On a Relative Note

The day after I put up my post titled "Conquering Doubt", Dan Phillips over at PyroManiacs posted an article titled "My night at the preachapalooza." In it, DJP tackled the same issue that I did from a different perspective.

Confidence is not something that rests in itself. No one is confident in something without reason, however rational or irrational that reason may be. No one is confident simply because they are confident; they are confident because they may have extensive knowledge on a subject matter, or because they are physically strong, or simply because they "have a good feeling about this."

Confidence is derived from a foundation, and this is especially so in spiritual matters. The imagery in Dan Phillip's revamped sermon introduction pictures this so perfectly:

I love to hike in the Sierra. One time recently I was on a hike, by myself. I had gone four or five miles back to a beautiful lake. Circling around to the back side of the lake, I took some pictures. Up the rocky shore, I saw a spot that looked like it would be a perfect vantage point for a great picture. So I started to make my way across the rocks to this spot -- when suddenly the bank gave away under my feet! The rocks tumbled and rolled, and so did I. In a flash, I found myself dunked in the lake.

I was fine, but what a terrible feeling it was. It's a terrible feeling to trust yourself to something, to put all your weight on it, confidently, and then find that it can't hold you. It's a terrible feeling when your support collapses from under you. It's a terrible feeling when the very ground gives way beneath you, and you fall.

To what shall we trust our souls? To whom? Who or what can bear our weight, the weight of our sin and guilt, of our immortal selves? If we trust our souls to any mere mortal, no matter how holy or saintly, no matter how godly -- they are sinners, too, and they cannot hold us. They will collapse. Joseph cannot hold us. He would collapse. Mary cannot save us. She would give way. No mere child of Adam can hold the weight of our sin and need. All would dissolve into rubble beneath us.

Only Jesus can support us. He shows us this in His cry from the Cross: It is finished!

Know well: this is no cry of despair. Jesus does not say, "I am finished." No, it is a cry of victory. The Greek tetelestai means that it has been brought to consummation, to perfect completion. The word was used of bills that had been "paid in full."

When our Lord cries thus on the Cross, He is signifying that He, He Himself, He alone in His own person, had fully paid every last farthing, every penny, of His people's debt to God. He had left nothing undone of what the Father's plan of salvation required. Alone, unaided, hanging on the cross, under the holy wrath of God for sinners, Jesus Christ made full atonement for all the sins of His people.

And now we believe Jesus, or we do not. If we look to "Jesus-and" -- to Jesus and our pastor, to Jesus and Mary, to Jesus and any other mortal or any other sect or any other practice or any other thing -- then we do not believe Jesus. We do not accept His word, "It is finished."

We must look to Jesus, to Jesus alone, for salvation. We must trust ourselves to the One who cried "It is finished!"

Again, confidence is derived from something--It must rest on something. It has to put its full weight upon something. I would offer this: To rest your confidence in anything other than Christ and his Work is to essentially tell Jesus, "No, it is not finished."