by Tim | Feb 12, 2010 | God, The Gospel |
Is humanity lost? Have we walked away from God and gone our own way? Is the world really going to hell? Is that fair? Is there any way to return to God? Is God even willing to welcome us back if we tried? Does God require any terms for salvation? Would it even be fair of God to set up terms? Why not just save everyone if He really does love the world? What do you think? Well, not to be rude, but it doesn’t really matter what you think. It doesn’t even matter what I think. What matters is what God thinks. (No one likes to hear this.) And the only way we can know what God thinks is if God reveals that to us. And if He does, our own opinions/feelings/thoughts matter little if they contradict what God says about himself. John Wesley (the founder of the Methodist movement) wrote a commentary on the New Testament, including the book of Romans. In this commentary, Wesley states (emphasis mine): [The Gospel] is the powerful instrument of salvation…by means of faith… The world greatly needed such a dispensation–the Gentiles being in a most abandoned state, and the Jews (though condemning others) are themselves no better…so that all were under a necessity of seeking justification by this method. Why did John Wesley write this? Because it’s what the book of Romans lays out as the condition of the world. The question is, did Paul just write this out of his own thinking? Or is this divine revelation from God? If it’s just his own opinion, there’s no need to affirm...
