“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).

In a debate, an atheist appealed to a claimed impossibility of finding an unseen, spiritual God in a totally naturalistic world. In contrast, his Christian counterpart made repeated reference to his own rebirth as evidence for God and Christianity. Did either one get the point? I wonder.

These are days when exclusive Christian claims don’t go over well. First of all, religious experience is cheap because religious authority is an easy invention in the human mind. So why shouldn’t every individual have the right to his own religious ideas? Besides, who would you be to suggest your religion is better than mine? I encounter an ongoing flow of people with a mixed religious bag, assembled out of a personal wish list of what God should be like.(Reminds me of the charms that a witch doctor would assemble.)

But why not just come down to the obvious? If God is concocted in the minds and experiences of men and women, then God is not God at all. The god-maker is of necessity greater than his god. Such a god dies when his maker dies, since he never existed except in the mind of his maker. From such a beginning, is there any difference whether one puts his faith in a door knob, in the full moon, or in some vague “man upstairs”? Any “gods” in this range are simply bogus. There is no truth in them now, and they will not save in the end. A lot of thinking people intuitively know this, and quickly dismiss all religious experiences out of hand.

If Christianity is just one more of these invented “isms,” then the debater’s claimed spiritual rebirth is yet another disgusting tool to persuade people of that which is not. The question then is not whether the Christian debater is or was saved. It must rather be in definable, unchanging, historically grounded evidence that such a salvation is even possible.

In one single objective assessment lies the answer — who is Jesus Christ?

This line of evidence points to the conclusion that God did indeed show up in the world which He had made in the person of Jesus Christ. Thus the world was, after all, not invaded by other beings from space (as some evolutionists propose), but from heaven itself, by the one who made the world. Thus the natural world is not isolated from the normally unseen, spiritual God, as the atheist wills to believe. Many people fail to grasp that the Bible is a history replete with hard evidence that Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh, that he was introduced in a supernatural ministry, that could not be denied by friend or foe, or Roman executioners. He was put to death on a cross, and then arose again from the dead. These are matters established by may witnesses and more than ample documentation. This evidence places Jesus, the Son of God, as firmly into natural history as Julius Caesar, Shakespeare, Abraham Lincoln, and even the head of your closest atheist organization. This one-time appearance of God in His world only confirms what believers have always known. This God is always involved in His universe, since He gives to all, life, and breath, and all things. Thus the atheist’s predicament is not that God cannot be known, but in attempting a credible refusal of that knowledge.

This God-come-in-flesh evidence fixes an awful gulf between true biblical faith and every other religion. To every reader we raise the proposition — you may disavow and reject every form of idolatrous worship, past, present or future – without consequence. You can likewise refuse Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, and Mormonism or any other “ism.” But there is no getting around the evidence for Jesus Christ. There are only two kinds of people in this world. It is those who bow in surrender, in awe, and in reverence to the Saviour now — and those who wait until it is too late.

But I would also warn those in the Christian church. By disallowing plain teaching of Scripture, we too, get involved in the God-altering business. Today entire denominations subscribe to the notion that women have no moral obligation to carry a baby to term–a religious support for murder, and a useful tool in the landmark Supreme Court decision to legalize abortion. The same could be said in relation to gay issues and same-sex marriages. For example, the annual “Gay Pride Fest” in Minneapolis features many supporting floats, sponsored by old mainline Protestantism. There is no need to wonder where these churches come out on the sins of adultery and fornication.

It seems to me that the height of religious dishonesty is to claim to believe in God and in Jesus Christ, and then disregard the utterly plain teachings of Scripture. This is starting with a foundation of truth and building it into a lie. It is reinventing the true God into some benign Grandad in the sky who loves everyone, accepts every atrocity, and judges absolutely nothing. I suppose these would be utterly chagrined at the suggestion that they don’t love God. Yet, how dare we claim to love God, and disregard His commandments? Jesus said, “why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).

In fact the true foundation shows exactly the status of these churches so-called. It is described in a basic biblical principle — a little leaven leavens the whole lump. Perhaps this is best portrayed as the prophet Haggai questions the priests, (Haggai 2). If one bearing holy flesh make: contact with common food items, will they be made holy? The priests answered, “no.” The next question is, If one is contaminated by a dead body, and touch any of these food items, shall it be unclean? The priests answered, “It shall be unclean.” Over the past few centuries, scientists have confirmed this truth about infectious diseases. Had doctors taken ancient Bible teaching seriously, they would not have spread death from the morgue to the delivery room with unwashed hands, nor would they have spread infections in making their rounds.

And how did Haggai rephrase this lesson? “So is this people, and so is this nation before me, saith the Lord; and so is every work of their hands; and that which they offer there is unclean” (Haggai 2:14). To paraphrase, the supposed good deeds of individuals and churches are contaminated and rendered unclean through moral pollution (like a good piece of bread in a sewer). As leaders and pastors, it is our solemn duty to clearly make again the difference between the clean and unclean.

Why do we bother saying things that people don’t want to hear? Because the Christ who came into our universe as a babe, died on the cross, arose from the dead, and then went back to heaven from whence He came. He accomplished the needed mission of salvation from our sins.. He came to turn the fierce wrath of the Almighty away from every person who repents, believes in Christ, and by grace turns from his own abominable ways. Otherwise, the wrath of God abides.

Finally the question is no longer whether salvation is possible. It is who will receive Him in the appointed time? Behold now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation.

-by Lester Troyer