The Fright of & Flight from God (Part Two)

1 Corinthians 2:13-16 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

Looking at the basic stages of natural man’s reaction to Almighty God the second category is “repression”. In Romans 1:18-19 Paul says, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.” God has clearly revealed Himself to all men through the created order. He maintains that all men “clearly perceive” this revelation. However, man “represses” or “suppresses” this knowledge. Repress may be defined as “to put down by force; subdue; to prevent the natural or normal expression, activity, or development of; to exclude from consciousness.” The word Paul uses is the Greek term “κατέχω” or “katechō”, translated as “stifle”, “hold down firm”, “suppress”, “Repress”, and “hinder”. J.H. Bavinck writes that repression is the process by which unacceptable desires or impulses are excluded from consciousness and thus being denied direct satisfaction are left to operate in the unconscious. Anything that goes contrary to the accepted patterns of life or to the predominant popular ideas may be repressed. Man receives a clear revelation from God but represses that truth and refuses to acknowledge what he knows to be true. He has a negative psychological reaction to the knowledge of God. The trauma is not maintained in its clear, threatening state but is repressed in captivity in the unconscious. That which is repressed is not destroyed. The memory remains, though it may be buried in the unconscious realm. Knowledge of God is traumatic and unacceptable to natural man, and as a result man does his best to blot it out or at least camouflage it in such a way that its threatening character can be concealed or dulled, but the memory is not obliterated. The “knowledge” is not destroyed; it remains intact, but deeply submerged and will work its way back to the surface in veiled or disguised forms.

John 3:19-21 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

The third stage or category of unregenerate man’s reaction to Almighty God is “substitution”. Sproul explains that it is because repressed knowledge is not destroyed that substitution or “exchange” - the Greek term μεταλλάσσω, (metallassō) takes place.  This exchange or “substitution” of idolatry for authentic religion indicates that the repressed knowledge is not actually destroyed. The original knowledge is threatening; its disguised form is much less threatening. In theological terms, what results front eh repression is the profession of atheism, or agnosticism, or in a kind of religion that makes God less of a threat than He already is. Translating this to religious terms, we see man has the propensity to soften his understanding of God by creating images of God in religious garb that is non-threatening. It is common for people to speak of belief in a “higher power” or as “something greater than ourselves.” These faceless, nameless deities are abstractions which make no personal demands upon us. It is one thing to believe in a “higher power”; it is another to believe in a holy personal God who makes ultimate demands upon us and before whom we are ultimately accountable. Either option, atheism or dilutes religion, manifests an exchange of the truth for a lie. The truth is exchanged for a lie simply because the lie seems easier to live with. This religion expresses not the fruit of man’s pursuit of God, but the product of his substitution-exchange propensity. We have witnessed massive attempts to soften the demands imposed upon us by the biblical God. While it is intimidating to bow down before the powerful God of the Bible, it is utterly pointless to bow politely to false gods of our own making.

Joshua 24:14-15 “So fear the Lord and serve him wholeheartedly. Put away forever the idols your ancestors worshiped when they lived beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord alone. But if you refuse to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live? But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.”

In Christ, Brian