Discovering a True Faith: One From God, Not Man
This article continues the theme of ‘Features of a God given Faith’ that is also on this website
What do parents want most for a newborn child? Not wealth, not achievement — above all, a relationship. Most of the training and love poured into those early years is aimed at that single end: that the child will grow up close to them, trusting them, wanting to be near them. If this instinct is written so deeply into human parents, isn't it reasonable to expect that our Creator wants the same thing from us? These instincts come from God so a true faith will probably reflect these.
This instinct for relationships isn't the only thing that seems to come pre-installed in us. How does a baby know how to breathe and suckle without being taught? Why do mothers instinctively love and protect their babies, often at real cost to themselves? Why do parents across every culture want their children to grow up kind, honest, generous, and hard-working? These values appear built into nearly all of us, prior to any instruction.
C.S. Lewis made a similar observation the basis of an entire argument for God in his book ‘Mere Christianity’. He noticed that people everywhere, regardless of culture, appeal to a shared standard of fairness when they quarrel (‘That's my seat, I was there first,’ ‘Leave him alone, he isn't doing you any harm’). No one, Lewis pointed out, actually says ‘to hell with your standard’, instead they try to show they haven't really broken the rule. Lewis concluded that this shared ‘Rule of Fair Play’ or ‘Moral Law’ isn't something we invented, but something we all instinctively recognise as binding evidence. He argued that this is evidence of a Mind behind the universe that shares our sense of right and wrong.
The apostle Paul makes almost the identical point in Romans, writing that people who have never received God's written law still ‘show that the work of the law is written on their hearts’, their own consciences bearing witness (Romans 2:14–15). Long before Paul, the writer of Ecclesiastes observed that God ‘has set eternity in the human heart’ (Ecclesiastes 3:11), we do carry within us a longing for something beyond the material world. Doesn’t this longing reflect the relationship God wants with all people?
I once took part in a radio broadcast where four people were interviewed about the effect of their faith on their lives: a Sikh, a Jew, a Muslim, and myself as a Christian. What struck me was how similar our moral aspirations for our families turned out to be - honesty, kindness, generosity, faithfulness. This is not surprising if we are all made by one God, whose values are stamped into our shared human nature. Yet the details of these faiths, what God is like, how he can be known, what he requires to restore a broken relationship with him, are strikingly different, and cannot all be true at once. How do we know what faith is true? It has to be revealed to us by God
So when searching for a faith that comes from God rather than from man, perhaps these near-universal instincts are a useful place to start: what do they point to, and which faith actually answers them?
A close relationship
Just as parents long for closeness with their children, it seems reasonable that our Creator longs for closeness with each of us, his children. At the opening of Genesis, God walks with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day — intimacy is the starting point, not an afterthought. It was their rebellion, not God's absence, that broke the relationship. In the same way, a young child's deepest instinct is to a having a closeness to its parents. No one has to teach an infant to want its mother. That desire is simply there.
Augustine captured this longing in the opening lines of his book ‘Confessions’, written after years of restlessly searching for satisfaction in success, philosophy, and pleasure:
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
That restlessness, the sense that nothing quite fills the gap — is something almost everyone recognises at some point in life.
Just as a teenager's rebellion against loving parents damages the relationship without destroying the parents' love, our rebellion against God brings separation without ending his desire for us. The tragedy in both cases is the same: the door is closed from our side, not his.
Our desire for a fair, loving father
Selfish independence breaks relationships. We have all seen the wreckage caused when someone insists on having their own way, indifferent to what those who love them want or advise. Jesus's parable of the prodigal son captures this precisely (Luke 15:11–32): the younger son demands his inheritance immediately, in effect, telling his father he wishes he were already dead to him, and the father, though it must have grieved him deeply, lets him go his own disastrous way. He doesn't chase him down or force him to stay.
What makes the parable remarkable is what happens next. When the son finally comes to his senses and trudges home rehearsing an apology, the father is already watching for him. Luke says he sees him ‘while he was still a long way off’ and runs to meet him, before a word of confession is even spoken. There's no lecture, no probation period, no ‘I told you so’, only celebration.
This is the kind of father the human heart seems to long for: not an indulgent weak pushover who lets us destroy ourselves without comment, and not a harsh disciplinarian keeping score. God is a father who gives real freedom, feels real grief when we misuse it, and runs to meet us the moment we turn back. Our instinctive desire for exactly this kind of father is itself a clue to the nature of the God who made us, he is a God of love.
Our need for forgiveness
Sin breaks relationships. Most family breakdowns trace back to the selfishness of one or both people involved, and the damage often ripples out to everyone around them. A faith that genuinely comes from God, rather than one invented by man to make us feel better, will take the seriousness of sin seriously, not soften it, while also providing a real, workable path back.
Don't most parents, faced with an unkind child, say some version of, "Go and say you're sorry"? We instinctively teach our children that relationships can be repaired — but only where there is genuine repentance, not just the words. A half-hearted "sorry" mumbled to avoid punishment doesn't rebuild trust; a change of heart does. Repentance, not mere regret, is what restores relationship.
When a child breaks a window or hurts a friend, it is almost always the parent who ends up stepping in to sort things out and pay for the damage — the child rarely has the means to put things right on their own. In the same way, our sin damages our relationship with God in ways we cannot undo by our own effort. However sincerely we try to make amends, we cannot erase what has already been broken. If the consequences of our sin is to be mended at all, God himself must provide the remedy.
This is where religion and the gospel part ways most sharply. Religion, in the broadest sense, is humanity's attempt to climb up to God. Through rule-keeping, ritual, self-denial, or sheer effort we try to earn back what was lost. Ascetics fast, monks withdraw from the world, and moralists tighten their code, all hoping that enough discipline will settle the debt. But a debt that we cannot pay is not solved by trying harder to pay it. As 1 John puts it, reversing the usual order of religious effort entirely:
“We love because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:19
The initiative, and the cost, is God's, not ours.
This longing for a close relationship with God is not a feature of religion. The God of the religious is a distant God, who should be feared. The ancient Greeks and Romans had such gods. Much of Islam and other formal religions try to please God by keeping rules. This is so different to real Christianity where Jesus came to pay the price for our sin and wants us to live in a close relationship with our loving heavenly Father.
Is Christianity a religion?
All religions work on a similar basis. They begin with an initiation, a religious ceremony such as circumcision, baptism or some other initiation. Then the newcomers are expected to follow certain rules or ways of living. There are religious guides such as priests, gurus and imams to help people follow the way. Then after death there is a personal assessment or judgment. Those who pass the required standard are admitted to nirvana, heaven or a state of bliss. In this respect religion is rather like a university course. A student matriculates or is admitted to the course. Then they have to do certain things such as attend lecture and seminars until finally the exams come along and those who have done well enough will receive their degree. No work then no degree.
Christianity is not like this. The Bible teaches that the only qualification for heaven is to be perfectly righteous and not one of us can reach that standard. We will all naturally fail this judgment.
However there is an answer to our dilemma. The judgement of those who are committed to following Jesus has already taken place, this occurred when Jesus died on the cross and there he took our judgment on himself. Those who are following Jesus are accepted by God as being perfectly righteous because of what he has done for us. The way that Christians live is because we have been loved by God in christ and we want to show our love for our Saviour in response.
Again we know that this is right because it is built into ur instincts. Imagine a young man is attracted to a young lady and wants to marry her. He gives her a book as a present. It is a cookery book. He explains what dishes he loves that this book describes and would like her to spend her life perfecting these culinary skills. What would you think of that young man if he says’
“If you keep these rules I will accept you. Otherwise you will have go back to your mother.’
Such a way of thinking is ridiculous. The wife serves her husband out of love and gratefulness. To accept anyone on the basis of how they have followed certain rules would be utterly insulting to the other person.
Christianity offers us acceptance because of what Jesus has done for us. He has chosen us to be his bride although he knows our imperfections. We change the way we live in response to that love we have been shown.
Let us take a second look at the parable Jesus told about two sons. One was a selfish prodigal who took his inheritance and wasted it in riotous living in a distant land. However when he became desperate he returned home and the relationship with his father became very close. He was so grateful for his father’s love. In contrast the older son had always been at home but it is clear that his relationship with his father was far from close. The message is clear. It is not just that God accepts those who have gone wrong in their lives if they return to live under God’s authority, it is that God longs for a close relationship with people. Many religious people think that because they have always ‘lived within the faith’ and follow the rules of their faith that this is what God wants. This is not true. God longs for a close relationship. What do people think of a son who carries his father’s name and has been raised in his father’s home but who now cares little about that relationship.
The ‘older brother’ tends to hide in public because his activities look like faithfulness. It is possible to be someone in the pew every Sunday for fifty years, tithing, teaching Sunday school, technically correct on every doctrine - and privately convinced God is a ledger-keeper they're trying to satisfy. Meanwhile someone who spent decades in addiction or crime, but then returns to live under Jesus’ authority will describe their relationship with God in the language of overwhelming relief and gratitude. The lifelong ‘faithful’ one can look at that and feel cheated rather than glad - which is exactly the elder brother's reaction in the parable.
The common thread in all human religion is that adherence breeds a sense of superiority, compliance without warmth breeds resentment that masquerades as virtue. The person doing everything ‘right often can't even see what is missing, because on every external measure they're the good one. That's what makes it harder to address than the prodigal's failure — there's no rock bottom to force the reckoning. The parable's whole trick is that it makes the reader identify with the good son's outrage before the story quietly asks: but do you actually want to be near your father, or do you just want credit for staying?
God has defined the relationship he wants with his people in words from the Jewish ‘Shema’
“The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.” Deuteronomy 6:5-6
Nothing less that a close obedient relationship with our Saviour is acceptable to the one true God. Love for our neighbour will inevitably follow from this close walk with God and his Son, but can never be a substitute
BVP
This article has been posted on the website www.bvpalmer.com where there are many other helpful articles and videos.
Christchurch Baldock is a Bible teaching, gospel centred, local church. More details can be found on its website. It meets every Sunday morning at 10.30 am in Knights Templar School, Baldock.
Bernard can be contacted at berniepalmer1@sky.com
