There are other great religious systems in the world today in which the real Christ of the Bible, the Redeemer of the Gospels, is veiled through ordinances and ceremonies in which there is no saving power, yet through which countless thousands are deceived into thinking they are made acceptable to God.
There is a system of religion for the rationalist. The pronouncement of the curse upon satan and the promise of salvation through Christ following and fall precipitated a conflict as we have seen. The conflict begun then has never ceased; it is being waged more fiercely today than ever before.
To prevent the execution of the curse and the fulfillment of the promise satan tried in every conceivable way to destroy the seed of the woman. At the Cross of Calvary he thought himself triumphant. But the very place of his supposed victory was the place of his judgment and the forerunner of his final doom. Christ arose, the Victim became the Victor. Christ Jesus returned to the glory from whence He came. He went beyond the devil's reach. There is no way in which satan again can touch or tempt the person of the adorable Lord. How then would he continue the conflict? Now that he could not focus the venom of his hate upon the incarnate Word upon what would he focus it?
The revelation of this conflict is unfolded in a Book. The incarnate Word has gone home to His Father but the written Word is still on earth. In it the defeat of the devil and the victory of the Christ is recorded in large type. The way of salvation through the atoning death and the triumphant resurrection of the Lord of glory is written in red letters from Genesis to Revelation. This is the Gospel. This Gospel the devil hates with all the hatred of which the father of hate is capable. So against it he will now direct his attack. Around the Gospel of Christ the conflict will center henceforth.
The Gospel is in the Bible and the Bible is in the world. It has been printed in hundreds of languages and has gone to the far corners of the earth. More millions of copies of it are being sold annually than of any other book. Men everywhere are reading the Bible and are believing the Gospel. Being saved through it they are taken from satan's dominion and removed out of his kingdom.
What can he do to stop its progress and its power? Destroy it? He has tried that and failed. The Bible is not printed on paper only but it has been graven on human hearts by the Spirit of God, so that if every copy of the printed Bible in the world today were destroyed, a new copy could be made from its truth stored in human hearts.
Perhaps, then, satan could ridicule the Bible and hinder its progress and power through scoffing. He has tried that also and failed. He has used some of the world's most brilliant men as his preachers of infidelity and atheism. Today they are in their graves and their words are forgotten while the Bible lives on more powerful than ever.
But is there not a more effectual way of denying the Gospel and of keeping sinners from the benefit and blessing of the salvation it offers? There is and satan is making use of it in these days in ever increasing measure. God tells us that the devil's most subtle maneuver in the conflict is to turn preacher and with the Bible as his textbook to concoct out of it a gospel of his own. When satan found that attacking the written Word from without failed then he began attacking it from within. As Christ uses men to preach His Gospel so satan would find men who would consent to become "his ministers."
2 Corinthians 2:13-15, "For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, fashioning themselves into apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for even satan fashioneth himself into an angel of light. It is no great thing therefore if his ministers also fashion themselves as ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their work."
What would satan's gospel be and where would it begin? God's Gospel is a Gospel of grace and begins with Genesis, chapters one to three. But how could satan accept these three chapters as they stand fresh from the heart and hand of God containing as they do the revelation of God's perfect work in the creation of the universe and man; the invasion of an enemy, he being that enemy; the injection of sin into God's perfect work; the awful consequence in the fall of Adam and Eve; the terrible curse of God upon himself, upon man and upon the earth; the precious promise of a Saviour and the glorious prophecy of his own defeat through the death upon the Cross? Of course, he could not accept these chapters for in them is the germ of the whole Gospel of man's salvation.
He would defeat his own purpose if he did so bold and blatant a thing as deliberately to cut these chapters out of the Bible. But the arch-deceiver is quite equal to the emergency. He will preach a gospel that reserves the right to interpretation of the Word of God according to the dictates of reason. He will insist upon a faith that is rational.
It is always difficult for reason to accept anything beyond its own range. God thinks and works on the plane of uncreated, divine, unlimited, supernatural life. Man thinks and works on the plane of created, human, limited, natural life. The rationalist refuses to recognize any such dividing line between himself and his Creator. Consequently he refuses to accept anything, even from God, that goes beyond his reason. So whatever the rationalist believes, his religion must be on his own plane of life - the natural.
So a system of religion is framed to suit him. A gospel is manufactured "which is another gospel" (Galatians 1:6), a clever, malicious counterfeit. satan knows that he must inspire man to make a religion which does away altogether with God's revelation of the creation and the fall of man, otherwise how can he dispose of the promise of man, otherwise how can he dispose of the promise of a Saviour and the prophecy of his own ultimate defeat through Christ's glorious victory on Calvary and His triumphant return as King?
Consequently the basic tenet of the rationalist's system of religion is evolution. Man did not come direct from God's hands - a perfect work which God Himself pronounced "very good." God's first man was not created in the image of One infinitely higher than himself, but was evolved from something infinitely lower than himself. This something had evolved through various stages by natural processes until man was produced. So that God's part in the production of man was not so much that of a Creator as of a semi-divine supervisor or foreman "of resident natural forces." In other words the supernatural in man's creation was eliminated through evolution. So much for man's creation in this man-made, satan-inspired gospel~
How does this gospel of the rationalist deal with sin? Sin is in the world. Sin is in man. How does the rationalist account for its origin and what does he say of its end? He evades the issue altogether by calmly denying the necessity of any one having such knowledge.
~Ruth Paxson~
(continued with # 6)
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