A World of Difference
Deuteronomy 29:10-12
“You are standing today, all of you, before the LORD your God: the heads of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and the sojourner who is in your camp, from the one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water, so that you may enter into the sworn covenant of the LORD your God, which the LORD your God is making with you today, …”
In the very last chapter of the Bible, in Revelation 22, in the closing remarks that bookend Redemption’s literary drama, the Spirit, through John, calls out a final offer to men that has now resonated for the past two thousand years. An invitation from Holy God to fallen sons of Adam who wish to rise higher, and to walk in Eden once again, who yearn for that pastureland of promise where lions and lambs lie down together and where war and suffering is drowned out in everlasting peace. Revelation 22:17 sums up the story well: “The Spirit and the Bride say ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.” Because that’s the hand He’s been offering ever since the beginning.
Isn’t the universality of the gospel part of what distinguishes it from all the manufactured, manmade religions of the world? For the pagan religions of Baal and Molech, little children weren’t offered an equal measure of divine grace. Often, they were offered as burnt sacrifices on altars. But even in modern times, even in far-less child-sacrificing religious organizations like Free Masonry and Scientology and Christian Science, hierarchical structures and esoteric levels within the community are offered, based on credentials like money and notoriety and achievement. Even the most welcoming religious systems don’t welcome all, without price or subscription or political favor, the way Christ’s cross does.
Our God invites the watercarriers along with the kings, the peasants along with the nobles, the kindergarteners along with the businessmen, the tree-cutters along with the architects, the young, the old, the slave, the free, the male, the female, the Jew, the Gentile—anyone who wills to come may come! Yes, even through the dense, shadowy veil of Deuteronomy, gospel light is breaking through!