Bible Talks - Family Church (9:45am)
Series: Baptisms
The Unknown God
Sunday, 06 March 2005
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A few years ago my wife and I visited Athens while on a bus trip around Europe for our long service leave. Modern Athens is a bit of a ramshackle city but amongst all the traffic chaos and modern concrete eyesores you keep coming across reminders of Athens’ glorious past. Dominating the skyline is the Acropolis with the Parthenon. Across the road from our hotel was the Temple of Zeus and you see a number of remains of other old temples, statues, and other relics of the golden age of Greece. While we were there we joined the crowds visiting the Acropolis and the Parthenon, which while it is crumbling away and parts of it are surrounded by scaffolding, it is still a magnificent building with a line and a style that impresses the eye. Just below the Parthenon is what is known as the Areopagus, a fairly flat area with an outcrop of rock which used to be the market place and where the philosophers and others gathered.
That Bible reading we heard a few moments ago is known as the Apostle Paul’s Areopagus address and I believe that what he had to say to the Athenians of his day has some real relevance to us today.
The Apostle Paul saw that the ancient Athenians had an abundance even a surfeit of gods. Everywhere you went you found statues, idols, shrines, altars to their multitudinous gods. But something that Paul found astounding was that in the midst of it all, he found an altar with the inscription “TO AN UNKNOWN GOD”
The ancient Athenians were covering their bets. They had altars, temples and shrines to every God imaginable but just in case they missed one who might turn out to be important they had the altar to the Unknown God. There was a pluralistic spirit that pervaded that ancient city.
Sydney, along with most other western cities these days is also pervaded by a pluralistic spirit. By that I mean that not only are there many different beliefs about god but to a great extent the true God is an unknown god. Now cultural pluralism has many advantages. A week ago I had a donner kebab for lunch. About once or twice a fortnight I have a pizza. I also like Mongolian lamb and sweet and sour pork and I’ve been known to eat the odd burrito or two. As I teach scripture in our local schools I see the great ethnic diversity of our society. But as well as the diversity of cuisine, fashion, skin colour and facial shape there is also a great diversity of religion. Represented in our community we have Christians of various varieties, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, Ba’Hais, Confucians, Shintos and a whole lot of others.
Now this is where the pluralistic spirit of ancient Athens and modern western societies has a problem. In seeking to affirm all religious perspectives, we actually honour none of them. By insisting on the unity of all faiths we often ignore and suppress what is distinctive about them and end up sacrificing intellectual integrity on the altar of cultural tolerance.
You see, the various religious traditions in our world make claims about the nature of God or of the gods that are mutually exclusive. For example Islam believes there is only one God, Allah. We Christians believe that there is only one God but he has revealed himself as Father, Son and holy Spirit. Hindus believe that there are many gods, in fact hundreds of thousands of them with certain ones being more important. While classical Buddhism rejects the existence of any gods at all. You don’t need a degree in mathematics to see that there’s a fundamental contradiction here. Yet modern western pluralism tries to tell us that all religions are either one or at least equally valid.
Other examples are the fact that Christianity insists that you are saved by the grace and the mercy of God while Islam insists that salvation is earned by ethical and ritual obedience. Or Judaism affirms that you enjoy one life after which comes judgment while Buddhism teaches a wheel of birth and rebirth until you attain Nirvana or a state of blissful non-self.
Now of course we should all learn to love and respect each other’s humanity and freedom of expression but to try and say that your neighbour’s deep held beliefs are really just minor theological variations is to do your neighbour a great disservice.
English Journalist and Poet, Steve turner, put the point well in his tongue-in-cheek poem, Creed.
We believe that all religions are basically the same,
At least the one we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of
Creation sin heaven and hell God and salvation
The religions of the world are in no sense one. Perhaps one or other is true, perhaps none is true, but it is simply not possible for all, or even a few to be true.
The Apostle Paul, rather than attacking all the false Greek gods as represented by their many temples, altars and idols, said let me tell you about the God you don’t know about, the Unknown God. He then went on to proclaim the living and true God in five ways, exposing their error and idolatry.
Firstly, God is the Creator of the universe. “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands”. This is a very different view of the world from that of the ancient Greek philosophers and even from that of modern secular humanism.
God actually made the world – you can read about it in the first few chapters of Genesis, the first book of the Bible – not blind chance plus time as modern evolutionists would have us believe. Not only did he make it, he’s the Lord or the boss of everything. The one who makes the rules both physical and moral. The one who decides how things work and how they work out. The one who decides what’s good and what’s bad. What’s more the very idea of confining this God inside a man made structure like a temple or an effigy like an idol is ludicrous.
Secondly, God is the sustainer of life. “he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else” The God who made us and everything else sustains us and keeps it going. Again it’s absurd to think that this God needs us to offer him food or anything else as if he needs it. We depend on God, not the other way round.
Thirdly, God is the ruler of all the nations. “From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28‘For in him we live and move and have our being.” Although God cannot be held responsible the tyranny or aggression of individual nations, yet both the history and the geography of each nation are ultimately under God’s control. His purpose in this is that human beings might seek him and find him. Yet this hope is unfulfilled because of our human sinfulness that alienates us from God. Paul assures his hearers, including us that rather than God being distant, unknowable and uninterested, he is actually near to us. We’re the ones who keep God at a distance.
Fourthly, God is the Father of human beings. “As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ 29“Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man’s design and skill.” Paul quotes the Greek’s own poets to make his case. Us mortal humans may not get it right all the time but we do have the occasional insight into divine truth. There is once sense in which we are all God’s offspring but that relationship has been spoilt by our sinful rebellion and now it is through the redemption or salvation that comes through Jesus Christ that we are God’s children by adoption and grace. Again it is absurd to think of the living God as being made out of lifeless gold, silver or stone.
All idolatry, whether ancient or modern, primitive or sophisticated is inexcusable. Whether what is worshipped is material objects or mental concepts they are attempts to limit God, to localize God, to domestic or tame God so that we control him rather than the other way around.
Fifthly, Paul says, God is the Judge of the world. “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.” Now here’s the bit we don’t like. Paul returns to the topic where he began. You have an altar to the Unknown God. You are ignorant of God and his requirements. In the past God overlooked such ignorance but now he has declared such ignorance to be culpable. You can no longer get away with claiming you didn’t know.
In his letter to the Romans the Apostle Paul wrote “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles”.
In the past God didn’t visit upon people the judgment they deserved but now he has sent the one who will be the judge and he commands everyone to repent.
God’s judgment will be universal. The living and the dead, the low born and the high born, people who believe in him and people who don’t. nobody will escape the judgment.
God’s judgment will be just. All secrets will be revealed. There will be no possibility of a miscarriage of justice.
God’s judgment will be definite. God has already appointed the day and the judge. He hasn’t disclosed the day but he has revealed the judge. The one who came back from the dead – Jesus Christ.
In ancient Athens a few believed, some wanted to hear more but others sneered. In Sydney today a few believe, some want to hear more while others sneer. Which of these groups do you fit into.
Three families have come here this morning, into the fellowship of believers, to declare that they too believe and claim God’s promises to the believer for their children. Perhaps you want to hear more? Talk to me or another believer either after this service or anytime.
Perhaps like those who sneered in ancient Athens you reject it. Are you really sure of the ground you base your life on and the basis for your eternal destiny?
Let us pray.
