Do
you know what the enormous tragedy of the evangelical movement is today? Not to
see or perceive the fundamental necessity, constitutive of divine grace. This
becomes a salient historical and temporal feature of the church in apostasy and
its rejection of grace as an eschatological anticipation of Christ's parousia: 17
And yet you say, 'I am rich, I have gained much riches, and I need nothing
else.' Yet you do not recognize that you are miserable, pitiful, poor, blind,
and naked! (Rev. 3:17). Commenting on this repulsion, divine grace,
which marks an unprecedented spiritual apathy, William Tyndale (1494-1536)
pointed out: We are as it were asleep in such profound blindness that we
cannot see or feel in what misery, servitude and turpitude we are
(Tyndale-2010). This beautiful description illustrates with vivid colors the
feeling that would mark our post-Christian era with uniqueness, a deep
intoxicating self-sufficiency that would make us that would obscure the
understanding to see the very need for God's gracious intervention and the
agency of the divine Spirit.
This reaction significantly affects the type
of gospel they present: pragmatic, materialistic, moralistic, proud, and
self-sufficient. Not only that, but also their revulsion at the Gospel of grace
and their dependence on God, humiliation before divine holiness, unconditional
love, and absolute sovereignty of God: 3 For the time will come when
people will no longer listen to true teaching. They will follow their own
desires and seek masters who will tell them only what pleases their ears. 4
They will reject the truth and chase after myths. (2 Tim 4:3-4). About
this apostate tendency of the historic church R.C. Sproul wrote: Some people
have an incessant fascination with everything except the truth
(Sproul-2015).
In
fact, apostasy should not surprise us. Apostolic teaching deals with this and
constitutes it as a prelude, an anticipation of the tortuous times which (Acts 20.28-32;
2 Peter 3:3). Indeed, these times of apostasy bring the parousia of the
glorified Christ; that is, they prepare, anticipate the glorious return of our
Master, Savior, and King Jesus (2 Thessalonians 2:3-6; 1 Timothy 4:1; Jude
1:17-19). Let us be vigilant. Think about it! SDG.
Rev.
Marcus King Barbosa
Reformed
Baptist Pastor
Public
Theologian
Philosopher
of Subjectivity
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