An Appeal to Wisdom

We tend to overestimate human wisdom. Some denounce Christianity as being a 'simplistic solution' or as the evolution of 'primitive myth'. They turn a blind eye to historical testimony and the coherence of the Christian's world view with reality. Preferring to perceive life as a game in which they perform the winning move, they turn away from any notion that they need to be rescued by someone outside of themselves. The idea that the meaningful resolve to life's greatest questions is to be found at the foot of a rugged cross is, for them, incomprehensible.  The quest for truth, they believe, should end with a personal boast rather than a penitent bow.

The pilot of a 747 jumbo jet is told from the control tower that there is only one runway on which he can safely land his aircraft. If the pilot is true to the prevailing worldview of his contemporary culture he will decide to play the relativist and protest that such a proposition of 'one way' is 'absolutist' and 'narrow minded'. He prides himself on being able to find his own way. He ignores the special demands of his situation (the speed, size, limited fuel supply and the weight of his aircraft upon impact). As a humanist he imagines that he is ennobling his humanity by courageously defying the control tower. He perishes with his craft, taking his unsuspecting passengers with him.

Such is the plight of the relativist philosopher who rejects Jesus' claim to be the one way to remedy the human dilemma and bring humankind, fatally weakened and separated from His original purpose, safely back to God.  He or she would rather say that the meaning of life is that there is no meaning and crash headlong into a wooded mountainside than land their craft on the specially prepared runway.

The challenge of the New Testament writer is as convicting at the end of the twentieth century as it was in the first: "Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.'" (1Corinthians 1:20,18-19). When and where in human history has human wisdom been able to top the divine wisdom of the gospel? Yet many proudly perish in the attempt.

The propositional truth of the gospel is 'simple' but not 'simplistic'. It meets the unique demands of the complex human dilemma. Those who lack humility will find it difficult to hear. In the end we must bow before a Sovereign greater than ourselves.

If Jesus was not either deceived or a deceiver, he must be who he claimed to be: the Way the Truth and the Life, apart from whom no one comes to the Father (John 14:6). To ignore Him is to do so at your own peril. To take Him for who He is - the perfect solution, One who is able to represent you as righteousness, set apart, and belonging fully to God (1Corinthians 1:30). He not only gives life its meaning and purpose but introduces us to the power that transformed a doubting Thomas to a courageous leader, a thieving Zaccheus to a philanthropist, or a pharisaical persecutor such as Paul to an impassioned builder of faith.

Building that runway wasn't simple.