The Jesus Code

52 Scripture Questions Every Believer Should Answer

Thomas Nelson

Contents

Has God Indeed Said ...?

—GENESIS 3:1

We had a really good start. Life began in a perfect paradise. The climate was never too warm and never too cold. we had no aches or pains, heartache or worries. We lived in perfect peace and harmony in the midst of a perfect garden. And we had dominion over everything except the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil," which God had forbidden us to eat (Genesis 2:17). We were doing wonderfully well ... until the devil slithered into our world and asked the first recorded question in Scripture. It was cleverly designed to cause us to doubt God, His word, and His heart: "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden'?" (3:1). That simple seed of doubt took root in our hearts. From that time on, we have wondered, "Has God indeed said?"

Satan entered the scene of life just three chapters into the Bible, and the last time we encounter him is three chapters from the end. And the damage he has caused is seen on every page in between. This cunning creature was smart enough to know that doubt is deadly. He did not try to force us to eat the forbidden fruit. He simply tossed a seed of doubt our way, and we took it from there: "Has God indeed said?"

This cosmic conflict has not changed through the millennia. Satan is still very much at work causing us to doubt what God has said to us in His word. Satan's tactic is a clever three-pronged strategy designed to lead us—just as he led Adam and Eve—to personal defeat and separation from God.

SATAN'S DECEIT BRINGS A SELFISH DESIRE

The plan was simple. The devil made a brief appearance in the garden, and all he did was ask a question: "Do you think God really meant that? Come on. Do you think you would really die if you took a bite of that single little fruit? Be realistic. God knows that if you did, you would become a god yourself; you would know both good and evil." And that is the last we hear from our enemy. He is gone. That is all he did. And that is all he had to do (Genesis 3:1–5).

Our minds are like a hotel. The manager can't keep people from coming into the lobby, but he can keep them from getting a room. It is the same with our thoughts. It is not a sin when an impure thought goes through our minds. The sin comes when we give it a room and let it settle down there.

And Satan's deceit brings to the surface our sinful, selfish desires as well as a lack of trust. It was true then, and it is true now: once doubt gets a room in your mind, Satan's battle is half won.

A SELFISH DESIRE BRINGS A SINFUL DECISION

Once doubt had its foot in the door, three things happened in rapid succession. Eve "saw that the tree was good for food ... pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise" (Genesis 3:6). Next she took it ... and ate. Then she gave her husband a piece, and he ate. Bam! Did things ever change! Adam and Eve were booted out of the garden, and they ran in an attempt to hide from God.

Once the seed of doubt took root, a downward digression followed. First, eve saw: she "saw that the tree was good" (v. 6). Then she coveted: it was "desirable to make one wise" (v. 6). Then she took: "She took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband ... and he ate" (v. 6). And finally, they hid: "Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God" (v. 8). The pattern had been revealed.

King David walked that same path. He saw a woman on a rooftop bathing. He coveted and sent men to find out more about her. He took: he brought her to his palace and slept with her. He hid ... to the hideous extent of having her husband killed in battle in order to cover his actions. All of us walk this path when we allow doubt to have a room in our minds. we are no different from Eve or David. If we do not break the cycle, we also will see, covet, take, and then spend our lives looking over our shoulder to see if we will be found out. why does this happen? Because a selfish desire that has been allowed to take root in our hearts brings a sinful decision.

A SINFUL DECISION BRINGS A SURE DEFEAT

Adam and Eve "knew that they were naked" (Genesis 3:7). Duh! But before that point, God had been so much the center of their devotion and attention, they had not realized it. Now, with sin in the picture, they were focused on themselves! So they covered themselves with fig leaves. God caught up with them, and the buck passing began. Adam blamed his sinful disobedience on Eve: "She gave me the fruit to eat." In fact, Adam even shared some of the blame with God: "You gave her to me." eve said, "The devil made me do it!" Clearly, human nature hasn't changed much at all. Someone besides us is almost always to blame for all of our wrong decisions and all of our defeats.

But God, in His grace, intervened. Fig leaves would never suffice. So God took an innocent animal (a foreshadowing of the Lamb of God), killed it, and covered Adam and Eve with its skins. When that little animal took its last breath, it became the first to experience the deadly toll that sin takes. Strange, isn't it, that the whole scenario began with a simple question: "Has God indeed said?" It was designed to cause us to doubt God and His word, and that plan succeeded. Doubt is deadly.

And the bottom line? God placed man in a perfect paradise; Satan entered briefly and sowed a seed of doubt; we fell. God drove our first parents out of paradise, and you and I have been trying to get back home—back into God's presence—ever since. The Bible is the record of this heartbreaking journey in search of what we once enjoyed: the account begins in Genesis with paradise lost, and it ends in Revelation with paradise regained! Right now we are exiles from Eden. But God has made a way through Jesus Christ who, incidentally, is still asking, "Why did you doubt?" (Matthew 14:31).

Q & A: "Has God indeed said ...?" The answer is a resounding, "Yes, He certainly has." And what He says in His word is true. we can trust Him. Remember this week that doubt is deadly when the Deceiver comes to you in various ways to get you to doubt what God has said in His Word.

Shall Not the Judge of All the Earth Do Right?

—GENESIS 18:25

In my decades of Christian service, far and away the most often asked question has been something like this: "What about the person who has never even heard the name of Jesus? God will let them into heaven, won't He?" This is usually accompanied by such follow-up questions as, "What about those devout and sincerely religious persons of other faiths who spend a lifetime in service and worship?" and "What about our Jewish friends? Are they the 'other sheep' Jesus referred to as His own who are 'not of this fold' (John 10:16)?"

Abraham's "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Genesis 18:25) is obviously a rhetorical question. He asked it not as much to gain information as to emphasize a point. A rhetorical question really expects no answer; it is already known. In this case, shall God, ultimately, "do right"? Absolutely! Rest assured of this. Even Job reminded us that our great God is "excellent in power, in judgment and abundant justice" (Job 37:23). David, the psalmist of Israel, added, "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether" (Psalm 19:9).

So who is the Judge going to allow into heaven? There are three theological persuasions when it comes to the issue of who is going to heaven. Inclusivism teaches that men and women are saved by general revelation and that, when all is said and done, no one will be left out; everyone is "included" in the atonement. Pluralism teaches that there is a plurality of ways one can get to heaven. The pluralist tells us that we are all going to the same place; different religions are simply getting there on different roads, but all faith claims are true and valid. Exclusivism teaches that faith in Christ and in Christ alone is the only way to the Father's house. Or, as Jesus Himself put it, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6).

There are many issues hard to understand that must be left in the eternal councils of the Godhead. I will be the first to admit there is much we do not know, but there is also much we do know. What we do know from God's Word is the focus of this chapter. We'll look at two fatal flaws that are prevalent when dealing with the question at hand. Those who hold out the hope that heaven is open to those who simply have never heard is based on a presumption and an assumption.

FATAL FLAW #1: A PRESUMPTION

The presumption on the part of many proponents of inclusivism is that those who have never heard have some sort of special dispensation that will provide them a different way into eternal life.

But the same Bible that tells us God is a God of love also tells us He is a God of justice who must punish our sin. In a reading of Genesis, we find God's justice revealed several times before arriving at Genesis 18:25. God judged Cain for killing his brother Abel (Genesis 4). God judged the entire world with a great flood in the days of Noah (Genesis 7). At the Tower of Babel, God judged harshly man's self-reliance and sheer arrogance (Genesis 11). And who can ever forget what happened when the judgment of God fell on Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19)? God's judgment is always true and always righteous.

Space does not permit us to hear out Paul on this matter. All one must do is read Romans 1–3 for a complete explanation of how we are all guilty before a righteous Judge. Those who have never heard the gospel are not condemned because they have neglected or rejected Christ. They, like all of us, are "condemned already" because creation speaks of Him (John 3:18, Romans 1:20) and because our own conscience testifies of Him as well (Romans 2:15–16).

If it were possible, however, that men and women could be saved simply by not hearing about Jesus and His plan of salvation, then there is something we, as believers, should get busy doing: we should shutter every church, recall every missionary, send every pastor/teacher to be a greeter at Walmart, and burn every Bible we can find. Then, in just a few short years, everyone would be on their way to heaven. Paul, however, said, "How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?" (Romans 10:14). There were two times in human history when the whole world knew of God's plan of redemption. Adam and Eve knew, and Noah, his wife, their sons, and their wives knew. Along the way we have failed to take the gospel to all people on the planet who don't yet know Jesus or God's plan of redemption. This is still our Great Commission from Christ.

FATAL FLAW #2: AN ASSUMPTION

The assumption on the part of many people is that there are those who are innocent and, as such, should be admitted into heaven. What about that man way up in the remote, untouched mountain regions of Nepal? Or that woman so far back in the African bush that no missionaries have ever passed her way? Do I believe that an innocent person can go to heaven without coming to Christ? Yes—but that person doesn't exist! There is no such thing as an innocent person. Paul taught, "There is none righteous, no, not one" (Romans 3:10). That includes me. That includes you. That includes the Bedouin nomad in a Middle Eastern goat-haired tent, the Buddhist burning incense in China, and the Hindu trying to appease God at the banks of the Ganges in India.

We are not condemned because we reject the claims of Christ. We are lost because we "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (v. 23). Long before I ever had an opportunity to neglect or reject Christ, I was without hope. That's because I was born with an inherent sin nature passed down by my relatives, Adam and Eve. My own parents never had to teach me to disobey; that came naturally. My mom and dad had to teach me to obey.

So why did God permit His only Son to die on the cross? Love was His primary motive, but He was also demonstrating to us His justice. Sin cannot go unpunished. In His great love for us, He poured out His justice on Christ, who took our punishment and died in our place. He died my death in order that I may live His life. He took my sin so i could take on His righteousness. It is our response to this justice that determines our eternal destiny.

Interestingly, God did not put me on His Judgment Committee ... nor did He assign me to the Election Committee. He put me on the Nominating Committee, and it so happens that many of those with whom I share the gospel and thereby nominate for salvation, He seems to accept into His forever family.

Q & A: "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Yes! Absolutely! Certain judgments may not look "right" to us, but this question calls for a heart check, a spiritual EKG on the part of each of us. After all, only God sees and knows what is really in the heart of man. That's why there will be many people in heaven some of us never thought would be there. And there will be some we thought would, but may not. It is because, when all is said and done, "the Judge of all the earth will do what is right!"