God’s Word: The One and Only Absolute
By Matthew Simpson 12th Grade
Most of you have probably heard of the law of entropy; that everything on its own tends toward chaos. This is part of the scientific proof for the existence of a Creator of the universe. Even though the law of entropy can be applied this way quite effectively, there are other places were it is relevant as well.
One of these areas is within our own lives. We as humans often like to think that we are in absolute control of what happens to us, and one of the by-products of our supposed control is our dictation of what we will and will not do; in essence, we create our own moral code that we think we can live by. This is something that I have struggled with over the past couple of years. I allowed certain things into my life that might not have pleased God and my parents, but I decided that they were okay. Oh, I was still a good person and all that, after all, I had my own moral boundaries that I had set up about what I would listen to, look at, or do. But soon, very soon, I began slipping from the moral code I had pieced together. That’s the thing about us humans; we’re so fickle. We change our minds so often about what we think is wrong or right. Thankfully, my parents approached me and helped me to see where I had driven myself away from God. They laid down boundaries for me, which sounded an awful lot like my original boundaries, except this time they were given to me by my parents. Since my parents are God’s instruments to me, I can count that as a God-given boundary.
The point of this personal example is to show how even though we can set up our own “code to live by,” we are still sinners, and anything we attempt to do in our own power is imperfect and will fail. The only absolute, perfect moral code is from God. After all, he is the only one that has the power to withstand the attacks of the devil. Why do we as humans think that we can throw together a little toothpick defense against Satan by saying, “I’ll do this but not this, I won’t do that, but I’ll do this”? Satan laughs at our attempts, and even encourages them. Please understand that the devil is not against morality. Actually, he is all for morality, as long as it is separate from God. When we attempt to set up our own moral code, we are trusting in our own power, and that is exactly where Satan wants us (Romans 1:19-25). Only when we get our moral code straight from God’s word does it become a powerful weapon against the devil (Ephesians 6:10-18).
Proof of our own human inability to lay down any sort of absolute moral code comes straight from history. I heard a saying once-“Morality is based on accepted norms and accepted norms are based on morality.” If this is true, then there is no absolute, and morality will change along with what we as humans accept to be “normal.” If you think about it, there are things today that we are beginning to consider “normal” that one hundred years ago would be considered scandalous. It’s like we have lowered the bar as far as what is accepted, and since a lot of America has founded their morality on accepted norms, then the bar will continue to be lowered until nothing is considered immoral or not normal. This is one of the big movements in today’s age, that truth is whatever you want it to be, and there is no absolute. This is true, if we base our morality on accepted norms. We need to base our morality on God’s word, which has never changed (John 1:1).
This is probably one of the biggest problems facing Christians today. If you were to ask any person on the street if they thought that they were a good person, most of them would probably say yes. Because of this, it is impossible to witness to people on the basis of our own morality. After all, if they already believe they are a good person, and they are happy, then why do they need Christianity with its big list of restraining rules? So often we reduce Christianity to a list of rules because we hammer people with the rules, but neglect to show them the love of Christ that should cause us to want to follow what he has for us to do. If we take out that part of the picture, then we will still be (although perhaps unknowingly) trying to reach people on the basis of whether or not they are a good person, and in that we will always fail (Galatians 2:16).
A flipside to this whole discussion of trying to create our own moral code as an excuse to do things we shouldn’t is that sometimes we do directly the opposite. For instance, I can set up my own moral code well within God’s boundaries and let that code separate me from other Christians. It can even get to the point where I condemn others because I have decided certain things are right and wrong, and if someone is doing something I don’t (in my own flesh) think is right then they must be sinning. This is really no better than setting up a moral code outside of God’s boundaries: both of these scenarios will lead to us trying to support ourselves with our own morality, and we can never successfully do that. If we try to judge other people by our own supposed morality, God will turn that around and judge us by the same standard, which we cannot hope to live up to (Luke 6:37). In the same way, if God has given me freedom where he has not given someone else freedom, or vice versa, then that is not an excuse to think badly of the other person, that they are sinning or “up-tight.” It simply means that we are all different, and should rejoice in our differences.
In summary, we need to be careful to always base our morality on God’s word, not what we believe to be right and wrong. Now more than ever we as Christians need to be a shining light in a dark world, and show God’s absolute to a world that prefers to think there is none. If we as Christians hammer non-believers and each other with a huge list of rules without basing them solidly in God’s word, then we are doing more harm than good. God’s word is the absolute, and anything else not built upon that solid foundation is simply man’s imperfect design and will fall.