By Adrian Rogers
If all you see is the love of God, without grasping the holiness of God, I doubt you have ever known authentic Christianity. When you take part of the truth and try to make it all of the truth, the result is an untruth.
Exodus 34:6-7a reads - And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin...
What a wonderful description of our God! But look at how verse seven ends:
...and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.
Yes, God is a God of mercy and love. He is a longsuffering God. But the Bible clearly says He is a God "that will be by no means clear the guilty." God never has, never can, and never will let one half of one sin go unpunished.
Unless you see the inherent and infinite holiness of God, you need to ask yourself, "Am I truly born again?" Before you are convicted of sin, you must understand the holiness of God.
The first checkpoint on your road to authentic Christianity is a conviction of the absolute holiness, the unsullied goodness of God. There is none good but One, and that is God.
If all you see is the love of God, without grasping the holiness of God, I doubt you have ever known authentic Christianity. When you take part of the truth and try to make it all of the truth, the result is an untruth.
Exodus 34:6-7a reads - And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin...
What a wonderful description of our God! But look at how verse seven ends:
...and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.
Yes, God is a God of mercy and love. He is a longsuffering God. But the Bible clearly says He is a God "that will be by no means clear the guilty." God never has, never can, and never will let one half of one sin go unpunished.
Unless you see the inherent and infinite holiness of God, you need to ask yourself, "Am I truly born again?" Before you are convicted of sin, you must understand the holiness of God.
The first checkpoint on your road to authentic Christianity is a conviction of the absolute holiness, the unsullied goodness of God. There is none good but One, and that is God.
