World War 0: Resentment and Reconciliation

We Christians seem ready to acknowledge that when we were saved, we became part of a spiritual war. But did you know that we were part of a spiritual war before we were justified? The Bible teaches that before salvation we were enemies of God (Romans 5:10)  and that we were not only alienated but also hostile (Colossians 1:21-22).

Despite the persistent myth that everyone has a longing for God deep down inside, fallen humanity hates God and is at war with Him. In the context of the holiness and wrath of God, modern theologian R.C. Sproul observes:

“By nature, our attitude towards God is… a posture of malice… God is our mortal enemy. He represents the highest possible threat to our sinful desires. His repugnance to us is absolute, knowing no lesser degrees. No amount of persuasion from philosophers or theologians can induce us to love God.” (R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God, 180-1; Emphasis in original.)

As evidence, he points to the way that humanity did treat God when He appeared in the person of Jesus, whom he calls “the supreme curve buster.” (Sproul 61). Imperfect people tend to resent those who are perfect, like the lonely student who gets the only A on the impossibly hard exam that the rest of the class failed, and God is the ultimate target of morally flawed humanity’s resentment.

Still, don’t all cultures reveal an innate impulse to worship something? God is indeed the One who “satisfies [the soul’s] desires with good things” (Psalm 103:5),but what we really long for are the benefits He gives. We want to have our guilt taken away, to feel accepted by someone greater than ourselves, to somehow escape death, etc. Yet we want those desires met without having to stand before the Judge of All the Earth whom we have offended and in whose presence we are undone.

If none desire God, how are we saved? The good news is that even though people do not desire God, God has desired people. Ephesians says of Jesus,

“For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility… that he might… reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.” (Ephesians 2:14-16)

Jesus Christ made it possible for humanity to be reconciled to His Father, and the Father draws us to His Son. A.W. Tozer wrote,

“We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit. ‘No man can come to me,’ said our Lord, ‘except the Father which hath sent me draw him,’ and it is by this prevenient drawing that God takes from us every vestige of credit for the act of coming. The impulse to pursue God originates with God.” (A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, 11-2. Emphasis in original.)

God is winning the war by making peace with His enemies. Someday He will come in full force to end the war, but in the meantime, “let us draw near” to God “by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us,” “all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:19-25)