Pride Will Have a Fall

Romans 11:18-22

Chapter 42

We Christians are now the bearers of the testimony that God gives of Himself in this world. Israel has been put aside. There is a danger for us Christians to boast in the place God has given us. It is easy to feel we are better than Israel. Well, if you have some idea of the testimony that Christians give in the world, it wouldn't even enter your mind to boast. Just think of countries like Northern Ireland or Lebanon where recent civil wars were fought between militant groups under outwardly-Christian religious names.

God in His grace gave this testimony to us instead of Israel. It's only in this way that we have acquired the blessings which God wanted to give to His people. We, heathen by nature, had no right to anything. Remember, we don't support the root, but the root is supporting us. God put unbelieving Israel aside and we have come in its place. But remember why Israel was put aside. They lost this place on earth because of their unbelief. They rejected God and His Son. It's not because we are better that we have taken their place. Yet, to be able to keep this place, we must remain standing in the truth of faith and not our personal trust of faith. Here it's not that we believe, but what we believe. To be maintained by God as His testimony on earth, Christianity must have an undiminished adherence to the Bible because therein is our truth of faith.

Now comes Paul's warning for us not to be proud. Christianity as a whole shouldn't think that God will maintain it. If they don't fear Him, they will share in Israel's fate. From other portions of Scripture, it is clear that Christianity as a whole also will become unfaithful and God will have to cut it off. This increasing unfaithfulness is already visible. In many denominations, doctrines are proclaimed about the work and Person of the Lord Jesus that are not scriptural.

More and more, Christianity is presented as a religion that is equal to other world religions. This hides the great difference between all other religions and Christianity. Christianity is the only religion to offer the solution for a lost man to become clean before God. This can only come through the Lord Jesus who said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes, to the Father except through Me."(a) This excludes every other possibility. The Lord Jesus is not merely one possibility among others.

(a) John 14:6

Christianity also is used to further political causes. The testimony of who God is and who the Lord Jesus is has been obscured by all this. Man has been placed on earth to serve God. In the Bible the Christian has been given principles to know how to do this. It's only by faith in the Lord Jesus and His completed work that he is able to do this. But faith is more and more evolving into something hollowed out. Christianity has already given up the greater part of the truth of faith and will continue to do so until the complete giving up of the Christian faith occurs - the apostasy or "falling away" of 2 Thessalonians 2:3. This is the eventual result. Christianity will not keep standing in the faith. This is what God's Word teaches us. Will we go this way too? In case this disturbs you. I will say something about it in the next section.

Ger de Koning

Now read Romans 11:18-22 again.

Reflection: What is the meaning of "Be not haughty, but fear" in verse 20?

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