How does this gospel of the rationalist deal with sin? Sin is in the world. Sin is in man. How does the rationalist account for its origin, and what does he say of its end? He evades the issue altogether by calmly denying the necessity of anyone having such knowledge.

I recently read a chapter on “Sin and its Forgiveness ” from the pen of a noted preacher in which he said,

“Whence did sin come? What was its origin? How did it get into God’s universe? That is a question to which no satisfactory answer has ever yet been given. . . Jesus is disappointing in His treatment of human sin. The origin of evil He never touched. He left that problem as opaque as it was before He came. He seemed to take it for granted that the origin of evil is a problem to be thought about and worked out in some other world than this. . . It is not necessary for us to know either the beginning of evil or the end of it; it is enough to know that sin is a burden to the heart of God and that God has provided a way for our deliverance.”

Such deliberate evasion is equivalent to out-and-out denial. For any honest man, whose mind has not been blinded by the god of this world, could not but believe from the reading of Genesis 3 and Romans 5 that sin came into this world through Adam, who yielded to the will of Satan. Therefore, sin must have had its origin in the devil. Jesus, far from leaving this opaque, threw a flood of light upon it when He said that the devil was “a murderer from the beginning. . . he is a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44).

But not only is sin in the world, but Christ is also in the world. And He is in the world primarily as a Savior. He became a Savior by going to the Cross. His work in this world as Savior is to draw sinners unto Him for salvation.

John 12:32

“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.”

His power of attraction is mighty and permeates the world of humanity today. Once the Lord Jesus Christ is accepted by one as Savior, yielded to as Lord, and appropriated as Life, then the devil’s power over that life is broken. The devil knows this full well. So, what will he do with Christ in the system of religion he inspires men to make, and in the gospel, he inspires them to preach?

Satan cannot do away with Christ altogether, for even the simplest would see that any system of religion that claims to be based on the Bible and calls itself Christianity must give Christ some place. It is a galling thing to do, but the devil is compelled for policy’s sake to preach Christ in his “gospel, which is another gospel.” But will he allow “his ministers of righteousness” to preach Jesus Christ as the Savior from the guilt, penalty, and power of sin through His substitutionary death upon the Cross and His bodily resurrection and His ascension into Heaven as the God-man, the interceding High Priest? Never! To do so would be allowing his own funeral sermon to be preached, fulfilling Genesis 3:15.

Genesis 3:15

“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her Seed; It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel.”

But he will preach Jesus as the world’s greatest teacher, its purest example, its most ethical leader, and its most powerful reformer. He will appeal to the natural man still in his sin and hostility, still under condemnation and the sentence of death, to obey Christ’s teaching, emulate His example, follow His leadership and submit to His reforms. Such a caricature of the real Christ is found in the rationalist’s system of religion.

True Christianity is grounded upon the supernatural. Two supernatural facts are its foundation. The first is the supernatural creation of man by the divine Creator, whose perfect work was ruined by an enemy through the injection of sin. The second is the supernatural regeneration of man accomplished by God’s grace through the supernatural birth, life, death, resurrection, ascension, and exaltation of His Son.

Rationalism, liberalism, modernism, or whatever one wishes to call it, is grounded upon the natural. Two fallacies are its foundation. The first is the fashioning of man through evolution, by which natural process he will continue to grow from the imperfect to the perfect. The second is the natural reformation of man accomplished through self-development by the help of a human Jesus, whose earthly life furnishes an example to be imitated, whose teachings provide a rule for right living, and whose principles constitute a guide for the overcoming of evil and the gradual betterment of individual and corporate life.

There is, then, a system of religion made by man but inspired by Satan. It is a religion that eliminates the supernatural. I am speaking now of the system, not of the man who accepts it: of modernism, not of the modernist. There are varying degrees and grades of faith and unbelief in those who subscribe to this false system of religion. Some who call themselves modernists were brought up and nourished on the fundamental truths of evangelical Christianity, and there is now in their belief a strange mixture of the false and the true. Our purpose in writing this is not to budge any man but to warn any who may be putting confidence for salvation in this man-made, Satan-inspired system of religion.

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

Dear Lord, please help us to heed this warning and not put the confidence of our salvation in this system of religion.