Is this Cross Really the most Important Thing?

Consider the following:

"Evangelical Christians too often believe that God's top priority is the salvation of men. This is a man-centered viewpoint, a kind of baptized humanism ...for Christians. It makes them think that they are the center of God's concern. They are not. God is the center of God's concern. The universe is theocentric. If the salvation of men were God's primary concern, then He is surely a failure, for comparatively few men so far have been saved. The glory of God, which includes hell and the post-final judgment lake of fire (Rev. 20:15), is God's chief priority. The salvation of men is God's means of extending His kingdom in history, but building His kingdom, not the salvation of men, is God's top priority for man." - Gary North.

It is high time that the Church readjust her priorities.  Thanks to my friend Kerry Culligan for finding this quote.

Comments

[Chris]

I think there is a fundamental error in the statement, "God is the center of God's concern".

We know from the scripture that God is Love and God loves the world. In order to know more about God's primary purpose, we should seek the scripture for the attribures of love. We find, of course, that Love seeks not its own.

Seems a simple contradiction of logic and scripture to say that God is Love and God seeks His own.

Note that I am not advocating that God's top priority is the salvation of man. I'm saying that, in order for it to hold true that God is the center of God's concern, one must not fail to address the illogic of God both being love and seeking his own.

It would be an interesting study to search the scriptures to see Christ's own stated intentions for coming. John 10:10 pops quickly to mind, but I'm sure there were other stated intentions.

[dse]

Chris,

Thanks for stopping by. I offer you the following. I found it helpful:

“Love is God’s nature, a fundamental characterization of his Trinitarian being (1 John 4:8, 16; Ex. 34:6-7). It binds the Father and the Son to one another; the Father loves the Son (Matt. 3:17; 17:5; John 3:36; 5:20; 10:17; 17:24, 26; Col. 1:13); the Son loves the Father (John 14:31). The love between the persons of the Trinity is eternal. And since God does not exist without his three persons, the love among those persons is necessary to his nature.

So God’s love is first of all directed toward himself, but even his self-love is self-giving. In divine self-love, each person of the Trinity embraces the others and glorifies the others.

God’s love for creatures, on the other hand, is free. He is not constrained to create the world in order to have someone to love. His love has fully interpersonal relationships apart from creation. In creating the world, therefore, he freely chose to direct his love outside his own triune being. He loves the creation voluntarily.

Scripture defines God’s love, therefore, by the relationships among the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, not by his relationships with the world. Trinitarianism, therefore, guards God’s aseity, his independence from the world. God does not need the world in order to love. He is not relative to the world. Thus, his love is fully sovereign. He loves us as the Lord.”

- John M. Frame, The Doctrine of God: A Theology of Lordship (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2002), 416-17.