Who Does Religion Really Insult?

Like I said earlier, this blog will deal with all sorts of contemporary issues including politics, theology, science, baseball, etc.  Quite often I will chose our topic for the day based on whatever struck my interest when looking through Facebook posts from my friends.  For that reason, today's topic will be theology.  I noticed the picture below on a friend's Facebook page yesterday and decided that this was deserving of a discussion.  What this picture says is certainly true of most religions.  Religions the world over are a list of dos and don'ts that the adherent hopes will ingratiate themselves to God in a way that will bring blessing and maybe even allow them into whatever their concept of Heaven (Nirvana, etc.) is.  The Muslims have their sharia law, the Hindus have their Karma, Catholics have their rites and sacraments, Cain of the Bible had his vegetable sacrifices, etc. etc.

But the fact is, it is not really an insult to humanity to think this way.  If anything, it is false flattery.  The idea that there is something that human beings, who can hardly get through an hour without doing, saying or thinking something regrettable, can do something, or even a list of somethings, to fix the gap between them and a perfect, all-knowing, all-powerful Being is the height of absurd pride.  Why do we think that attempting to follow a rule book will make up for all of the ways in which we hurt people and cause a perfect God to allow us into His perfect Place?  The real insult in human religion is not to the humanity, it is to God and to Heaven.

That is where Biblical Christianity is different.  The list of dos and don'ts in the Bible are not there to show us how to place God in our debt or to make up for our sin or even to get us into Heaven.  They are there to show us that we can never do any of that by our own work, that we can never measure up to Him, that we are forever in His debt.  "Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith" (Galatians 3:24 NASB).  Our ticket to Heaven is not through obedience to the law.  Our ticket to Heaven is given as a gift when we realize we can't earn it.  The only way a human can appear to God to be good enough to get into Heaven is to look like Jesus Christ.  We look to God the Father like Jesus Christ when we trust in His sacrifice on the cross to pay for our sin, not in our own abilities to make up for our sins.  Any human being that is saved is saved just like the thief on the cross next to Jesus who said "And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.  Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!" And Jesus said to him, "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise."

Salvation comes only to the one who trusts only in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ to pay for his sin.  Many find that even much more insulting than the list of dos and don'ts discussed in the meme below, but that is the truth of the human condition.