No More One- Dimensional Christianity

Dr. R.C. Sproul admits to having been a one-dimensional Christian. He writes:

But something was missing in my early Christian life. I had abundant zeal, but it was marked by a shallowness, a kind of simplicity that was making me a one-dimensional person. I was a Unitarian of sorts, a Unitarian of the second person of the Trinity. I knew who Jesus was, but God the Father was shrouded in mystery. He was hidden, an enigma to my mind and a stranger to my soul. A dark veil covered His face.

I, too, can confess to having been one dimensional in my Christianity. It wasn't just a failure to understand God the Father but failure to understand the holiness of God. For me, and many today it was all about the love of God. All I wanted to hear and speak is "Jesus loves you." That sentence was my attempt at evangelism and my only view of God. I wasn't comfortable reading the Word of God unless it stirred my emotions with some mention of God's love for me. Then two things happened. The sentimentality started to wane once my Christianity started causing me great pain and struggles. Being insulted, laughed at and mocked by others for my faith in Christ didn't make me feel so "loved." Aggravating the problem even more was a lack of seeing any repentance and faith in Christ from those whom I was telling "God loves you" or "Jesus loves you."

Then I was handed a book titled The Forgotten Trinity by Dr. James White. Now my attention was drawn to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit as well as God the Son. Now my theology was no longer limited to "Jesus loves me." I was starting to view God in all His glory (this side of eternity). Seeds were planted to help me understand that the triune God's greatest attribute is not His love but His holiness which makes His love for sinners that much greater.

Statements like the following helped me to stop being a one-dimensional Christian:

To mention something three times in succession is to elevate it to the superlative degree, to attach to it emphasis of su- perimportance. For example, the dreadful judgment of God is declared in the book of Revelation by the eagle who cried in midair with a loud voice: "Woe! Woe! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth" (Rev. 8:13). Or we hear it in the mocking sarcasm of Jeremiah's temple speech when he chided the people for calling out in hypocrisy, "This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD!" (Jer. 7:4).
Only once in sacred Scripture is an attribute of God elevated to the third degree.

Only once is a characteristic of God mentioned three times in succession. The Bible says that God is holy, holy, holy. Not that He is merely holy, or even holy, holy. He is holy, holy, holy. The Bible never says that God is love, love, love; or mercy, mercy, mercy; or wrath, wrath, wrath; or justice, justice, justice. It does say that He is holy, holy, holy, that the whole earth is full of His glory.*

And:

Who is thee unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? Interrogations are, in Scripture, the strongest affirmations or negations; it is here a strong affirmation of the incomparableness of God, and a strong denial of the worthiness of all creatures to be partners with him in the degrees of his excellency; it is a preference of God before all creatures in holiness, to which the purity of creatures is but a shadow in desert of reverence and veneration, he being “fearful in praises.” The angels cover their faces when they adore him in his particular perfections.*

This helped me grow tremendously in my Christianity. I feared God more which then moved me to be more obedient. I started to understand how much God truly loves not only me but all those for whom Christ gave His life. It effected the way I worshiped Him. No longer was I to approach God in any flippant way I desired but to worship Him in fear, reverence and awe with great joy as He has commanded the redeemed to do so. No longer was church about me and how I felt. It was a corporate gathering. A gathering of those purchased by the blood of the Lamb to sing praises and give thanks to His great name and to behold His holiness and greatness through the proclamation of His Word from the "man of God" (the pastor/preacher). No longer did I view church as a failure if I walked out of the service without an emotional high. I learned to receive rebuke and correction from the pulpit as from God precisely because my attention was drawn to the the thrice holy God and some area in my life may have been in failure to submit or testify to His great name.

No more was it an embarrassment to read and discuss with non believers of the Old Testament of God's deliberate destruction of men, women and children. In fact it became a consolation to me in that God testifies to His own holiness that He alone is "LORD" and not to be trifled with by any:

"Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: I will make a stormy wind break out in my wrath, and there shall be a deluge of rain in my anger, and great hailstones in wrath to make a full end. And I will break down the wall that you have smeared with whitewash, and bring it down to the ground, so that its foundation will be laid bare. When it falls, you shall perish in the midst of it, and you shall know that I am the LORD (Eze 13:13–14).

Behold, I am against you and will draw my sword from its sheath and will cut off from you both righteous and wicked. Because I will cut off from you both righteous and wicked, therefore my sword shall be drawn from its sheath against all flesh from south to north. And all flesh shall know that I am the LORD. I have drawn my sword from its sheath; it shall not be sheathed again (Eze 21:3–5).

If you haven't noticed by now that God acts for His own name let me proceed to one further passage. Though sinners be the recipients of His mercy and love in their salvation from God be it temporal or eternal or the recipients of His wrath and fury, God acts for His own sake. God is holy, holy indeed:

Then I said I would pour out my wrath upon them and spend my anger against them in the wilderness. But I withheld my hand and acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, in whose sight I had brought them out (Eze 20:21–22). 

The holiness of God also altered the way I proclaimed the name of Christ. No longer was I afraid to speak of hell and judgment from God towards the unbelieving. My mode of evangelism went from "Jesus loves you and has great plans for your life" and "Jesus loves you give Him a try" to the biblical model which never records any form of evangelism with "Jesus loves you" but does so concerning the life, death and resurrection of Christ with fearful warning of the coming wrath of God on the unrepentant:

“And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.’ And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days. You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness”(Ac 3:17–26).

One-dimensional Christianity halts spiritual growth and often presents a very shallow view of God. My plea is for an end to one- dimensional Christianity. Soli Deo Gloria!

For His Glory,
Fernando

*R. C. Sproul. The Holiness of God (Kindle Locations 54-56). Kindle Edition.
*R. C. Sproul. The Holiness of God (Kindle Locations 262-269). Kindle Edition.
*Charnock, S. (2002). Vol. 2: The existence and attributes of God (109). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.