from here:
http://creation.com/the-lost-path-to-the-roman-road
Jesus and the ‘Books of Moses’
Published: 11 June 2013 (GMT+10)
The greatest treasure
Jesus said “ … the Kingdom of heaven is like a treasure … ” (
Matthew 13:44)
As the free gift of salvation offered by God is the most precious gift
any human being could receive, discovering the way to salvation would be
like finding the ultimate treasure map.
The Roman road
Christians usually recognize the phrase ‘The Roman road’ as the
‘path of salvation’ outlined in the book of Romans in the Bible
(commonly seen in evangelistic tracts). It outlines certain steps a
person needs to take on their spiritual journey from an unsaved sinner
to born-again believer. This can be seen analogously as a treasure map.
The markers on the road are as follows:
“All have sinned … ” (Romans 3:23)
“ … the wages of sin is death … ” (Romans 6:23a)
“ … the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ … ” (Romans 6:23b)
“ … if you confess Jesus as Lord … you shall be saved … ” (Romans 10:9)
The ultimate treasure of our salvation will culminate
with our living with God in the restoration, the new heavens and new
earth. This restored world will be similar to the way God created it in
the beginning; “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or
pain … ” (
Revelation 21:4)
Christians have been commissioned to share the
good news
about this great treasure with non-believers by showing them the right
path to take. But why is it that so many in our western culture today
seem resistant to even examine this road?
Examining the road signs and the questions that follow
The death and resurrection of Christ stands at the epicenter of the
Christian faith. The symbol of the Cross is interwoven into the
landscape of western culture in literature, cinema, social holidays,
art, etc. although its true meaning (the salvation for sinners because
of Christ’s sacrificial death and resurrection) is lost on most people.
Why is it that most today don’t understand the Roman road? Let’s look at
the road signs on our map and see what the natural questions arising
from them would be …
1. “All have sinned … ” (
Romans 3:23)
Q-But what is sin? Where did it come from?
2. “ … the wages of sin is death … ” (
Romans 6:23a)
Q-How can the punishment for sin be death? Isn’t death a natural thing (doesn’t everything live and die?)?
3. “ … the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ … ” (
Romans 6:23b)
Q-How did Jesus death pay the penalty for sin?
4. “ … if you confess Jesus as Lord … you shall be saved … ” (
Romans 10:9)
Q-Why do I need to be saved? Saved from what?
All of these questions ultimately relate to the events surrounding the
resurrection,
so how can we best answer them? Interestingly, when Jesus was teaching
about a resurrection He said this; “If they do not hear Moses and the
Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the
dead.” (
Luke 16:31)
Jesus explains why people will have a difficult time believing in His words in
John 5:46–47
when He says; “For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he
wrote of me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how will you
believe what I say?" So belief in what Moses wrote ties into a belief in
Christ’s teachings, which begs the question; “What did Moses write?”
The first five books of the Bible (called the Torah, consisting of
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) are attributed to
Moses and explain the origins and history of mankind. The following
markers in the books of Moses highlight major events which enable us to
answer the questions people have regarding the Roman road.
Creation
The books of Moses start out by explaining in Genesis that God
initially created a perfect world with no sin, death, pain etc. God
called His creation “very good”. Before sin entered the world, there was
no death. Even animals ate plants as there was no carnivorous activity
in the world (
Genesis 1:29-30).
The Fall
Death came into the world as a result of the first man’s (Adam) sin
which was a rebellion against God’s clear command to ‘not eat of the
fruit’ of a certain tree. God had told Adam that if he disobeyed he
would “surely die”. This means he would experience a spiritual death
(separation from God) and would start to physically die by “returning to
the dust”. From that moment onward everything in the universe was now
cursed. God punished Adam and Eve, withdrew some of His sustaining
power, and things began to die and wear out. Because all of us were ‘in’
Adam, that sin nature was passed on to all his descendants. The New
Testament confirms this where we read “By one man sin entered the world,
and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all have
sinned.” (
Romans 5:12)
Judgment
God judged Adam for his sin, and the Bible reveals that God will
someday judge the entire world (by fire). It also reveals there was a
former judgment (by water) in the form of a global
(Noah’s) flood
that destroyed all living things that had the breath of life except for
those on board a specially prepared ark. (There is ample evidence of
this event consisting of billions of
rapidly buried fossils encased in water borne sedimentary layers all over the earth).
The Law
God gave His chosen people the Law to live by and the Apostle Paul revealed one of its major purposes in
Romans 7:7
where he says “I would not have known what sin was had it not been for
the law.” Although this law was given specifically to the Israelites,
the fact is there are moral absolutes (lying, stealing, murder etc)
which are now ‘written in our heart’.
Paul reveals that the knowledge of sin (the breaking of God’s laws)
demonstrates you are guilty before God and deserving of punishment,
desperately in need of something outside of yourself to save you from
His wrath (which is why the message of the Gospel on the Roman Road is
such good news).
So, in summary, the answers to the natural questions that arise from the Roman Road are as follows:
Q-What is sin?
A-Sin is disobedience to God’s laws.
Q-Where did sin come from?
A-From Adam’s disobedience.
Q-If the punishment for sin is death, when did death enter into the world?
A-Death entered the world at the time of the Fall (there was no death before sin).
Q-Why do I need to be saved? Saved from what?
A-You need to be
saved from the consequences of your sinful actions against God because
God is going to judge everyone according to His righteousness. As a
simple analogy, you will either represent yourself in God’s ‘courtroom’
when you die and receive your just punishment or you will have a
representative in Jesus Christ that stands in your place so that you can
be pardoned.
Q-How did Jesus’ death pay for sin?
A-Jesus death on the cross was a substitutionary act. He stood in the place and took the punishment that we deserve.
You can see why Jesus pointed out that the origins of
mankind recorded in Genesis are so important, for without it, His
message makes little sense. Without this background information found in
the books of Moses it is harder for people to connect to the Roman
Road. Our origins are critical to our understanding of where we came
from and where we are going. Unfortunately today the typical
evangelistic presentation does not include this link.
What ‘road’ does the world follow?
Of course the world is teaching a different, completely naturalistic story of origins: evolution. This
atheistic story of origins is being taught in public school as fact. In a key 1995 statement, the National Association of Biology Teachers (US) said-
The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of
evolution: an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural
process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is affected
by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies and changing environments.
From that viewpoint the history in the Bible doesn’t
make any sense. This is a completely different path that does not
connect to the Roman Road in any way at all. If the entire universe has
arisen from natural processes then the need for a Creator God is
redundant. If death was always around and existed for millions of years
prior to Adam even coming onto the scene then death is not an enemy, it
is a mechanism for evolving new creatures via survival of the fittest.
A consistent thinker understands that the Genesis account of the
Bible and an evolutionary timeline do not comport with one another.
What happened to the Christian worldview in the Western World?
Atheist Daniel Dennett described the theory of evolution as a ‘
universal acid’ that affects everything it impinges upon.
“Little did I realize that in a few years I would encounter
an idea–Darwin’s idea–bearing an unmistakable likeness to universal
acid: it eats through just about every traditional concept, and leaves
in its wake a revolutionized world-view, with most of the old landmarks
still recognizable, but transformed in fundamental ways.”1
A
belief in an evolutionary history destroys the ability to answer even
the simplest and most common objections to faith like; “If you have such
a loving God, why is there so much death, pain and suffering in the
world?” If millions of years of earth history and evolution is true, and
if there is a God, He must be fine with pain, death and suffering! Far
from fortifying a Christian’s faith it actually disconnects it from real
history and weakens it immeasurably.
Is this about science?
Although the evidence in support of creation can be observed all
around us, many have bought into the evolutionary interpretation of the
facts and think ‘science’ supports evolution. However, most people do
not understand that science dealing with events that occur in the past
(interpretation of facts based on a perceived worldview) is not the same
as operational science (repeatable/observable in the present).
Creation Ministries International has a website (
Creation.com)
that has over thirty five years of research in support of a plain
reading of the Bible that can show Christians there is no conflict
between observable science and scripture. Since people only seem to hear
about the evolutionary story of how we got here, if believers get
equipped with real answers to the questions everyone has about where we
came from, they can help turn people to the right path.
Clearing the path
Jesus reminds us that “ … difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (
Matthew 7:14) Many Christians seem to want to cling to
Christ s teachings
in the NT but do not have the same attitude about a plain reading of
the OT. But imagine going on a treasure hunt but only having part of a
map showing the treasure’s location, but no recognizable starting point.
How would you find an end location without a beginning?
Jesus taught from the OT
and quoted its final authority saying “Have you not read … ”
repeatedly, showing that the historical accounts in scripture were the
basis for His teaching. Shouldn’t Christ followers do as He did? By
consulting those scriptures while showing people there is no conflict
from science we can help connect the messages on the Roman road in the
NT to non-believers so they can hopefully get onto the path of
salvation.
