The Solution
Chapter 4
Teaching that leads to Revelation (continued)

Fundamentally, the root cause of all man's problems is that he has had a falling-out with God. He does not know God, and for the most part does not want to know God (at least on God’s terms), although he may seem as though he does. What does man need? What man needs is to be converted; the fundamental problem requires a fundamental healing: being redeemed by a loving God from sin. The desert needs to be flooded with living water! Every man needs a radical change in nature, from being self-centered to being God-centered. How does this happen?

To answer this question we need to ask another: The falling-out between God and man is whose fault? Who is guilty for causing the problem in this most fundamental relationship?

Of course man is! Man is at fault for the barrier between him and God. Man is the Villain. And God is the Victim. We do not usually think of God as a victim, but He is. Why did God create man? To commune with Himself. Man was created to commune with God and ally with Him in the cosmic battle against Satan, who at the point of man's creation had been thrown out of Heaven to dwell on the earth. Man was God's instrument of choice to bring this cosmic horror to its conclusion. Man was created to both commune with God and join Him in this cosmic warfare with Satan, to bring about the ultimate destruction of the Devil and his fallen angels. Then man would forever after live in communion with his Father.

So what happened? Man defected. He became a traitor! He knifed his Creator in the back! He joined Satan in the great rebellion against God! And so presently man finds himself born in rebellion against God! His self-centered Adamic nature is a natural ally to Satan's schemes. A person may not know that he is a part of Satan's army, but he is. Adam joined that army in such a way as to insure the conscription of all his posterity. By serving himself, he serves the Devil.

So, God is the Victim and man is the Villain. Now what can man do to undo this problem, since he's born this way?

Nothing! He cannot do a thing!

Now this is a real problem. Not only was there a falling-out, but the villain (man) cannot undo the damage. We're dead! "You were dead in your transgressions and sins" (Ephesians 2:1). Man is hopeless; he is completely unable, in and of himself, to reach back to God.

This is important, and we need to understand the depth of our hopelessness or we will never understand God’s grace. Man is totally bankrupt; there is nothing in his account that will pay to rebuild this breach--to undo the damage to his Holy Creator.

So there's no hope for the Villain, right? The Apostle Paul said, "You were without hope and without God (Eph. 2:12)." No hope. The first element of the good news is bad news: that man is without hope; they are fatally flawed, living in death.
So how do we escape? Where is the hope? How can we sit here now, "clothed and in our right mind?" How did we get here? Where did salvation come from?

The hope for reconciliation in this cosmic falling out lies with the Victim. The Victim is a God of love. But He is also a God of Justice. And God said, "the soul that sins is the one that dies." And what does Justice demand in this situation? Justice cries out for death, and Justice must be served. God cannot compromise who He is; Justice must be served. Therefore, God must punish the sinful soul with death. For that is the just wages of sin.

How does Love find a way? What does our loving Father do? He sends His own son, born of woman, to die as a man on the cross, to pay the just penalty for man's sin. The solution that Love finds is Jesus, to hang on a cruel cross, where God the Father executes Justice--expending His righteous wrath on his own son. He separates Himself from His own son, so that His own Son can experience Hell--that is, separation from God the Father. Jesus Christ experiences Hell on our behalf, so that the penalty is paid in full.

He experiences physical and spiritual death; the victim, therefore, solves the problem in Himself. Salvation is a transaction between God the Father and God the Son. This, of course, is the great doctrine of Justification. But we need to capture the essence of it in order to appreciate what it accomplished--our ONLY hope!

The sons of Adam were not, and are not now, involved in this transaction; it occurred completely separate from them, 2,000 years ago on the cross as the Son of God offered Himself as a propitiatory sacrifice on our behalf, to pacify the wrath of a just and holy God.

It is important to understand what happened on the cross so many years ago; too many of us today loose sight of it. God the Son came on our behalf to die on a cross. His Father took our sins and placed them on His son, and then executed the judgment that our sins deserved on His own son.

We may not be able to understand exactly how all this happened. But it happened. God is not a space-time being as we are. Your sins and my sins, the ones we committed two thousand years after the fact, were placed on Christ on the cross by the Father, who executed judgment against that sin. "By His stripes, we are healed." (I Peter 2:24)

Who did that? Who accomplished this salvation? God did! Was Man involved? No--we were not even alive! God did it, and if God did it for you, and your sins are paid for, then are you right with God? Yes. If you are justified, are you declared innocent? Yes! Has everyone been declared innocent? No. Why are you declared innocent, and not someone else? The answer is very simple: no-one knows! All I know is, He did it! And revealed it to us!

Some people seem to think that is not fair--"God does not seem to be just." Listen, justice demands that we all go to Hell--that's the "just" thing! In fact, allowing anyone into Heaven would be considered "unjust." But it is merciful, and our God is one of Mercy. The fact that all don't go to Heaven shows that God is still just, and He does what he pleases. God is God, and we need to understand that.
The basic problem of crippled men is that they have not experienced the forgiveness through Jesus Christ which leads them into a relationship with God, a relationship that will not be compromised by sin. That is, when you are justified, you are justified past, present and future. Justification is not something that happens over and over again; when you are placed in Christ, ALL your sins have been forgiven Forever! You are adopted into God's family.

The most basic problem with sinful Man (those in Adam) is that he needs to be reconciled with a holy and righteous God. He needs Justification which leads to a personal walk with God! One of the major problems today is that Christians do not understand the nature of their justification. What is the requirement for men to "be saved?"