Road to Damascus

The Lost Path to the Roman Road

Jesus and the ‘Books of Moses’

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by Calvin Smith

Published: 11 June 2013 (GMT+10)

The greatest treasure

Jesus said “ … the Kingdom of heaven is like a treasure … ” () 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:

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?

“All have sinned … ” () “ … the wages of sin is death … ” () “ … the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ … ” () “ … if you confess Jesus as Lord … you shall be saved … ” ()

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 … ” ()

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 …

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1. “All have sinned … ” () Q-But what is sin? Where did it come from?

2. “ … the wages of sin is death … ” () 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 … ” () Q-How did Jesus death pay the penalty for sin?

4. “ … if you confess Jesus as Lord … you shall be saved … ” () 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.” ()

Jesus explains why people will have a difficult time believing in His words in 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 ().

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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.” ()

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) floodthat 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 fossilsencased 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 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?

Jesus reminds us that “… difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

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.” () 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.

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· The authority of Scripture

· Genesis: The Missing Piece of the Puzzle

· Why did Jesus die?

· Is the Bible one book or 66?

· Should Genesis be taken literally?

Reference

1. Daniel Dennett-Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (1995) p.63. Return to text.

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