impossible for death to hold him. And it is true that if there's any universal finding of experimental empiricism, it is that when people die, they stay dead. But there's anything more universal in our experience is that when those people who die and stay dead are people who are sinful people. Now, what happens if you get a person who's not sinful? Now, what happens to the premise biblically? Mortality, *thanatos*, death itself is inseparably tied to sin. It is the soul that sins who dies. So that if the New Testament testimony is true that there was in Christ no sin, why would anyone expect him to die? I can't even believe. It's hard to. The real thing that's hard to believe is that he would die at all on the cross. And he couldn't even die on the cross if it weren't first that he took upon himself the imputation of our sin. Having taken our sin, then he met the necessary condition for human mortality. Apart from that, the second Adam would never have died. But having paid that price and finished that work, the Father raised him from the tomb for our justification.

I can't remember which speaker said what in this conference. There's so many wonderful things said, but this was God's proof of the person of Jesus. Paul debated with the philosophers in Athens at the Areopagus. And I mentioned that when he debated with the Stoics and the Epicureans, he called attention to their monument to an unknown god. Philosophers were hedging their bets just in case they missed one. Paul said, "What you worship in ignorance, I proclaim to you in power. For the God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. If you stumble at the resurrection, the recovery of life from the death."

Let me take you back earlier. How about the beginning of Jesus' life? How about the beginning of your life? How about the beginning of anybody's life? How about life itself? Why is there life at all in this universe when we understand, as Ravi so eloquently pointed out, the necessary conditions for life cannot be found in us? You did not create your own life. There was a time when you were not. There was a time when all of us were not. But the only one who has the power of life in and of himself eternally, the power of being in and of himself eternally, the power of motion in and of himself eternally is the eternal, self-existent, living God, who is the author of life and the author of death, who has the keys of life and death in his hand. And if the one who creates life in the first place in his Son can call a rotting corpse like Lazarus out of the tomb, so the same author of life can call his Son, who, touching his humanity, is now dead, and bring him back to life. What is so hard about that to believe? It's the opposite that's impossible. If there is such a thing as life in this universe, how can you attribute to the source of life, the fountain of life, the essence of life, the impossibility of bringing Jesus back to life and bringing you back to life?

And then Paul goes on to say in Athens, "We ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked the former days." Let me just stop here and insert something. A few minutes ago, I said the assumption of the newspaper writing is that the story of the resurrection must be a myth because resurrection is impossible. And we know that by our sophisticated postmodern understanding of biology. And those poor people in the first century, pre-scientific, unsophisticated people living in Palestine, had no problem with the resurrection of Jesus because they saw resurrections all the time. Every week they could go out to the cemetery and see somebody or other getting up out of the tomb. Let me tell you what, folks, it was as foreign to the experience of first-century man that a dead man would come out of the tomb as it is today. That's why Thomas said, "I'm not going to believe it just because you guys think you saw something. I'm not going to believe it unless I see the wounds, unless I can put my finger in his hand." And when that man showed up before Thomas and said, "Here, Thomas, put your fingers in my hand. Touch me." You know, the Bible doesn't say whether Thomas ever did. I don't think he did. He didn't have time to. He was on his knees and he was saying, "My Lord and my God." No apologist was ever more sophisticated than the one who wrote, "Sometimes it causes me to tremble. Were you there? Were you there?" when he rose up from the grave. Oh, sometimes it makes me shout glory. Glory. You better believe glory. That's why we're here today, folks. I hate to tell Al that it's Saturday and not Friday. Would you believe an apologist who doesn't even know what day it is? For somebody said, "Is it possible for us to make mistakes?"

But here's the final point I want you to get. The former times of ignorance God has overlooked. But now he commands all people everywhere to repent because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed. And of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. There's no other sign that will be given to you except the sign of Jonah. And if you don't believe that sign, you're in trouble because God has already set the day to judge the world. And his patience is not infinite. And he'd never, I mean, God, as an evangelist, never ever issues an invitation. That's something we do. God never invites people to receive Jesus. He commands them. He commands all men everywhere to repent and come to Jesus because he has proven that Jesus is the one through whom he will judge the world. How has God proven that? By raising him from the dead. You say, "Well, I wasn't there, so I can't holler glory." Other people, God may say, "But unless I see it, I'm not going to believe it. You're going to have to send Jesus back again into my neighborhood, put him to death again, and then raise him for me to see." Too late. Too bad. He does it once for all. If that's not enough for you, you're in trouble because God is going to judge you by that historical act of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We believe in the resurrection not because the alternative is grim. We believe the resurrection because of the biblical testimony of its reality in time and space.

Paul ends this section by saying, "Therefore," here's the conclusion. "Be steadfast. Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for now you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." You see, your preaching is not in vain. Your faith isn't in vain. Your labor is not in vain because God has raised him from the dead. And George Frederick Handel knew the only appropriate response to that was to say what? Hallelujah.

Let's pray. Father, how we thank you for the testimony of scripture to the reality of resurrection that transcends all levels of mythology and in which we find our hope and our justification. Amen.

[applause]

We're going to continue now with our study of the Gospel according to St. Mark. And indeed, this is scheduled to be our last sermon on the Gospel according to St. Mark. And I'll be reading this morning from Mark 16:14 to 20. And then ask the congregation, please, to stand for the reading of the word of God.

"Later he appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table, and he rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart because they did not believe those who had seen him after he had risen. And he said to them, 'Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved. But he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe: In my name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.' So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, he was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Amen."

Week after week after week, I have declared to you when we read the scriptures that this is nothing less than the inspired, infallible, inherent word of God. And being the word of God, we are called to give obedience to it. Please be seated.

Let us pray now. Oh Lord, as we look at these final words of the Gospel of Mark, we pray that you would use them to quicken a deeper dimension of faith within our souls, that our devotion to you may be increased. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

For the last few years, up until this past January, we have had some distinguished visiting guests in our midst. And I'm thinking particularly of one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, Dr. Roger Nicole, who's now in his 90s and is retired from teaching, but he and his wife have come and sat right here in the front of the church for a long time up until his wife's serious illness in January, and it's been difficult for them to travel. So, we've missed them these past few months. But I remember that on one occasion, in the midst of a very important theological controversy, Dr. Nicole offered this question: If the building that houses the Bureau of Standards and Measurements in Washington D.C. were blown up, and that the standard yardstick that is found there by which we measure precisely the 36 inches that make up a yard, would our understanding of the yardstick be destroyed with that explosion? If we lost the original normative standard of one yard, would we not, by the existing copies that we have in our possession, be able to reconstruct that original yard to within a zillionth of an inch of accuracy?

Now, the reason for that analogy that Dr. Nicole offered so many years ago was that the Bible as we have it today does not contain the original manuscripts that were written by the prophets and the apostles and those agents of revelation that God superintended in the original writing of sacred scripture. And through the centuries, when the church has confessed her confidence that the Bible is inspired, inherent, and infallible, that confession has always been qualified by the statement that what we are speaking of is simply the *autographa*, or the body of original manuscripts. That is, the church, at least Protestantism, has not carried any brief for the inspiration of translations or the inspiration of copyists. The original scriptures have been copied thousands and thousands and thousands of times through the ages. And in many cases, those monks whose sole task was to spend their lives carefully and assiduously, precisely copying the existing manuscripts that they had, word for word, line upon line, accent upon accent, that even from time to time you would see variations between the monks of one locale and the monks of another locale. And we therefore say we don't believe in the infallible inspiration of copyists. And so the question is raised, well, if we don't have the original manuscripts and all we have are copies, and those copies include errors of transmission, why do we still speak of having an infallible Bible? Do you feel the problem and the weight of the problem?

Again, it goes back to Dr. Nicole's analogy of the standard for the yardstick, that the science of textual criticism, which is the science of the reconstructing of the original documents, is one of the most exact, impressive sciences that we have in the field of biblical studies. And so we have thousands of manuscripts that have been copied from the first century onward. And by examining all those carefully, and some of the families in which they exist, it has become a rather precise science to reconstruct the original documents. Now, why am I telling you all of that? Well, the reason is the most difficult text in all of the New Testament in terms of trying to reconstruct the original content of the New Testament happens to be the text that I just read a few moments ago, which in the nomenclature is called the long ending of Mark.

Now, when these scientists look at all of the existing manuscripts and try to determine what was in the original, they look at external information, such as, I say, the collection of manuscripts, also the quotations of the original text by first and second-century church fathers. And then they also look internally, if there are any abrupt changes in syntax and style and so forth. Now, I really believe that the reconstruction of the New Testament is as accurate as the reconstruction of the yardstick. That if we lost that building in Washington, except for this chapter here, in chapter 14, this long ending of Mark is problematic for this reason: all of the best manuscript evidence, as well as internal analysis, would lead us to conclude, and I'm convinced almost compellingly, that the last few verses that I just read here from the Gospel of Mark were not in the original version.

So why do translators stick it in here? Well, because they believe that that longer ending is suitable, a suitable conclusion to the Gospel of Mark. Because without it, Mark would end in chapter 16, verse 8, where we read, "So they went out quickly and fled from the tomb, for they trembled and were amazed, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid." Well, Mark is brief and terse throughout his gospel, but that's a little bit too terse for most readers. They want the book to say a little bit more. And so it's believed that in the very earliest part of the second century, the Christian church wanted to give an appropriate conclusion to the abrupt ending of Mark. We oughtn't to be disturbed by that. But let's look at what is found in this long ending and see that the doctrines that are found therein are very consistent with what is taught everywhere else in the New Testament. There's one tiny section of it that raises some eyebrows, but we'll get to that in a moment.

Let's look then, beginning at verse 15, where we have this quotation from Jesus with respect to the Great Commission. And by the way, there's no question in church history and in biblical analysis that our Lord gave the Great Commission. Whether it should appear here in the last portion of Mark is the question. But there's no question that Jesus gave this commission where he said, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." We examine that, of course, every year in our mission conference, but it's something that we need to examine every Sunday because this is so central to the life of the church that our Lord has given us a mission. He's enlisted us into this mission, and that mission is to preach the gospel. And the gospel has a definite content. He didn't give us the mandate to preach entertainment, to preach the latest psychological theories. This mandate is to preach a particular method, a particular message, I should say, which message can be gleaned by looking at the apostolic record itself, that the gospel has a definite content. It has to do with the announcement of the person and the ministry of Jesus, and of how the benefits of his life and death can be appropriated to us by faith. The gospel is not that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. The gospel is not that if you come to Christ, you will have purpose for your life. Those things may be true, and they may be interesting and inviting to certain people, but that's not the gospel. The gospel has to do with the life of Jesus, his work, his atonement, his resurrection, his ascension, and the salvation that is wrought by Jesus, which is appropriated by faith and by faith alone. That's the gospel. The gospel is not my personal testimony. My personal testimony may relate to your circumstances or it may not. But the gospel relates to everybody's circumstances. And the extent of the preaching of the gospel is, according to our Lord's directive, every creature in all the world, every creature in all the world.

I've mentioned in previous mission conferences that yesterday set an all-time record for people in the world who died without ever hearing the gospel. That record was set yesterday, August 11th, on Saturday. More people died yesterday in this world who have never heard the gospel of Jesus than on any day in human history. And that record that was set yesterday broke the record that was set the day before. And today we will break the record that was set yesterday. More people will die today in the world having never heard the gospel than died yesterday or the day before that. The population explosion of this world has made it very difficult for the church's missionary task to keep up with the numbers of those who are perishing without ever hearing of Jesus. This is his last mandate: into all the world to every creature, that they would hear the gospel.

And then the text says, Jesus said, "He who believes and is baptized will be saved. But he who does not believe will be condemned." Now, this message here may be a little bit confusing. Some people look at it and find this as the biblical text that says that baptism is necessary for salvation because our Lord said, "He who believes and is baptized will be saved." And so therefore, the inference is drawn that just as faith is a necessary condition for salvation, so is baptism. However, the rest of the New Testament makes it very clear that the only absolute necessary condition for our salvation, which condition is not only necessary but is also sufficient, is faith. Anyone who truly puts their trust in Christ will be justified at that very second. And we see examples in the scripture themselves of those who were saved who were not baptized. For example, the thief on the cross.

Now, let me state it this way for you, if I can make a fine distinction. And remember that if it's the woman's prerogative to change her mind, it is the theologian's prerogative to make fine distinctions. And the distinction is this: that baptism is not necessary to salvation, but it is necessary for sanctification. Why do I say that? Because we're commanded to be baptized. And if we do not obey that command, that is a failure in terms of our being conformed to the image of Christ and of our obedience in terms of our sanctification. So even though we all have an obligation to be baptized, that baptism does not necessarily mean that if we have it, we'll be saved, or if we don't have it, we'll be lost.

Now, notice in the second clause of this statement Jesus makes: "He who does not believe will be condemned." Notice the absence there of the term baptism. Jesus does not say in the parallel fashion that "he who does not be baptized will be condemned." But faith is necessary for salvation, and the lack of it will result in condemnation. You remember John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that whosoever, he sent his only begotten Son, that whosoever believed on him should not perish but have everlasting life." That's quoted all the time. Now, what's John 3:17? Anyone? "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him may be saved." And he goes on to say, "This is the condemnation, that men prefer the darkness over the light because their deeds are evil." And Jesus says in that same context that "he who does not believe is condemned already."

I stress this for this reason: that Jesus doesn't come into a world of innocent people in order to bring them salvation. Our Lord came into a world that was already universally under the condemnation of God. People who have never heard of Jesus are not condemned because they rejected Jesus of whom they've never heard. And so we breathe a sigh of relief and we think, "Well, therefore, we don't have to worry about their condemnation." On the contrary, they're already in a state of condemnation because they have universally rejected the general revelation of God the Father, who has made himself known and clear to every creature. And every creature, down to the last one of us, has exchanged that knowledge for an idol, exchanged the truth for a lie, and serves and worships the creature rather than the Creator, which exposes the whole world to condemnation.

And then Jesus goes on to say, "And these signs will follow those who believe: In my name they will cast out demons. They will speak with new tongues. They will take up serpents. And if they drink anything, it will by no means hurt them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover." Now, I think you've already detected the one statement in there that's problematic, but my guess is that you haven't. My guess is that you've responded to the wrong one. But let's look at these things again. Here are the signs that will follow those who believe. First of all, they'll be able to cast out demons. Did that happen with the apostles in the book of Acts? Yes, that was fulfilled. They will speak with new tongues. Did that happen in the book of Acts in the apostolic age? Yes. They will take up serpents. Did that happen? Was not Paul, when he reached his hand into the fire, bitten by an asp, it affixed itself to Paul's hand, and this poisonous snake, after Paul shook it loose, did no damage to the Apostle Paul. But I wonder how many of you zeroed in on that one as one that was not really fulfilled. Well, this, of course, is the proof text for snake-handling cults. And we've all heard about those cults of people who, at the heart of their Christian faith, is the testing of their faith by handling poisonous snakes, usually rattlesnakes, copperheads, or moccasins. And the idea is that if they handle these snakes and they have the proper amount of faith, they're not going to be fatally wounded by these snakes. Now, some of these people become very proficient at handling snakes without irritating the snakes and become able to play with the snakes without getting bitten. But every year you read of reports of those in such cults who indeed are stricken by these serpents. This was not designed by the word of God to produce a ritual in the life of the church to prove our faith, as some suppose. But indeed, we do have the apostolic record of one, at least the Apostle Paul, who survived the encounter with the deadly snake. However, we have no biblical record of anybody drinking poison and surviving it. We do have an extra-biblical testimony from early church history about one Christian who, in persecution, was forced to drink something like hemlock and nevertheless survived the experience without even becoming ill. That, that's again extra-biblical, and even though it's extra-biblical, would certainly fulfill this particular prophecy. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover. And that prophecy, as well, has been well-attested.

Then what follows in the text at the very end is, "So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, he was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God." Listen to that sentence. The last clause: "He was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God." Two of the most important activities of our Lord are compressed into less than one sentence. This is the reference here to the ascension of Jesus, which is of extreme importance. If we look carefully at Luke's gospel and at the book of Acts, that Jesus, after the resurrection, did not go to Mexico or to the United States, but he ascended into heaven, fulfilling that office promised to the faithful Messiah, where he goes, goes into heaven for his coronation as the King of Kings and as the Lord of Lords. And then at the end of the confession of the ascension comes the confession of the session. In the Apostles' Creed, we say, "ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God." In this church, we have a session, which is a group of elders. And they're called the session because these elders meet regularly in an ecclesiastical session where they are seated together, and they make judgments and decisions by which the church is governed. And there are many members of our session in heaven. There is only one session member, and that is Jesus, our supreme elder, who is seated at the right hand of the Father. And the Father has delegated to Christ all authority in heaven and on earth. That's why we say he is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, and his authority governs every event, every molecule, every person's life in this world today. We don't have to wait for the second coming for Jesus to be Lord. He's Lord right now, and he is right this moment seated at God's right hand, which is the seat of heavenly authority.

And then we read that "they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs." No sooner has the ending of Mark's gospel affirmed that Jesus has left this world, that he has ascended into heaven, that he's no longer present with us, that in the same breath, it is expressed that as the apostles went about their ministry, that the Lord was working with them. Hence the confessional statement that says, "Touching his human nature, Jesus is no longer present with us. Touching his divine nature, he is never absent from us." For our Lord himself, when he announced his imminent departure to his disciples, said, "Yet a little while, you will see me no more, for I am going away, and where I am going, you won't be able to come right now. Nevertheless, I am with you." And so, the task that is given to the church here is not a task that is to be accomplished by human effort alone. But that task that we are called to do, dear friends, is a task that is to be done with the help of the Lord who works with his people, who goes before his people. Even in his resurrection announcement that we read last week, that he told the women, "Go and tell the 12 that I am going before them into Galilee." That's his pattern. We go, and we find out he's already been there. He doesn't follow the ministry of the church. He leads the ministry of the church, as the scripture says.

And finally, it says, "And confirming the word through the accompanying signs." The Bible doesn't have a word for miracle. There's no word for miracle in the New Testament. There are three words for miracle: there are signs, powers, and wonders. And all three of those give us the substance by which we extrapolate the concept of miracle, that these signs that we call miracles are given to the church primarily and essentially to confirm the truth proclaimed by the apostolic testimony. In the Old Testament, agents of revelation were demonstrated to be messengers from God because of the miracles that they performed. Some people say, "If I'll see a miracle, I'll believe in God." You can't define a miracle as a miracle until you first know that there is a God. Because a miracle, by definition, is something that only God can do. And you remember Moses in the Old Testament, when God said, "You go to Pharaoh and you tell him, 'Let my people go.'" And then you go to the people and say, "'Let's go.'" He had two herculean problems: to persuade Pharaoh and to persuade the people. And Moses said to God, "How are they going to know that you sent me?" How did God answer Moses' question? He said to Moses, "Take your staff and throw it on the ground." And when he did, it turned into a serpent. He said, "Okay, grab its tail." He did, and it turned back into a staff. Then he said, "Moses, put your hand in your garment." And he did. Pull it out. It was leprous. He said, "Do it again." Put it in, pulled it out, it was clean. God said, "That's how they're going to know because I'm going to confirm my word through signs, and I'm going to confirm your authority." And the New Testament says that Jesus and the apostles are authenticated by the miracles that God wrought through them. Keep that in mind: that the word of God is confirmed by miracles, not miracles by the word of God.

Finally, the gospel in the longer ending ends with one word: "Amen." That word, which is based upon a Semitic word for truth, simply means, "This is the truth." And so what you've been listening to today, and last Sunday, last month, last year, and all of our gatherings together here as we followed closely through this gospel, is that we've heard the truth of God. Amen.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for this word by which we can live and hope and be satisfied in our souls. Help us to embrace it, to love it, and to live it, for Jesus' sake and for ours. Amen.

As we continue now with our study of the core ideas that make up what we call Reformed theology, I think of an event that took place in history just a couple of years before the Pilgrims landed on the shores of New England, landed in the Mayflower. A controversy that spread throughout Europe and then around the world that had its roots in the Netherlands. It began in a theological faculty of a Dutch institution that was committed to Calvinistic theology, when some of the professors began to have second thoughts about issues relating to the doctrine of election and predestination and that sort of thing. And this theological controversy erupted, and as it spread across the country, it upset the church and it upset the theologians of the day until finally a synod was convened and issues were squared away and certain people were rejected in their views, among whom was a man by the name of Arminius. But the group who led this, this movement against orthodox Reformed theology were called the Remonstrants. They were called the Remonstrants because they were remonstrating or protesting against certain doctrines within their own theological heritage. And there were basically five doctrines that were the core of the controversy. And what has happened as a result of this debate is that these five core theological issues became known in subsequent generations as the so-called five points of Calvinism. And they are known through the very popular acrostic TULIP, which is a sort of

Clever way to sum up the uh five articles that were in such dispute. And I mentioned that historical uh event for this reason. As we've said all along, it would be a serious mistake to understand the essence of reformed theology simply in light of these five doctrines, because the reformed faith involves many, many, many other elements of theological and ecclesiastical confession. But these are the five controversial points of reformed theology, and they're the ones that are popularly seen as being distinctive to this particular confession. So we're going to spend some time looking at the five points of Calvinism as they are spelled out in this acrostic. And we remember that this acrostic, TULIPS, uh uses the first letter of five different doctrines. The first is total depravity, hence the T. And the second is unconditional election, and hence the U. The L stands for limited atonement. The I for irresistible grace, and P for the perseverance of the saints. And when I have lectured on these doctrines in the past, I have stated one or more objections to these subheadings as defining the doctrines, because many of them, if not all of them, are somewhat misleading. But they fit so nicely into this acrostic, people insist on using these abbreviations to define the five points. And so what we're going to do today is begin with a brief overview of the T of the tulip, that which stands for total depravity.

I remember many, many years ago, I was teaching a course in theology at a college, and the students who were enrolled in the college did not come from a reformed background by any means. And we were working through various doctrines, and I came to the doctrine of total depravity, and I gave an exposition that went over about a week of classes. And at the end of that time, I asked the students if they were persuaded that this indeed was the biblical view of human sinfulness. And everybody in the class raised their hand and indicated yes, they were convinced that this was the correct biblical view. And I said, "Are you sure?" And they said, "Yes, they're absolutely sure." So I went on the blackboard, on the top left-hand side of the blackboard, and I wrote a number there, the number of the students, there like 28 students, put it in a box, and I wrote next to it, "For the janitor, please do not erase." And and I did that for a reason, that they were all committed.

And then the next week, we started in on the U of unconditional election, and there were howls of protest from the students who rebelled against that doctrine. They didn't like that at all. And when I began to press them on the doctrine, I said, "Now, are you sure you still want to subscribe to total depravity as you did last week?" And one by one, I had to erase, uh, the names up there in the left-hand corner of the blackboard. And I say that for this reason, that there's one sense in which if a person really embraces what is called the doctrine of total depravity, the other four points in this five-point system more or less fall in line. They become duck soup and corollaries more or less of of this first point. And so let's take some time to look at that.

The uh, the historical situation where this doctrine first became a matter of great import and great controversy was early on in church history during the teaching ministry of St. Augustine. And I'm sure you've heard a little bit about the so-called Pelagian controversy of the latter part of the 4th century and into the fifth century, which began when this British monk whose name was Pelagius protested against a statement that was in one of the written prayers of Augustine, wherein in this prayer, Augustine made this comment before God. He said, "Oh God, command what thou wouldst and grant what thou dost command." Let me say it again. "Command what thou wouldst and grant what thou dost command." And of course, Pelagius had apoplexy over this prayer. Now, the reason for his displeasure was not the first part of the prayer wherein Augustine said, "Oh God, command whatever you want to command." Pelagius, being a pious monk, certainly agreed with Augustine that God had every right to exercise his authority over the creatures and to command what he deemed pleasing to him. But what exercised Pelagius was the second part of the prayer when Augustine asked God to grant what he commands, because Pelagius said that assumes that the creature somehow is not morally able to do the will of God. And so that created a a lengthy controversy, frankly, which controversy goes on even to this day [snorts], and we continue to have discussions about Pelagianism or semi-Pelagianism, Augustinianism, and so on. In fact, I just finished writing a book about the entire historical development of that controversy from Pelagius down to last week, and uh, and so I will be going into that in much greater detail, uh, later on. But we, I hope to have a separate course just on on that question. But by way of introduction and overview, the issue has to do with the question of original sin, and the doctrine of total depravity reflects the reformed viewpoint of original sin.

Now, that term original sin is often misunderstood in the popular arena. Some people just assume that the term original sin must refer to the first sin, the original, the original that we've all copied in many different ways in our own lives. That is the first sin of Adam and Eve. But that's not what is referred to historically in the church by the doctrine of original sin. Rather, the doctrine of original sin defines the consequences to the human race of that first sin. And virtually every church historically that has had a creed or a confession has agreed that something very serious happened to the human race as a result of the first sin, that the first sin produced original sin. That is, as a result of the sin of Adam and Eve, the entire human race fell. And so that our nature as human beings since the fall is a nature that has been influenced by the power of evil. As David declared in the Old Testament, "Oh God, I was born in sin and in sin did my mother conceive me." He was not saying that it was a sinful thing for his mother and father to have borne children [snorts], nor was he saying that he had done something evil by being born. But rather, he was acknowledging the human condition of fallenness, that fallenness that was part of the experience of his parents, that fallenness that he brings himself into this world. And so original sin has to do with the fallen nature of mankind. The idea is that we are not sinners because we sin, but that we sin because we are sinners. We are by nature sinners. And we've all heard the axiom, "Nobody's perfect." We might improve upon that a little bit by saying, not only is no one perfect, but no one's even close to perfection. And so the doctrine of total depravity describes and defines a particular [music] view of original sin that has its roots in the teaching of St. Augustine. And remember that Augustine was the patron saint of the monastery where Martin Luther was reared in the faith and where he taught at Wittenberg. He was an honest Augustinian monk, and also, Augustine was the most revered mentor of John Calvin. So that the thinking of Augustine had an enormous influence in the shaping of the doctrine of the Protestant Reformation.

Now, what total depravity does not mean in the reformed tradition is what we call utter depravity. Utter depravity. Now, we often use the term total as a synonym for utter or for completely. And so the notion of total depravity conjures up the idea that every human being is as bad as that person could possibly be. You might think of some arch fiends of history like Adolf Hitler and say there was absolutely no redeeming virtue left in the man, but I suspect that that he had some affection for his mother. And as wicked as Adolf Hitler was, we can still conceive of his being even more wicked than he actually was. And so the idea of total depravity doesn't mean that every human being is as wicked as they could possibly be. But rather, it means that the fall is so serious that it affects the whole person. Our fallenness that captures and grips our human nature affects our bodies. That's why we become ill and we die. It affects our minds and our thinking. We still have the capacity to think, but the Bible speaks about the way in which the mind has become darkened and weakened. The will of man is no longer in its pristine state of moral power. But the will, according to the New Testament, is now in bondage. We are enslaved to the evil impulses and desires of our hearts. And so the mind, the will, the spirit, the whole person has been infected by the power of sin.

Now, again, if that's as far as we would go with the definition of total depravity, most Christian communions would say, "Yay and amen," this far. I mean, most would agree that we're fallen, and that the fall is a serious thing, and that the uh, human nature that we bring into this world has been so influenced by sin that it touches every part of our nature. Again, most Catholic or universal creeds of Christendom would grant that much. So then the debate becomes over a question of degree. How far have we fallen? What is the degree of that human corruption?

Now, I like to replace the term total depravity with my favorite designation, which is radical corruption. It's a concept that my friends find very easy to remember as they make their own acrostic for it. They just abbreviate radical corruption by the initials RC. They take great delight in the ease with which this facilitates their memory, as they have a living model before them of radical corruption. I remember a gym teacher I had in the seventh grade when, uh, he called the roll for the first day that he was there and called my name, RC, as that's what I was called in grade school, and he said, "Oh, Rotten Crabapple." So in that instant, I had a new nickname that I probably should not have mentioned because I'll probably hear it again in these days. But the reason why we use this term, although it completely ruins our flower garden here, the tulip now becomes RU, and nobody's going to remember that [snorts]. But the re reason I prefer this is because of the term radical.

Now, again, there's another one of those words that we use, uh, bandied about in various ways in our culture, particularly in the political arena, where we say somebody's on the radical left or on the radical right or so on. But the word radical, ironically, has its roots in the Latin word for root, which is the word radex, and it can be translated root or core. And the idea of the term radical is something that permeates to the core of a thing. It's not something that is tangential or superficial, namely lying on the surface, but it penetrates into the core of the thing. In a recent poll done of professing evangelicals, the overwhelming majority of people who answered particular questions in this poll indicated that they agreed with the statement that man is basically good. Now, usually, that phrase "basically good" means that the basis or the essence of humanity, or the core of a person, is good. And though we recognize that no one's perfect and all are sinners, and that we all are marred and blemished by various imperfections, the problem with sin in the idea that man is basically good is that sin then is seen as accidental or peripheral to human nature. And this, of course, is part of the optimistic view of mankind that is uh essential to historic humanism. Uh, the humanist acknowledges that there are problems. But basically, what we need is more education, more uh, government help, and we'll get better and better and better and erase those blemishes on the surface that produce crime and other forms of wickedness. And it seemed to me when I heard that poll that perhaps what is happening is that those who are professing evangelicals are taking their cue for the basic nature of fallen humanity from the culture rather than from the historic, uh, biblical, uh, view.

The reformed view says that the fall extends and penetrates to the core. The word that is used for core actually is a translation from the in, uh, Latin word, *cor*, which means what? Heart. That is, the idea is that our sin is something that comes from our hearts. And in biblical terms, that means from the core or very center of our existence. And so what is required for us to be conformed to the image of Christ is not simply some small adjustments or behavioral modifications, but nothing less than renovation from the inside, nothing less than regeneration, being made over again, being quickened by the power of the spirit. And so we see that the only way in which a person can escape this radical situation is when the Holy Spirit changes the core, changes the heart. And even that change does not instantly vanquish sin. The complete elimination of sin awaits our glorification in heaven.

Now, we'll look at some more aspects of this doctrine in our next session.