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Argument:
“How
can we explain the religious aspirations of men everywhere, even of those who
did not come in touch of the Christian religion apart from a ‘common grace’ of
God? And what about ‘natural revelation’?”
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Response:
(I)
Prof. David J. Engelsma
The answer to your question is found in Romans
1:18-32. All men are not only religious. They also have knowledge of God;
indeed, they know God (v. 21). Specifically,
they know God's Godhead and eternal power. The source of this knowledge, for
those who have never heard the gospel or read a Bible, is creation, including themselves
as part of creation. There is an operation of God upon them and within them in
connection with the objective testimony to God by the creation so that they
know the existence and power of God: “God hath showed it [“that which may be
known of God”] unto them.” Reformed theology has called this act of God upon
mankind outside the sphere of Bibles and the teaching of the gospel “natural
revelation.” This, in distinction from the special revelation of the gospel.
All mankind know the existence, eternity, and power
of God.
This makes them inveterately religious.
But observe what the result of this knowledge of
God apart from the gospel always is.
It is never the pure worship of God, faith in Him,
and salvation.
Rather it is the rebellious refusal to worship Him
and the dishonoring of Him by idolatry.
Because of the “natural revelation,” man must and will worship. But he
invariably corrupts the worship of the one, true God, whom they know, in
idolatry.
Further, this natural revelation does not have
salvation as its purpose. Rather, its purpose is to leave all humans without
excuse (v. 20). Only the revelation of the gospel has the power and purpose of
salvation. Nevertheless, man is guilty for his refusal to worship the one, true
God revealed in creation. His refusal is deliberate. God therefore punishes
mankind outside the sphere of the gospel by giving humans over to sin,
particularly the sin of homosexuality, which is the extreme judgment of God
upon humans outside the sphere of the gospel. As humans change the truth into
the lie of idolatry, so God changes the natural sexual relation into perversity
in His judgment.
Romans 1 is the answer to your question.
There is nothing good about the natural man’s religiosity,
nor anything saving. Nor anything that is due to grace, including a common
grace. On the contrary, it serves by God’s purpose to leave the ungodly without
excuse. There is saving purpose and power only in the revelation of God in
Jesus Christ, in the gospel, as is the point of the apostle with Romans
1:18ff., as the immediately preceding context in Romans 1 shows.
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(II)
More to come! (DV)
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