Everybody today realizes that there is something broken or not right with the world. Utopia, where everyone can live in harmony, is a dream that we all seem to share. Many have tried to create utopia-like communities, and all have failed. There are a few attempts to deal with the brokenness.
One idea is to focus on getting your mind in the right state. You look inside yourself and you determine what you consider reality to be. You decide what is right and what is wrong. You fix yourself internally. You attempt to block out the wrong and promote the right (whatever that right is that you determine to be).
Another idea is that the environment is wrong. People tend to do what society tells them to do. The idea is you can fix society or the culture by training people to think correctly and do the right things. Only then would utopia be possible. The idea is we can do this if we have enough rules or laws to guide people to utopian thinking. Correcting the environment, if you can get people to do what has been considered to be right, is an attempt to solve the problem.
Both these concepts assume that you or society knows what is right and what is wrong. In the first case the person determines what is right or wrong, and what is reality. In the second case, society determines that. Unfortunately, in either case, their definition of reality and what is good or evil can easily change.
There is a third way to look at the reality of our brokenness. We start by recognizing there is a Creator that made us (1 Corinthians 8:6). He is the one that has defined reality and has set standards of right and wrong, good and evil. We do not get to. As the Creator, who loves us, he set these standards for our good. However, our first parents failed to follow God’s standards and went off on their own (Genesis 3:1-6). Because of this we are broken through and through (Romans 3:23). We live self-centered selfish lives. We are unable to fix ourselves. Our disobedience broke us and the world and ever since then we have had this longing for a restoration of that utopia.
God, our Creator, did not give up on us. He set out to rescue us from our brokenness and to restore the world to its unbroken state. In Jesus, he became one of us, and lived a perfect life that we could not (1 Peter 2:22). Out of love for us, he died on the cross as payment for our wrongdoings and our brokenness (1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 2:2). He rose from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:3-4) to start the process of restoration.
To illustrate this, consider this story. You are walking across university grounds and you come across a standoff with the police and a shooter. You are peeved when told you can not go that way because you have important business to attend to. You slip to the side and think this does not look really dangerous and I can slip under the barrier and take this other route. So you do that and about a minute later, you see a glint of a rifle barrel, hear a shot, and end up on the ground. You are okay but lying on top of you is the policeman that told you not to go past the barriers. He is bleeding and is dead. He sacrificed himself because of your disobedience and selfish stupidity. He saved you. That is what Jesus did for us. Jesus sacrificed himself in order to save us from our broken selves. He did it to bring us back to himself, to restore that broken relationship with God that our first parents had in the beginning.
The Bible says you are saved by God’s undeserved love through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). It is a gift. Faith has been defined in a variety of ways. Faith is not a blind faith. There are few things needed to have faith. First, you must know what or who you have faith in. You have faith in Jesus, who died for you. Second, you need to agree or give your assent that Jesus is Lord and Savior (Romans 10:9). And lastly, you need to place your trust in Jesus, that is you need to recognize your brokenness, turn from your selfish ways, and strive to follow Jesus and his ways (Acts 3:19). That is faith. It is an active faith.
Jesus’ resurrection points to the day we will rise back to life and live forever with God in that utopian environment (Revelation 21:1-5) (or without him in Hell if you reject him). Today we live in the new life that he has given us (John 10:10). We have been rescued and are in the process of being restored.
This post was inspired in part by Gregory Koukl’s book, “The Story of Reality”.
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