Blog

he book of Leviticus, and quite frankly the entire Levitical system, can be summed up in a three-word sentence: God demands perfection. He demands perfect sacrifices, a perfect priesthood, perfect worship, perfect purity, perfect justice and righteousness, perfect observance of the ceremonies and festivals, and perfect civility.

As Christians, we live in a world full of unbelievers who view us in a myriad of unfavorable ways. Some would say that we are bizarre and fanatical, while others regard us as foolish, intolerant and offensive. This is no surprise, considering that Scripture teaches us that, “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

Over the past few weeks, we have done the work of searching the Scriptures to see what the Spirit-inspired writers had to say in regards to the doctrine of election, and we have found many great truths. To recap what we covered: God has elected those whom He foreknew in eternity past, and He has predestined those whom He elected to receive the eternal blessing, all made possible through the finished work of Christ.

Towards the end of the blog titled “God’s Eternal Decree – Part 1”, I made the following assertion concerning the doctrine of election: “Once you see it in one text of Scripture, you begin to see it everywhere in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament.” Oh, how true is that statement!

Ask anyone who does not adhere to reformed theology what comes to mind when they hear the term “Calvinism”, and more often than not they will respond with, “predestination”. Predestination is certainly a vital component of the doctrines of grace, and as we began to touch on last week, it is part of God’s eternal decree.

It has been several years now since our church went through John Snyder’s “Behold Your God” series, but I still remember the study like it was yesterday. I remember studying the weightiness of God’s divine attributes and how perfect, beautiful, majestic, and inseparable they are. We considered and meditated on Scriptural truths concerning God’s holiness, eternality, immutability, wrath, righteousness, love, grace, patience, and so on.

The Christian faith is full of many wonderful doctrines that encapsulate what Scripture teaches us concerning who God is, who we are, why we are here, God’s plan of redemption, and where we are going when we die. Consider the doctrine of justification. We know from history that justification by faith was the battle cry of the Protestant reformation in the 16th century.

As we discussed last time, our sinful nature was passed down to us by Adam as a result of his sin. Everyone who is born out of the loins of Adam is born spiritually dead, and we are therefore inherently evil with a disposition towards satisfying the lusts of our flesh, the lusts of our eyes, and the boastful pride of life.

When God created the universe in six days, He described everything He made as “very good” (Genesis 1:31). As fallen human beings, it is difficult, if not impossible, for us to comprehend what it means to live in a world where everything is perfect. No sin. No disease. No suffering. No death. Even our greatest imaginations of a true utopia pale in comparison to life in the Garden of Eden prior to the Fall.

If you were to enter into a time machine, go back to the year 2005, and ask my 14-year-old self to explain the Gospel, I would have likely said that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins and rose again on the third day, and by believing in Him, we can have eternal life.