24 and from that activity we extrapolate the attributes that describe God’s character. He creates from nothing because He is the Creator. The products of God’s creation are good because God is good. He sends His Son to die for sinners because God is love. He justifies guilty sinners because He is just. The Bible does not even record an independent or analytical definition of what it is to be a human being. Humans are created in God’s image, a reflection of who God is. Humans find their meaning and significance in relation to God and in submissive obedience to His Word. The strategy of Satan in tempting Eve in the Garden of Eden was to present the first woman with an alternative meaning for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God said she would surely die if she ate of the fruit of the tree, but Satan said her eyes would be opened and she would become like God. Now Eve has two interpretations of the tree’s significance and she places herself in the position of judging which interpretation is the correct one, which one she is going to accept as true. At this point in Eve’s thinking, God’s word carries equal authority with Satan’s word and Eve is the judge or final court of appeal for determining who is telling the truth. When we are no longer rightly related to God, we determine for ourselves if God exists and, if so, how He ought to deal with us in order to warrant our trust and confidence. The result is that God must prove Himself to us in order to earn our allegiance. This can be illustrated by referencing Josh McDowell’s bookEvidence That Demands a Verdict.1 The book is an excellent source for answering challenges to the factual accuracy of the Bible, matters related to historical, scientific, or geographical accounts in Scripture. But the title of the book leaves the reader with the wrong impression about his relationship to God. It reinforces the impression of the unbeliever that he stands in judgment of God. Evidence That Demands a Verdict places the sinner on the judge’s bench and God down in the defendant’s seat where He must bring into court the evidential support for His existence and credibility. The judging sinner, in turn, determines whether God’s evidence supports His claims. Here we have the independent, self-sufficient God being subpoenaed into court and indicted as guilty until proven innocent. So again God must 1 Josh McDowell, The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict. T. Nelson, 1999.
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