A Good Idol
- Roy Timpe
In John's first epistle he warns Christians to keep themselves from idols (I John 5:21). It was my failure to follow this advice that nearly destroyed my faith in 1990. In the fall of 1973, I experienced a watershed moment in my life. I "accepted" Christ as my savior. It was a decision that would affect every area of my life: my politics, my economics, who I would marry, how I would run my family; but for the first 17 years of my Christian life I was an unrepentant idolater.
I had grown up in a liberal mainline church. In 1964 a popular assistant pastor preached a sermon that the virgin birth was a fable. I grew up in this church. The Sunday School program gave me a feel for God's law, and the huge gulf that separates sinful men from a righteous and holy God. However, the true gospel message was attenuated and distorted beyond all recognition. At age thirteen, I attended a Billy Graham film. The film presented a clearer gospel message than I had ever heard before. I responded by going forward at the end of the film. After my decision, I began to read the Bible and some popular evangelical authors of the time, Hal Lindsey being one. Somewhere, I got the notion that I could get to heaven by accepting Jesus as my savior and not Lord of my life. I tried to live a "good" life without accepting Jesus as Lord of my life. I quickly realized that this was futile. I needed Jesus as Lord of my life.
At this time in my life I would have presented the gospel as Jesus dying for the sins of the whole world and thus providing a bridge over the gulf so sinful man can reach God's perfect righteousness. This bridge analogy was presented in the tract I was given after the Graham film. I believed that God was omniscient, and omnipotent. I believed that God's omniscience made him smart enough to figure out what was best. God, being omniscient, knew better than anyone what "good" was.
I knew that we had inherited a sinful nature from Adam. I believed in spite of that sinful nature men could still, of themselves, come to Christ. Jesus himself had said, ". . . him that comes to me I will in no wise cast out." (John 6:37) I believed in spite of man's sinful nature he could still find the bridge of the cross, and use it to reach God's perfect righteousness.
It was with this understanding of the gospel that I entered college in the late seventies. My freshman year I was introduced to what many would call the doctrines of grace.
Now before anyone is put off by the word "doctrine" let's define the term. A doctrine is a proposition that is derived from scripture. The proposition can be about God, an element of His character, or the things He has done or things He will do. For example, the ex nihilo creation (everything created from nothing) is not explicitly stated in Genesis, but it is implied. It is made more obvious by John chapter 1 verse 3, "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." Since doctrines are just truths about God derived from scripture, it makes one wonder why some Christians say they love Christ, but avoid doctrine. How can you say you love someone, and follow your profession of love by saying you don't want to know about that person's character, the things he has done, or the things he will do?
Now, having dealt with objections to doctrine, lets' look at the doctrines of grace. The doctrines of grace are based on scripture, and the logical confluence of Christ's imputed righteousness and God as the almighty. We are saved by grace. Christ lived the life of perfect obedience. With His death on the cross he paid the penalty for our sin, but when we come to Christ, God credits (imputes) Christ's righteousness to us. He views us as justified by our faith in Christ. He looks at us and sees not our sin, but the perfect obedience of his son. Romans 5:1,2 expresses this, "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand . . ." There are five doctrines connected to this proposition of imputed righteousness and justification by faith alone.
The first is the notion that sin has affected every area of our lives. Our entire being is affected by our rebellion against God. The sinful nature inherited from Adam effects the total person. The sinful nature from Adam is imputed to us by virtue of our birth; Christ's righteousness is imputed to us by virtue of our second birth. The effect of sin on the total person is sometimes called total depravity. Scripture supporting this includes: Romans 3: 10,11"As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God." Jeremiah 17:9, 10 "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart , I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings."
The logical result of total depravity is that if Christ died only to provide a bridge for sinful man to reach God's perfect righteousness, no man would cross that bridge. No man would cross, because man, in his natural sate, is spiritually dead. He is in full-scale rebellion against God. Jesus himself affirms this in John 6:44 "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day."
Jesus says for a man to come to Christ "the Father must draw him." Paul expresses the same thought in Ephesians 2 when he says "you who were formerly dead in trespasses and sins He has made alive through his spirit"
This gives rise to the question, "Why don't all come to Christ?" Does God only draw some men to himself and not others? The answer, from scripture, is yes. Jesus said, "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain" (John 15:16) By what criterion did God make this choice, and when did he make it? God made this choice before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4) Many men may speculate on His criterion, but scripture gives us no information on God's reasons for this choice, except that it was not based on His foreknowledge of any work we would perform. The doctrines of grace would call this unconditional election.
Yet another one of the doctrines of grace is the proposition that those whom God has chosen before the foundation of the world have no alternative, but to come to Christ. The idea is that when the almighty God decrees something it will come to pass. That is not to say that we do not have a decision to make concerning coming to Christ. It says that those whom God has decided to save will come to Christ. They have no alternative. This is called irresistible grace.
One of the remaining two doctrines states that those whom God has chosen and whom God is saving will be saved. This means that God will not lose any of his sheep. Jesus said, " My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand . My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand ." (John 10:27-29) This is called perseverance of the saints. Those whom God has chosen will persevere to the end, because they have indeed been adopted into God's family, and are his children.
The final doctrine of grace logically flows from the previous four, and the fact that we are justified by faith alone. The final doctrine is that none of Christ's blood was shed in vain. Just like God's word that goes out and accomplishes exactly what God wants it to accomplish (Isai 55:11), Christ's shed blood provides atonement for those whom God has chosen, and no others. Paul indicates this in Ephesians 5:25, "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it." Jesus said, "I lay down my life for the sheep . And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd." ( John 10:15,16)
As you may imagine, when I was first exposed to these doctrines I rebelled against them. I agreed that we were justified by faith, and received Christ's imputed righteousness, but I would have never accepted these five propositions. I immediately fell back on 2 Peter 3:9 "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us, not willing that any should perish , but that all should come to repentance." I took the word "all" to mean all mankind.
I realized that there was much scripture backing these points, but I could not accept them. The notion of a bridge building God wishing sinful men would cross it and come to Him was consistent with my concept of good. In my mind the God of these five propositions would be responsible for the loss of the unsaved. After all, it was He who refused to irresistibly call them. I further reasoned, that if these five propositions were true there would be no reason for evangelism. I challenged a pastor who preached these propositions. I said, "Taken to their logical conclusion, they eliminate the need for evangelism."
His reply was, "That's the problem with logic." It was his reply that made me feel justified in rejecting the doctrines of grace. By what means were these doctrines of grace discovered except by applying logic to scripture? I knew enough to know that a doctrine that would tolerate such self-contradiction could not possibly be true.
Having rejected the doctrines of grace, in favor of my own view of the concept good, and the "bridge-builder God" conforming to that concept of good, I continued my Christian walk. As I would read scripture, I was constantly confronted with verses that supported one or more of the doctrines of grace. I tried to reconcile many of the more problematic verses. One scheme I had was that God chose those he would save through His foreknowledge. At the beginning of time God (though His omniscience) would see that if he gave man freewill, a certain group of people would choose Him. He chose that group, by giving man freewill. That was my method of avoiding these doctrines of grace for some eight years.
One day at work, I met a man, who was very moral. In many ways, his conclusions on ethics and politics were the same as mine. I was shocked to learn that he was an atheist. He was the first atheist I'd met who held that there were moral absolutes. I learned that he had been very much influenced by Ayn Rand. He had read much of her work. I proclaimed my understanding of the gospel to him. Christ dying for our sins and providing a bridge etc. He listened politely, but did not accept Christ.
In an effort to better understand him, I began to read Ayn Rand. I found I agreed with most of Ayn Rand's conclusions. Her belief in moral absolutes, founded on a person acting in their long term rational self interest (egoism). This is nothing more than Solomon's argument all through the book of Proverbs. "Seek wisdom, lead a moral life, and things will go better for you."
I found myself in agreement with Rand's politics. I admired her appreciation of logic, and her effort to shun paradox and contradiction. I too realized that a world view that embraced contradiction could not be right. Rand was an ardent Atheist, and attacked Christianity freely. In her novel Atlas Shrugged her main character, John Galt, makes a speech near the climax of the novel. He lays the groundwork for her philosophy of Objectivism. (For a complete analysis of Ayn Rand from a Christian point of view the reader would profit from the book Without a Prayer: Ayn Rand and the Close of Her System by John W. Robins.) In Galt's speech there are several passages of interest to us here.
"For centuries, the battle cry of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors - between those who preached that the good is self sacrifice for the sake of ghosts in heaven and those who preached that the good is self sacrifice for the sake of incompetents on earth. And no one came to say that your life belongs to you and the good is to live it."
"Damnation is the start of your morality, destruction is its purpose, means and end. Your code begins by damning man as evil, then demands that he practice good which it defines as impossible for him to practice. . . . The name of this monstrous absurdity is Original Sin. . . . if man is evil by birth, he has no will, no power to change it; if he has no will, he can neither be good nor evil; a robot is amoral. To hold, as man's sin, a fact not open to his choice is a mockery of morality. . . . To punish him for a crime he committed before he was born is a mockery of justice. To hold him guilty in a matter where no innocence exists is a mockery of reason."
"Do not hide behind the cowardly evasion that man is born with a free will, but with a 'tendency' to do evil. A free will saddled with a tendency is like a game with loaded dice. It forces man to struggle through the effort of playing, to bear responsibility and pay for the game, but the decision is weighted in favor of a tendency that he had no power to escape. If the tendency is of his choice, he cannot possess it at birth; if it is not of his choice his will is not free."
These words resonated with me. Rand was attacking total depravity. The God of the doctrines of grace did not fit Ayn Rand's notion of good, and He didn't fit mine either. I had resisted Him for eight years. However, this 'cowardly evasion' she cut down was my "bridge-builder God."
John Galt goes on. "They have cut man in two, setting one half against the other. They have taught him that his body and his consciousness are two enemies engaged in a deadly conflict, two antagonists of opposite natures, contradictory claims, incompatible needs, that to benefit one is to injure the other. That his soul belongs to a supernatural realm, but his body is an evil prison holding it in bondage to this earth . . . A body without a soul is a corpse, a soul without a body is a ghost - yet such is their image of man's nature: the battleground of a struggle between a corpse and a ghost."
"As products of the split between man's soul and body, there are two kinds of teachers of the Morality of Death: the mystics of spirit and the mystics of muscle, whom you call the spiritualists and the materialists. . . Both demand the surrender of your mind, one to their revelations, the other to their reflexes."
Rand's concept of self sacrifice, or selflessness (giving something of value for something valueless), comes from Immanuel Kant and she is right to reject it. Everywhere scripture speaks of sacrifice involves two things of great value. Scriptural sacrifice is making a choice. For Abraham, this was a choice between obeying God, and the life of his son Isaac. Two things of great value in Abraham's life. Abraham knew God would fulfill His word that Isaac would be his descendant to carry the promise.
So Rand's notion of sacrifice is a distortion of the Biblical concept, but what of her other arguments. I found her arguments appealing. How could this "bridge-builder God" hold us responsible for a sin Adam committed? Then He absolves Himself of all guilt in the damnation of men by pointing to His bridge and saying, "I didn't want any to perish, It's all their own fault they're damned."
This "bridge-builder God" with the 'loaded dice' did not make any sense to Ayn Rand, and He didn't make any sense to me either. Ayn Rand had made me see that my Christianity was flawed. This "bridge-builder God" could not be almighty and omnipotent, and still be helplessly pleading for people to cross his bridge. I began to flirt with her atheism. Her atheism was appealing to me. I didn't have to change my politics, my economics, my morality, just my metaphysics. To go from an evangelical Christian to atheist at age 30 would be no small step. No step to take lightly. Unfortunately, John Robins' book would not be published for another seven years. I began to re-examine the doctrines of grace. If the Christianity of the almighty God and His doctrines of grace could be self consistent and answer Ayn Rand's objections, that Christianity would be mine.
Ayn Rand was right; the "bridge-builder God" did not exist. He was an invention of mine to enable God to conform to my concept of good. I thought, what if the doctrines of grace are true? I already knew there was much scripture to support them. What does total depravity say about my concept of good? My concept of good would be affected by my sin. My gut feeling about what is good can not be trusted. OK what about reason? Total depravity must also affect reason too. We are capable of logical mistakes, but we are also capable of right reason. Scripture says, "Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;" (1 Peter 1:13) and "And be not conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind , that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." (Romans 12:2) Girding the loins of your mind is to make your mind ready for action. Using reason and scripture is commended. Luke praises the example of the Bereans, "These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so." (Acts 17:11)
I concluded that although my gut feeling of what good is can not be trusted, reason can be trusted provided it is done with sufficient care. In "John Galt's speech," Ayn Rand had destroyed the "bridge-builder God," but had she laid a glove on the almighty God of the doctrines of grace? Her chief complaint was in effect that He did not conform to her concept of good.
She wrote, "A free will saddled with a tendency is like a game with loaded dice. . . . If the tendency is of his choice, he cannot possess it at birth; if it is not of his choice his will is not free." The doctrines of grace say man doesn't have a 'tendency' to do evil. Man (in his natural state) does evil continuously. He is spiritually dead. What do the doctrines of grace say about "free will." Free will, a will that is free. Free from what? A will that is free from the laws of cause and effect? If I don't sleep, the next day I'm tired and irritable. If I'm sick, and fatigued, I make bad decisions. I know this. Certainly my will is not free from the law of cause and effect. Is my will free from my nature? The more important the decision, the less choice I seem to have. What to have for breakfast? My choices are nearly limitless. There are no moral consequences to that decision. What if I'm asked to cheat on my wife? Do I have a choice? If I'm to make good on my marriage vows, keep the covenant I've made with my wife, keep my integrity; I've no choice. I can not cheat on my wife, and remain the person I want to be. The more important the decision the less choice I have. Doesn't it follow that I have no alternative, but to choose according to my nature, in the most important decision of all: to come to Christ? Man in his natural state is spiritually dead. He will always choose according to his nature. He will never come to Christ unless God the Father draws him. Ayn Rand would complain that if this is the case, man's will is not free. Who gets to define man's free will; Ayn Rand and Roy Timpe, or the almighty God?
My problem was that I, along with Ayn Rand, was trying to make God responsible to me, and my concept of good and fair. Job did a similar thing. After suffering his many trials (the loss of his children, land and health) and hearing the counsel of his friends, Job wanted an answer from God. He wanted an accounting from God for what had happened to him. "Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb?" (Job 38:1-8)
The point is that the almighty God of the doctrines of grace is not responsible to Job or any other man, including me. Just so there's no doubt, look at the words of Paul, "Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? (isn't that playing with loaded dice) Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?" (Rom 9:18-24)
So the almighty God set up a system where, "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." (Romans 5:12)
Then He chose to save some, "so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many." (Romans 5:15)
Why would God design such a universe? To bring glory to Himself. This demonstrates His justice, and mercy. Does it conform to my knee jerk concept of good? No. Do I have a right to place my sin stained knee jerk concept of good as an idol above the almighty God, and ask Him to conform to it? The answer is: a resounding No. Does this system conform to my concept of good informed from scripture? Yes.
So, many years ago, I had erected an idol. I placed it above the almighty God. When the almighty God refused to have the idol over Him, I fabricated a weaker bridge building God. I had my good idol, and my bridge building God for many years. Then, in 1990, it was as if the almighty God looked down and said, "All right, Roy, you have chosen to reject my doctrines of grace; I'll allow you to experience the logical consequences of your idolatry." I've torn down my idol, my sin stained knee jerk concept of good. By His grace, I'll never place anything above Him again. God saw to it that even my own idolatry could not pluck me from His hand.
What does this mean for you? If you have yet to come to Christ, pray to God that He would show you mercy and draw you to Himself. If you've already come to Christ, scan your world view in the light of scripture. Root out the idols, reconcile the logical contradictions. Take John's advice, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen." ( 1 John 5:21)
© 2001 by Roy Timpe all rights reserved.
Note: Biblical quotes are adapted from the King James Version. Ayn Rand is quoted from John Galt's Speech in her novel Atlas Shrugged. For more on free will the reader is directed to the works of Gordon Clark, specifically chapter 5 of his book Religion, Reason and Revelation available (along with John Robins book Without a Prayer: Ayn Rand and the Close of Her System) at the Trinity Foundation.