Leaving Beyond – Grounded In Scripture

Written by: April J. Buchanan

If the mind abide in truth, there are we influenced by grace that exposes in us that which remains against Christ.

What we read concerning theology has real influence over how we understand who Christ is, who we are, what Scripture means, and how the Spirit works in our lives.

Much material is readily available and claims to be able to help us in our understanding of who God is and what Scripture says and means concerning our lives.

The overwhelming majority of what has been written and sits on “Christian” bookshelves and is meant to support our growth and that of all ages is man-centered and merely baptized in spiritual language, but not much different in function than the New Age section or other religious material that aims at self-improvement. That is no indictment on Scripture or on who God is or the true work of the Spirit.

The Word of God stands in stark contrast to much of what is claimed about it and to much that claims to help others in their understanding of God and what He says about them.

Many think themselves to have insight and revelation that will benefit others in learning more about who they are and improving their lives. They think themselves spiritual and to have a unique relationship with God based on experiences and encounters, so as to be able to teach others who they really are in Christ and what God wants them to see about themselves, things they believe are hidden but merely need to be believed and brought out.

That is not what Scripture teaches. There is not something great in us that the enemy is trying to keep us from seeing. We are not basically good. God is not merely trying to get us to see how wonderful we really are or to release something great within us. No.

We are sinners before a holy God. We are enemies of God (Romans 5; Ephesians 2). We must be born again. Christ came into the world to save sinners and reconcile sinful man to a holy God. He is the hero in the story. All those men in Scripture of whom we see great moments in their lives, set in contrast to their great failures, are intentional. Those moments are not given for us to seek to replicate our own greatness. They point to Christ. Their failures remind us of what we truly are, and that Christ is our only hope.

Men isolate those heroic moments and lay upon us the burden that we must seek to tap into something great within us so that we too may be like them in their best moments. They miss the point entirely. Those moments point to Christ, who is the true and better fulfillment of all we read leading up to Him. He is the hero. Christ. Not me. Not you.

When we read all that comes before Him, we are looking ahead as they did. When we read of His incarnation, His life, His death, and His resurrection, we see the fulfillment of what they waited for. And now we look back, seeing that fulfillment, and we look ahead to the promise of His return and His kingdom consummated.

It is all Christ. We look to Him. We find our hope, our life, our salvation, and our assurance in Him. It is not that we go to the text seeking what it says about me and how I can be the hero of the story. No. We go and seek what the text says and means, and we are careful to consider its place in redemptive history. Christ. We seek Christ.

We need not mere improvement. The story is not ultimately about us. It is about Him. It is about the perfect plan of God unfolding throughout history and our place within that redemptive unfolding. We are not the heroes. We are those who sinned against Him, and He came into the world to save sinners, reconciling men to Himself, and by whom the Spirit regenerates, baptizes, sanctifies, seals, and fills His own.

The triune work of God in salvation is evident throughout all of Scripture.

We either go to Scripture to learn the truth and behold the glory of God, having our hearts and minds shaped by it, or we go seeking what elevates man and ultimately can do nothing but diminish God. Much that is labeled “Christian” literature tends toward a distorted view of man and God, often shaped more by therapeutic moralism than by the text of Scripture itself.

Do we know and love the God of Scripture, or do we seek a god shaped by the desires of the human heart, a god who affirms us as we are, rather than the God who confronts us in our sin and reveals Christ as our only hope?

Oh friend, Christ is beautiful. He is wonderful. And we may only behold His glory as we come rightly to Scripture, as the Spirit leads us into truth and reveals Him as He is.