Machen Chapter 6

     This week’s reading was on salvation. A key concept discussed was the true simplicity of our salvation as God’s people. A quote from Machen on page 100 says, “On the contrary, though it involves mysteries, it is itself so simple that a child can understand it. ‘We deserved eternal death but the Lord Jesus because He loved us, died instead of us on the cross’”. That sounds simple to me. I often question other’s ability to understand it and accept it. I do know that it does take the Holy Spirit to work inside them to convict and show them their wrong doings and to come to Christ. I was in that same spot a few years ago. It is a confusing spot, and I often look back and wonder why it was so hard to understand back then.

    If it is so simple, why do we make it so difficult. Well, I believe it is because we are broken human beings. We are graced with a gift from God to have understanding and knowledge from His Word. Without that, we would be lost. That is why so many liberal Christians are so lost on the true meaning of salvation. They do not look to the Bible to understand, but they listen to the world. Machen is also quoted on page 100 saying, “What are really incomprehensible are the elaborate modern efforts to get rid of the Bible doctrine in the interests of human pride”. I think he touches a key point: human pride. We are broken and want what is best for us, not often what is best for others. We lose sight of the true meaning of life and get lost in the world. Our vision becomes blurry. As Christians, the Holy Spirit guides us through the washing blood of Jesus straight into the arms of the Father. It is not of our own work that we get there, but solely through Jesus. Since that is true, we will not always live our best lives, or at least the ones we want. Instead our purposes will be to serve God, but when we lose sight of the Bible and salvation’s meaning, then you lose sight on everything.

    Liberal Christians, and us as well, often want our lives to be perfect. But when we sin, many times we do not remember the true meaning of sin either. Machen reminds us of how much God hates sin. It is not that He dislikes it or can look at it but cringe. No, He hates it. If he hates sin, would not the simple answer be that Christ saved us, so we live in response to that. Not, we live for God and do good and because of that God will save us. That ruins the whole purpose of our salvation and loses sight of who the God of the universe truly is.