Another bridge that men attempt to erect over the yawning sin-made chasm between God and man is that of education. Ignorance due to lack of opportunity is believed to be the cause of much of the world’s sorrow, suffering, and strife. The cry is, “Educate everyone, elevate standards, raise ideals, and change the environment. By thus creating a desire for better conditions of life, a better life itself will eventuate.” There are intelligent men and women today who proclaim that the one thing needed for the salvation of individuals and nations is mass education. Knowledge is made the cure for sin.

Such an argument is an absolute fallacy. To know is but a fragment of man’s responsibility in the matter of living and is by far the easier part of the task. Life challenges us to do, above all, to be. Knowledge is of no value until it transmutes into character and conduct. The Bible tells us in one of its most solemn words that unless it is so transmuted, knowledge becomes positive sin.

James 4:17

“To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not to him it is sin.”

Education has sometimes even led to a deterioration of character and conduct. It has opened new avenues into sin and taught men greater cleverness in the ways of evil. It has made men more selfish, proud, and grasping and placed them in positions where their selfishness, ambition, and greed could have full right of way against others less favored.

We hear much in certain circles today about religious education, and many people believe this to be the sufficient remedy for the world’s needs. If religious education means teaching the Word of God itself under the direction and operation of the divine Teacher, the Holy Spirit, with the purpose of securing man’s regeneration and renewal, then it is indeed one of the world’s greatest and deepest needs. But, if it means urging the natural man to study Christ’s teachings and to learn His principles of life for men as individuals and as members of society so that through obedience to His teaching, through application of His principles, and through imitation of His example there may be a reconstruction of human society and an amelioration of social wrongs, then it is an absolutely foolish and futile thing. The natural man could know the content of the teachings of God from Genesis to Revelation and still have no power, and more, no desire to obey them. He might be thoroughly conversant with every Christian principle for the government of man in his personal, social, and civic relationships and yet fail to apply them in his own life.

I heard of a group of students who talked loud and long about the selfishness and greed of officials in high places in the government of their country. They took part in patriotic movements to remove these men from office. Yet they themselves were found guilty of taking a “squeeze” from their fellow students who had entrusted to them the task of buying food under a self-government scheme in operation in the college. In their smaller sphere of activity, they had done exactly what the officials had done in their larger sphere. Any system of religious education which merely unfolds to the natural man the teachings and principles of Jesus Christ and tells how to apply them in the life of the other fellow is utterly inadequate.

The Bible is the only textbook given to man on salvation from sin. From cover to cover, there is no ray of hope held out of salvation through education or anything that aims merely at improving the natural man. In fact, God plainly tells us in the first and second chapters of 1 Corinthians that it is “the wisdom” of the natural man that keeps him from accepting the only way of salvation, Christ crucified. Education, if it is genuinely Christian, may be one of the agents used by God to create the desire for salvation, but it can never furnish the dynamic which makes salvation possible.

Source: “Life on the Highest Plane” by Ruth Paxson

Lord, please save us from all attempts for salvation other than Yourself!