Posted by
ValiantForTruth on Saturday, May 24, 2008 12:52:39 AM
There is a world of difference between religion and truth. What we have today is religion. At the Great Awakening there was truth. The theology of Edwards and Whitefield is in most part unknown or caricatured in this culture and in today’s churches.
Now what is the difference between religion and truth?
Religion is man’s attempt to reconcile himself to God. It is born of perversions in Biblical Theology. It is man centered in that the question is, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” [John 6:28]
Truth is revealed in the Gospel. God reconciles Himself to man through Jesus Christ. He is the chosen mediator between God and men. He has dealt decisively with our great enemies of sin and death.
Truth is God centered and recognizes that God is sovereign over His creation and does as He wills, including the overruling of men’s sin to work His purposes and the overruling of men’s will in regeneration to make him willing to come to Christ. [Psalm 110:3]
Truth says, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent” [John 6:29]. This is the truth that changes a man from the inside in the way he thinks. This transformation in thinking affects the way he lives. The man of sin is dead; the new man of righteousness lives. All things have become new in Christ.