(If you have found this sermon to be helpful, please visit us at www.HeritageRestorationProject.org or www.ChristianWisdom.info)
Jesus said that all sin will be forgiven except the sin against the Holy Spirit (see Mark 3:28-29, Matthew 12:31-32 and Luke 12:10). Why would this one sin be unpardonable? It is because to deny the Holy Spirit, to say “no” to the Holy Spirit’s calls to enlightenment, messages which massage the human soul trying to bring back to life. It is because to say “no” to the Holy Spirit is to shut the door to the possibility of healing, or restoration, or regaining spiritual life. Rejecting the testimony of the Holy Spirit seals the fate of the soul; for “he that believeth not is already condemned” (John 3:18a). The soul that rejects the Holy Spirit, cannot, as a result, accept the gift of salvation, cannot accept the deliverance from condemnation that is being offered, because “no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3b), and because, recognizing that Jesus is Lord is necessary for our salvation. “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). This, then, is the “unforgiveable sin” because it closes the door tightly, rejects the Gospel, rejects even the possibility of new life, rejects God’s plan of salvation, and insists on staying in its present state of condemnation.
The “law” is a topic to which much attention is devoted in the New Testament, especially by the Apostle Paul who devotes a good deal of his writings to this topic (Romans Chapter 7, for example). In Galatians 3:13 Paul speaks of the law as a curse. It is true that the law was necessary for there to be any creation whatsoever. The law is the blueprint, so to speak, that God used for each thing created. The law erects boundaries that separate that which is from that which is not. The law is like the pencil mark that transforms a blank piece of paper into a recognizable drawing. However, it this very law, this tool, this method used by God to fashion man and all of creation, that now accuses us of our sin and seeks our destruction.
At first glance, passages such as 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9, which reads, “…the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: (they) shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power”; and, Luke 13:6-9 where we read, “(Jesus) spoke also this parable: A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, ‘Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none. Cut it down; why should it use up the ground?’ And he answering said unto him, ‘Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it; and if it bear fruit, well; and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down”; seem inconsistent to the New Testament assertion that God is love, and love will never cease. This seeming inconsistency vanishes when we come to truly understand the law and its function.
All things die as a natural consequence of the very same law by which the physical universe was created—this death not because of the wrath of God demanding satisfaction, but rather because of the law, which mirror’s God’s righteousness, requires everything that has been created to remain in perfect harmony with the pattern by which it was created. To depart from that “blueprint”, to have that “wiring” corrupted, makes it impossible to be in the ontological sense. Death and exclusion from God is the result of the corruption of our soul. The “soul” is the inner essence of humanity which was created in God’s image and intended always to remain in that image. If the image cannot be reawakened, restored, it, like the fig tree in the parable told by Jesus in Luke 13:6-9, must be cut down. Unfortunately, once corrupted, there is no restoration without the direct intervention of God.
Still other similar biblical passages, some in the form of parables, others in the form of direct warnings, point to the same underlying message. In John 15:6, for example, Jesus warns: “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.”
As further clarification, let us now consider the nature and function of “the law”. I don’t think that this term, the law, as it is used in the Bible is commonly understood. When thinking of this concept, most people think of the law as something decided upon by society, and written into a legal code regulating human behavior. Law, in the biblical sense, does include this function. It has, however, a far broader function than commonly understood. The law sets the boundaries of every created thing. These boundaries make existence possible. These boundaries are the blueprint or formulas by which a thing is defined. Change the boundary in any way and the thing itself changes. For example, change the chemical structure of H2O (water) to H2O2, and water no longer exists, it is destroyed (so to speak) and transmuted into hydrogen peroxide. That is a law of nature. Or, change the spelling of “book” to “back” and the word is no longer represents the concept of something to be read. The concept to which it points is no longer the same. First, boundaries allow the creation of and continued existence of all that exists. Second, because these boundaries are necessary for the continued existence of all that exists, when the boundaries are ignored or otherwise broken, the thing defined by these boundaries cannot continue to live but must as a natural consequence die; i.e., cease to be. This death, or destruction, is “death in the ontological sense”, and this law applies to all created things, including man’s soul.
This natural law plays an important role in creation. We call this law “natural law” because it occurs everywhere in nature and is not created by man. The natural law was established by the word of God as a tool by which God creates, like a needle and thread for a seamstress or a pen for a writer. This tool separates that which is from chaos by the establishment of boundaries by which that which is created is defined. An apple is an apple because of the boundaries by which it is defined. An orange is an orange because of the boundaries by which it is defined. All that is, has been created by the use of boundaries, and these boundaries constitute the “natural law” that separates each thing from all other things, and especially from chaos or the state of non-being”. In fact, if the essential nature of something is corrupted, the natural law insists, so to speak, that this thing which has been corrupted cease to exist.
We may not always notice “ontological death” when it is taking place because it may be a slow process of entropy rather than immediate destruction, but it is an inevitable and natural consequence of breaking or destroying the boundaries by which existence is defined. The soul of all humans has been corrupted by “sin”; i.e., nonconformity, either deliberately or because of an inability to conform, to the boundaries set for it when man’s soul was called into being, created in the image of God.
Christianity is fairly straightforward and not particularly difficult to understand if one understands the role of law in creation and law’s necessary role as gatekeeper. This gatekeeper prevents anything that departs from its created pattern, for example the human soul which has been corrupted by sin, from entering eternal life. Indeed the necessary penalty for the corruption of our soul is death in the ontological sense “lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” Genesis 3:22). Mankind is barred from the “tree of life”.
The basic premise of Christianity is as follows: “All have sinned (i.e., departed from our ‘blueprint’) and fallen short of the law” (Romans 3:23), and this being the case, all persons are headed to perdition. This is not by God’s will but as a natural necessity of the boundaries by which the human soul was created, which have now been violated. That which does not conform to the pattern by which it was called into being ceases to exist, dies in the ontological sense. The natural law cannot be changed to accommodate something that has departed from its “blueprint”, for if it were to do so, if the corrupted soul were allowed to live forever, the human soul would no longer be what it was intended to be, the image of God.
The sin to which we are all subject is explained as being the result of the “original sin” of Adam in the Garden of Eden (see Genesis 2:15-3:24). Once Adam’s soul had been corrupted, the soul of all other human descendants were corrupted and therefore consigned by law to perdition. In Romans 5:1 we read, “Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned”.
We ourselves can do nothing about restoring our own soul. For one thing, the glory of that soul is obscured, hidden from us, now that it has been corrupted. The uncorrupted soul, the very image of God, however, may be seen in Jesus Christ if one has the eyes to see. And we may catch a glimpse of our own soul, which otherwise lies obscured and unrecognizable to us, when it reflected to us in the “mirror” that Christ holds before us capturing the otherwise forgotten image of God which still lies dormant within us. That “mirror” is His redemptive love for us.
The only possible outcome, according to the natural law, would be death us all, for we are all Adam’s descendants and flawed by sin. This saddened God who in His great love for the world put into effect His perfect plan of salvation. His son, Jesus Christ, would come among humankind and offer himself as a ransom. His death in place of humankind would satisfy the law. Being Himself without sin, his offering was effectual, and the law was satisfied, His death for ours. Henceforth, all persons who accept His substitutionary atonement for our sin shall be entitled to an exemption from the law by claiming the blood of Jesus shed for us on the cross (“justifying grace”). Our debt has been paid. The law no longer sees our clothing to be filthy rags, nor our inner selves as corrupted. We have been washed in the blood of “lamb”, Jesus Christ the sacrificial lamb who died for us on the cross. We have become new creatures in the Lord. The lost image of God in our soul is liberated and begins its journey toward full restoration (“sanctifying grace”).
In summary: No one is saved by any means other than Jesus Christ because only He was sinless, and only He died to pay the penalty of our sin. The penalty for sin demanded by natural law is the barring of man from eternal life. This was necessary because the soul of man had become corrupted, no longer true to the pattern in which it had been created, lost, because of in. Only through the substitutionary atonement achieved by Christ dying on the cross could man be saved. This was God’s most wonderful plan of redemption.
“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness (Numbers 21:4-9), even so must the Son of man (Jesus) be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on Him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already….” (John 3:14-18a).
(If you found this sermon to be helpful, please visit us at www.HeritageRestorationProject.org)
