A real perspective

Money can not fix who we are without Christ NW

JON ZENS 

Such is the human view of man’s history. But it is not God’s view. The Bible does not classify humanity in multiple shades of gray, but in the stark contrast of black and white – of regenerate or unregenerate, of saved or lost, of redeemed or condemned, of "alive with Christ" or "dead in transgressions" (Eph. 2:5). In God’s eternal plan, there are only two realms – those controlled by the flesh – the unconverted – and those controlled by the Spirit – the redeemed (Rom. 8:5-9). There are the fallen descendants of the "first man Adam" and the redeemed descendants of "the last Adam" (1 Cor. 15:45). There is the kingdom that is "from below" and the kingdom that is "from above" (John 8:23). 

There is no middle ground, no situational ethics, no compromise. In the world of unbelief the beneficent king has no more claim to mercy than the evil tyrant. Those who follow a moral code will perish as surely as those who follow their own lusts. In the world that is "from above" the thief on the cross will sit with the apostles at the "wedding supper of the Lamb" (Rev. 19:9) and the weakest of saints in this life will reign forever with the stalwarts of the faith. It is a study in total opposites and whether in this life or the next, "ne’er the twain shall meet."

To understand this dichotomy is to better understand our responsibilities as "members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 3:6). God has no positive plans for those who stumble through life in the darkness of unbelief. They remain "the objects of his wrath – prepared for destruction" (Rom. 9:22). His eternal interests are centered exclusively in "the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory" (Rom. 9:23). He has no expectations for moral improvement from those who remain in hopeless bondage to sin and "under the control of the evil one" (1 John 5:19). While God certainly "causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous" (Mat. 5:45), such mercies should not be construed as an approbation of sinners. 

There is nothing a sinner can do to please God except to believe in his Son. He does not bless the unregenerate in response to moral behavior (or church attendance, or "Sabbath keeping," or tithing, or any other works). 

There is no good deed they can offer apart from faith in his Son that will gain God’s favor and remove the curse that will ultimately send them to hell. Nor does one nation’s moral behavior earn God’s special blessing while another’s atrocities bring special judgments. Whatever "blessing" or blight any temporal nation may enjoy or suffer, it is only to further God’s eternal redemptive purposes that center, not in this world’s realms, but in the kingdom of his dear Son.