Out of hiding

When things go wrong and we are caught red-handed, we know things are not the way they are supposed to be. If you are the one to blame for a hit-and-run, you will most likely want to hide and disappear. This is our natural reaction when we have messed up or done something wrong. Hiding is a natural (though not good or right) reaction for a fallen human being.

We don’t want to be found guilty, let alone suffer the consequences of our actions. That’s what happened to the world’s first couple: Adam and Eve fell into sin, doubting God’s goodness. They wanted to interpret right and wrong according to their own standards; that is, they wanted to be their own god! The Fall affected man’s ability to understand his own true condition and that of others. It broke down the concept of right and wrong, replacing it with man’s own interpretation and understanding of what a good life is and how we could be in relationship with our Creator, all on our own terms! The Fall changed Adam and Eve’s understanding of themselves, their fellow human beings, and of God. Because their understanding of God was distorted in a sinful way, so too was their idea to try to cover up their sin. They wanted to get rid of their transgressions, but their attempt—literal dried fig-leaf swimming suits—didn’t get them far.

Each of us suffers from our own fallen state. In many ways we try to find different ways to cope, to feel better, and to deal in some way with our sinful inner nature. We consciously and unconsciously seek solutions to save us from ourselves. Our problems are made worse by the fact that many other people, lost in this same forest of fallenness, are offering their own solutions to the sin problem. Whether the suggestion is New Age spirituality, other religions, atheism, or political activism, behind all of these is an attempt to offer us an explanation to the following questions:

1. Where did man come from? – Origin
2. What has gone wrong? – A broken world
3. What kind of future are we heading for? – Is there anything after death.
4. What brings salvation to man’s inner problems? – How do we deal with sin?

Alternative means of survival?

While many -isms and worldviews do not recognize and acknowledge the ultimate problem of sin and its implications, they still offer different solutions to our broken lives. A friend of mine put it well as he chatted with neo-spirituality advocates, saying to them, “In fact, you also seek to resolve the sin in man.” He had found that even the popular spiritualism of our time attempts to offer its own alternative ways of coping with and surviving in the broken world within and around man, that is, covering up sin.

Today there are countless people hiding in the forest of the fallen, who, while they themselves are lost, offer us their own interpretations and answers to man’s fundamental problems. However, these proposed solutions only keep people hidden away from the revealing and healing relationship that can be found in only one source. Human fallenness is far worse than the lost inhabitants of the forest would have us believe. All kinds of alternative evangelism are offered in a wide variety of forms—yoga, reiki, energy cures, various faith services, and many things that can be good in themselves, from nature conservation to the fight for equality. But these are of no help to the fallen human condition.

When I have talked to people from various faith backgrounds, whether they are atheists, Muslims, Hindus, agnostics, nominal Christians, or of any faith, ultimately their perception of themselves, their own condition and reality always turns, like Adam and Eve, to a desire to define their own standards of right and wrong and their possible eligibility for heaven, if it exists at all. Man by nature thinks he is good enough and worthy enough by his own standards. Yet all these attempts to cover our sins dry up. Just as in the Garden with Adam and Eve, the fig leaves crumble to dust.

Out of the forest

Where are you? is a question that challenges us to recognize and acknowledge our true condition. God is calling us out—out of the various alternative gospels that try to offer self-medication for our sin problem. These alternatives tempt us to replace the gospel of God’s standards with human counterfeits, luring us away from the only One able to deal with our sin problem and bring us to a place of true transformation by the power of the gospel of grace.

Acknowledging the reality of our own condition and sin is primarily about agreeing with God. It is agreeing to God’s good standards, recognizing that our own attempts to cover up are futile and in fact, anti-evangelism—falsifying the gospel with a concocted do-it-yourself salvation. God is calling us out of that forest of alternatives, where we are offered all sorts of deceptive, self-healing methods, but not the true gospel of Christ.

Even churches are not completely free from these deceptions, as the enemy of the soul tries to bring alternative false gospels to them as well. It is much nicer to hear that you are accepted and a good guy, as long as you fulfill various moral obligations, than to be faced with the reality of sin and God’s standards. Some churches promise success and even some higher spirituality, if only one receives a certain spiritual experience with the help of a charismatic leader (often with money). There are plenty of these misleading instructions to be found, but we must return to God’s standards, where man becomes partaker of the true gospel without adding or taking anything away from it himself. God calls us out of our self-reliance and our attempts at self-salvation to receive the victorious work of salvation of his Son.

Let us leave the forest, moving instead to an open place. Though we may feel exposed and vulnerable, this is part of God’s wonderful “Grand Design,” where real change occurs. Adam and Eve wanted to be transformed into the likeness of God by the serpent’s advice, but they should have realized no shortcut was needed— they were already made in the image of God! True transformation into the likeness of Christ would only happen in his presence.

Those hiding in the woods must answer God’s call when he asks, “Where are you?” For we have only that one gospel, the place where man is freed from sin. It is Christ himself who came to those living in the forest—lost humanity—and nailed himself to a tree so that we might:

• Hear the voice of that Caller
• Refuse to accept short-term solutions to our sin problem presented by men and enemies of souls (Col. 2:23)
• Receive God-given deliverance only through the work of Christ
• Experience the transforming power of God’s gospel in our daily lives

Notice that Adam and Eve were helped when they came out of the forest—out of hiding—and into the open place, agreeing to be uncovered. Though their confession was tainted by sin as they blamed others for the causes of their fall, they stood before God and received the promise of God’s solution (Gen. 3:15). This is always a difficult thing for a fallen person—agreeing to acknowledge their true condition. We do not see all the horror of the fall in ourselves, but God does and only he has the tools to deal with it.

The new covenant reveals what life is all about for those who are called and those who respond. Our sinful nature is dealt with when we engage with Christ, allowing us to not only be redeemed, but transformed into Christ-likeness, as we abide in him, out of hiding, uncovered, and unashamed.