Main text: Romans 3

What is God looking for? That’s the basic question

The answers are so many, because this is the heart of all religion—to explain God and how this God relates to us—most of all, to explain what is required.

We have already examined the answer in terms of ceremonies and ritual. Even some of the Biblical material seems to suggest that—all the procedures that we to be followed, the laws to be observed. We’ve also looked at laws and taboos, observances and requirements as to what we think God wants.

This idea has at heart the thought that God is very particular, nit-picky even! That’s why you MUST follow tradition—God demands it!—so this theory goes…

Not so much obedience, but compliance.

Form and ceremony, liturgy and rite. The ritual of religion so often gets in the way, so that things don’t seem to make any kind of sense at all…

As a ten-year-old I went to church with my cousins who belonged to another faith. I asked them why they carried out certain actions. They shrugged, and said it was what you were supposed to do. No reason. No meaning. Just a requirement.

Like the story I heard of an old parish church in England.

A new vicar arrived, and was intrigued that as the choir precessed into church for worship they bowed reverently as they passed a certain point by the wall. Enquiring for a reason, none of the choir knew. They thought it was important, though, since it was a very old custom. Obviously it was very much a tradition of great piety.

Later, an old man in the congregation asked to speak to the vicar.

“I hear you’re interested in the way the choir comes into church,” he said.

“Yes,” the vicar responded. “They have an interesting ritual. They all bow as they pass a certain point. Very reverent. I was just wondering why.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” said the old man. “Before we had the electric light, that’s where the old oil lamp-stand was. You had to duck your head as you came in, otherwise you’d hit your head. Course it’s not there now, but they keeps on ducking.” How that which is not understood becomes venerated…

Like the old Latin mass, in a language not understood by the common people. When the priest spoke the words “Hoc est corpus meum”—Jesus’ statement “This is my body,” the audience heard hocus pocus. Since they had been told bread and the wine became the body and the blood of Christ, they identified what the priest was doing as some kind of spell.

How religion becomes a load of hocus pocus… Or just a bunch of taboos, the things you’re not supposed to do… Taboos and observance. That’s what God really wants. Really?

Some point to evidence. Like in the Old Testament, the ritual cleanliness laws, for example. Tthe way in which God identified some things as being unclean, for example. The people were told—just don’t touch eat, just don’t eat it, just don’t do it! So they didn’t, because God said so.

Of course we have learnt that much of the old ceremonial law was for good reasons of health and hygiene. But that’s not the point to those who live by rituals and taboos. You don’t ask questions, you do as you are told, because God demands it. That’s sufficient answer to those who relate to God in terms of performing the requirements.

[Taboos. The cheese thief story]

On being made us right…

Our friend Robert Schwint tells the story of his mother visiting the Kansas state fair 1915. There a barker was announcing “the most advanced machine in the world”! His mother paid the ten cents admission and went in to find a huge machine that looked like a harvester, with a tractor providing the power.

A “scrub lady” was there in her overalls, cleaning the machine when she “accidentally” fell into it. There was a whirring of gears and a clattering of machinery, and moments later out of the far end of the machine popped this same lady, but now dressed in finest Paris fashions! A scrub lady turned into a lady of high society. This was indeed the most advanced machine in the world!

Rather like what we’re looking for, or even expecting—to but put into one end of a divine machine and come out looking all good at the other!

Wanting to be right

The usual concept of what we need: food, shelter, protection, procreation etc. as described in many models of human drives has been challenged—not as fundamentally wrong, but as failing to describe human behavior as it is observed. Instead some researchers have pointed out a key concept: the need to be right. Even the most superficial review shows us that this “basic drive” is a very real motivator in society and in our own personal interactions. We want to be right, we want to be perceived as being right. We will insist that we are right even when the evidence points the other way!

So as we consider our situation in life, we want to see ourselves as operating rightly—from right principles, thinking rightly, and acting in ways that others consider to be right.

Of course reality tends to intrude into our self-examination, pointing out we think and act wrongly. We are mistaken—worse, we know the truth and yet fail to do what is right. Our mental operating systems are inherently flawed, and the good we want to do we don’t do, while the things we don’t want to do—that’s what we end up doing. Like Paul in Romans 7, we cry out “who will liberate me from this body of death?” In other words, who will help change my way of thinking so I operate from principles that are inherently right, rather than the perverse, misguided, defective and self-absorbed motives that make up most of what we are…

Even our basic concepts of what is right are flawed. We rarely use our logic to determine whether an action is correct—we rely on previously learned behavior, societal conventions, and communal views. These tend to make more “sense” to us than what our (admittedly defective) consciences tell us.

For example: You tell a friend, “I cheated on my tax return,” and what’s the response?

• “Everybody does that—so it’s hardly wrong.” (Community validation)
• “You have to get even with the government some way—they’re the greatest swindlers anyway.” (Social convention—the IRS are the bad guys).
• “Not for the first time, right? Done it for years, probably…” (Previously learned behavior).

As a result I walk away affirmed, since I’ve been told that my sense of doing wrong needs to be modified by the attitudes of those I relate to.

Tell someone something enough times and they’ll probably end up believing what you say is true. Experiments have demonstrated that even the most virtuous will carry out evil if others they respect tell them to. Like the guards in concentration camps. Like the Milgram experiment in supposedly giving electric shocks to people.

“The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.

“Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.” Milgram, Stanley. (1974), "The Perils of Obedience." Harper's Magazine. Abridged and adapted from Obedience to Authority.

Note that 65% of the participants administered the massive 450 volt shock to their “victims.”

[Also check out what people were willing to do as supposed prison guards in the Stanford prison experiment conducted by Philip Zimbardo]

So what is truly right? Maybe that’s one thing to admit—we are so far from being good and doing good that we really don’t know. Which is where the Law comes in—not human law necessarily, but the Law of God. It makes it clear where we are defective. Yet in pointing out where we are wrong, it provides no power to become right.

What is God looking for? Observance? Letter of the law? Or recognition of hopelessness? Jesus sermon on the mount makes the “requirements” clear—you have heard it said but I say to you…

Imputed/imparted righteousness. Problem of imagery: Robe of righteousness as cover? Seeing Jesus? Washing/cleansing metaphors—or total change, born again. New from inside. Born from above. Nicodemus.

By beholding we become changed. Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. How do we develop in our own personal relationships? How do we grow and change? Reinforcement of positive behavior… not magical transference of perfect character. How does God heal us? What “medicine” does he use? Or does even the sin equals disease metaphor break down too?

Let’s take a look at the book in the Bible that most clearly explains how we are made right with God…

I’m certainly not embarrassed about the good news! It’s God’s power to save everyone who trusts in him—to the Jewish people first, and then to the others as well. How God is right has been revealed, and that it’s all about trusting in him—from beginning to end. As Scripture says, “Those who live right do so by trusting God.” Romans 1: 16, 17 FBV.

Those who have persevered, trying to do what is right, will receive glory and honor, immortality and eternal life. But those who are self-seeking, who reject the truth, and willingly choose to do evil—they will receive punishment and furious hostility. Romans 2:7, 8 FBV.

For it’s not just a question of hearing what the law says that makes you right in God’s sight. It’s those who do what the law says who’ll be made right. Romans 2:13 FBV.

As scripture says, “Nobody lives right, not even one. Nobody understands, nobody looks for God. Everyone has turned their backs on him; everyone does what is completely wrong. Nobody does good, not a single one. Their talk is death like an open grave; their tongues spread deceit; their lips ooze with the venom of snakes. Their speech is full of bitter curses, and they are quick to kill. Their way leads to destruction and misery; they don’t know anything about living peacefully. Romans 3:10-17 FBV.

^But now God’s true character of right has been demonstrated—it hasn’t got anything to do with the law, even though it was spoken of by the law and the prophets—^God’s character of right has been demonstrated to everyone who believes and trusts in Jesus Christ. It doesn’t matter who we are: everyone has sinned and we miss out on God’s glorious presence. God’s free and gracious gift is to make us right through the salvation of Christ Jesus, whom God presented to bring about reconciliation as we trust in him. He shed his blood to prove he is truly right, for previously he would hold back and pass over sins, but now at this time God proves he does what’s right, and that he makes right those who trust in Jesus. Romans 3:21-26 FBV

There you have it! God is the one who makes us right. It’s not based on performance, or pretentious piety, or anything. It’s based on God’s grace, and his desire to set us right! If you take nothing else away from our time together here, just take this one text!

And before we get proud of what we are, Paul goes right on:

So can we boast about anything? Absolutely not! Why? Because we don’t follow the law of requirements, but the law of trusting in God. We’re convinced that people are made right through trust in God, not from legal observance. Is God only the God of the Jews? Isn’t he the God of other people too? Yes, he is! There’s only one God, and he makes us right through our trust in him, whoever we are. Romans 3:27-30 FBV.

The Basis is Trust

So what is this all based on? It’s based on God, not on us. Our part is to trust the one who can make us right:

So the promise is based on trusting God, given as a free gift that is guaranteed to everyone, not just to those who observe the law, but also to those who trust like Abraham, the father of us all. Romans 4:16 FBV.

Jesus was betrayed because of our sins, and was raised to life to make us right. Now that we are made right by God as we trust in him, we have peace with him through our Lord Jesus Christ. It’s through him, trusting in God’s grace, that we’ve been brought to where we now stand, confidently expressing our hope of being part of God’s glory. Romans 4:25-5:2 FBV.

Assurance

The assurance is that God has done all that’s necessary to bring us back, to show himself to us as a God worth trusting, who has made us his friends:

So now that we are made right by his death, we can be absolutely sure we’ll be saved by him from the judgment to come. When we were his enemies God made us his friends through the death of his Son, so we can be absolutely sure he will save us through the life of his Son. But that’s not all—now we can rejoice because of what God has done through our Lord Jesus Christ to make us his friends. Romans 5:9-11FBV.

[See also Romans 5:17-21, 6:11-18]. If we’re tempted to look to ourselves, Paul reminds us that there’s no hope there. For inside we see ourselves as we are, corrupted by sin, unable to choose as we want because of our sinful natures:

This is the rule I’ve discovered: if I want to do what’s good, evil is always there too. Inwardly I happily agree with God’s law, but I see a different law at work within me, fighting against the principles I’ve decided on in my mind and defeating me, so I become a prisoner of the law of sin inside me. This torment is making me completely miserable! Who will rescue me from this dead body of mine? Thank God—he does this through Jesus Christ our Lord! ^For while I personally choose with my mind to obey God’s law, my human nature is subject to the law of sin. Romans 7:14-25 FBV.

Our response must be the same as Paul—only God can do this, only he can deliver us from this body of death! As Paul says later:

So how should we respond to all this? If God is for us, who can be against us? God, who did not hold back his own Son, but gave him up for all of us—how could he not freely give us everything? Romans 8:31, 32 FBV.

This is the God we’ve discovered, the One who can truly make us right, and who wins us back to love and trust in him. We can have complete confidence in this loving God, who wished to bring us all back into fullest confidence with every other being in this vast universe, restored as one of his loving and beloved children. What an amazing God!

But how will others here on Planet Earth know, unless we tell them? How do we persuade them that God is worth getting to know, that he is the one who can heal them too, that he is utterly trustworthy. As Paul says again:

For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” But how can people call on someone they don’t trust? How can they trust someone they haven’t heard about? How can they hear unless they’re told? Romans 10:13, 14 FBV.

What kind of people are we to be? Ones that represent God. Ones who make sense as we speak about God. Ones who demonstrate the truth about God in our lives:

So I encourage you, my brothers and sisters, because of God’s compassion for you, to dedicate your bodies as a living, holy offering that will please God, which is the logical way to worship him. Don’t follow the ways of this world; rather be changed as your mind is spiritually renewed so you can demonstrate God’s will: good, pleasing, and entirely complete. Let me say to each of you, through the grace given to me: no one should think of themselves better than they ought to. You should think about yourselves realistically, according to the amount of confidence God has given you. Romans 12:1-3 FBV.

There are many stories in the Bible that help us understand—both the right and the wrong ways of relating to God. I often think of Jonah, and the adventures of this wrong-headed prophet! He was even mad with God because God’s goodness to the people of Nineveh made Jonah look bad! Then there’s the rich young ruler who asked “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” We even misunderstand that one too, coming to the conclusion that God wants your money! Then what of Micah—and his wonderful summary of what God requires. Not all the sacrifices, or rivers of oil, not even the death of our firstborn children, but ourselves—doing what’s right, loving what is right, and walking right with our God!

This is what friendship with God is all about. Think of being friends with God—Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, disciples… Why is being a friend so important? Because it depends on trust, having confidence in God as he is, that he is truly trustworthy and right, and that he is the only one who truly cares and can do something about us and our fatal situation. As Rabindranath Tagore wrote:

God seeks comrades and claims love, the Devil seeks slaves and claims obedience.

What do we conclude?

So in the end, what do we conclude? What is God really looking for? What do we want him to do for us—and the whole universe?

Sometimes people ask, “What’s your problem?” So let’s ask: What is our problem?

It’s not a question of God fixing thing because we are primarily in legal trouble with him. We’re in trouble full stop—with ourselves and in every way you can think of. Above all, our problem is that we don’t trust the only one who can help us. We don’t have confidence in the only doctor who can heal us and save us from ourselves.

It’s no coincidence that the word used in the gospels for salvation not only means deliverance but also healing. Take just one example. Jesus says the exact same words to two women in Luke: in the Greek New Testament the words are absolutely identical. In the first case—the woman who washed his feet—the words are translated “Your faith has saved you.” (Luke 7:50 NIV). In the second instance—the woman with an issue of blood—the words are translated “Your faith has healed you.” (Luke 9:48 NIV). Identical words. Only one is translated differently—”saved” in one case, “healed” in the other. Why? Because of the context, obviously. But that the word for salvation should also mean healing is no accident. For God’s salvation means far more than rescue, but also transformation—healing by God’s curative power.

We even retain the same meaning in English. In the word salvation is that little word salve. Like eye-salve, or eye ointment. The salve we put on an infected part to cure it. Salvation is God’s healing from sin, restoring us into his image once more. The salve of God’s salvation. How?

By the process of trusting God. As Jesus said, “Your faith (trust in God) has healed you.” Healing comes from God, and is only possible through that basic attitude of loving, trusting dependence on God. What God really wants from us is the response of accepting and trusting him as he truly is, the divine Physician.

Seeing salvation this way helps us develop that right relationship towards our loving Healer. For only as we trust the Doctor will we respond to his treatment. If we choose to ignore his good advice, if we fail to take the medicine he prescribes, then who is to blame if we die, and die eternally? It’s not the Doctor killing his patient, but the patient’s rebellious distrust!

We respond to God’s offer of rescue and healing because that’s the only way. We love God just for what he is—not from fear of punishment, or desire for reward. In the end we accept God’s salvation for that is all we have, and we agree with God that he is good and true and right. Because he loves us and wants to win us back to love him and trust him.

Sadly so many—even those within the church—refuse God’s offer of salvation, or fail to understand what it truly is. We make up our own versions of salvation, and then try to impose our theory on ourselves and those around us. Salvation consists of doing this or that, or not doing this or that! The result? A dry and dusty experience; a hardening of the spiritual heart; a desert place that is not refreshed and revitalized by God’s healing and living water of eternal life. As Jesus said about the people of his day, quoting the words of Isaiah (6:10):

They have a hard-hearted attitude, they don’t want to listen, and they’ve closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and understand in their minds; and return to me and I would heal them. Matthew 13:15 FBV.

God’s healing is our salvation.

Final analysis

Jesus says: “This is the absolute truth: whoever hears what I say and trusts the one who sent me has eternal life…” (John 5:24 FBV). If that’s what you want, say Yes to God and his salvation. For salvation comes to you from God, and brings you to God. Not complicated at all! In proving his nature, in restoring our sinful world, salvation is about God saving you, healing you, restoring you—in the context of all the “righting” that is part of the great controversy.

In the final analysis, what is God really looking for? People so settled into the truth that they cannot be moved. What truth? Too often we equate “the truth” to our body of doctrine. But what is “the Truth” that Jesus came to show us at such incredible cost? It’s the truth about God! That’s been the issue all along—that’s what the great controversy is all about. Jesus is the Truth—and he said that if you have the truth, it will set you free. Free from all the wrong concepts of God, free from the lies the Devil has told, free to love and trust him because we know him as he is. This is eternal life—to know God, and Jesus Christ—the God revealer!

What is God really looking for? To have the truth be accepted for what it is, and to have that truth lived by every being in the universe. To be completely and utterly trusted as God—Almighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. To have us all home with him eternally, when he shall be our God and we shall be his people. May that be soon for all of God’s creation. Amen.

© Jonathan Gallagher 2009