| |
| introduction
to the City's Gate |
Section
2 - The Vows
I - A,B,C |
|
|
I.
Commitment to an
honest self-appraisal
|
| Vow 1: "Do you acknowledge
yourself to be a sinner in the sight of God, justly deserving His
displeasure, and without hope except in His sovereign mercy?”
|
A. “...a sinner in the sight of God....”
|
| One of the foundational teachings of the Bible
is that God is the Creator of all things. Therefore,
He is Ruler, Master, King, and Owner, i.e. The Almighty Sovereign.
As such, He has the absolute right to impose His law on His
creation. “Sin” is the
violation of His right to rule.
As strange as it may seem, to be called a “sinner” implies
something very noble about us: We were created as people who bear the very
image of God. Therein lies
our great nobility, our dignity as human beings. We do not measure up to what we were created to be. The very fact that God takes our sin so seriously is a reflection
of our created status.
It would be a mistake to equate “sin” with “crime,” yet we
often do. We think: “I am not a criminal, therefore I’m a pretty good person, certainly
not a sinner.” God, however, demands perfection. Sin is any violation of
His standard, whether it is an action, a deed, a word, a thought, or
even a neglect of any duty.
Because of the fall of humankind, we are all sinners.
It is not our sin that make us sinners; rather, we sin because we
are born sinners.
|
B. “...justly deserving His displeasure....”
|
|
God is displeased when the very thing He
created to reflect His glory becomes “anti-God” in its character and
make-up. He has established a
penalty for this state of affairs, a penalty that the Bible calls death.
In order to understand what the Bible means,
it may be helpful to look at death as separation, or alienation.
The physical world is often an illustration of the spiritual realm, a fact that has a certain sense to it since God is Creator of both.
At physical death, the body is separated, or “alienated” from
the soul. Spiritually speaking, death is our alienation, or separation from
God.
God is not unjust in sentencing lawbreakers.
In fact, not to pass sentence upon someone, who is unquestionably
guilty, is unjust. If there is such
a concept as justice, in reality and not just imagined or fancied, it
is only because there exists a just God.
|
C. “...without hope except in His sovereign mercy.”
|
|
NOTE: THERE IS HOPE!
This hope does not stem from anything we might do to turn
things around. We are unable to
rescue ourselves from the sentencing of a just Judge.
Our hope is in GOD’S MERCY.
Unless He would choose to have mercy, we would be doomed to
alienation forever. The message of the Gospel is that God has mercy on us. |
|
It has been quipped that "the Church is the only organization whose
entrance requirement is the unworthiness of the applicant!" To confess Jesus as one's Savior, which
is the next vow, clearly implies that He is saving us from
something.
|
|
|
Previous page  or 
Next page
|
|
