Reflecting on the past several decades of Western culture reveals a strategy at play among those driving the revolution. First, there have been efforts to make sure the broader society sympathizes with their struggles—both of a personal and societal nature. (And Christians surely ought to lead the world in sympathy, but only of the Christlike sort.) Second, there was and is a clear desire to normalize homosexuality and transgenderism through media and individuals’ platforms. And third, there has been and continues to be a concerted effort to demonize those who oppose the revolution. Dissenters will be canceled at a high cost.

Writing on the state of Western civilization a little more than a decade ago, English journalist Melanie Phillips observed, “Society seems to be in the grip of a mass derangement.” There’s a “sense that the world has slipped off the axis of reason,” causing many to wonder, “How is anyone to work out who is right in such a babble of ‘experts’ and with so much conflicting information?”
As I started to reread this book recently, I was struck by what’s missing. Phillips writes as an agnostic but observant Jew, and many of her points are profoundly helpful. Noticeably absent from her analysis, though, is any biblical recognition of how the world could’ve gone so haywire (à la Gen. 3)—in the realm of human sexuality.
The subject of sexuality as described and prescribed by Scripture is not just difficult—to address it is also unpopular and in large measure offensive. I come to it with caution and, I hope, with a measure of compassion, but also with the conviction that God’s Word and way are absolutely perfect—and that he knew exactly what he was doing when he put humanity together. Thankfully, one of the passages that speaks most pointedly to how God’s wrath is revealed against sin (Rom. 1:16–28) is both preceded and followed by the amazing offer of God’s grace.
Living in a Runaway World
Paul’s argument in Romans 1 unfolds from his great declaration in verse 16: “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” Why is the gospel for everyone? Because everyone needs the gospel. Each of us is born in the same hopeless and helpless situation: “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (v. 18).
Simply put, mankind lives in a runaway world. Some of us like to suggest God is hiding, but we have been the hiders since nearly the beginning of time (Gen. 3:8–10). We “suppress the truth” he’s shown us about himself (Rom. 1:18). We deny he’s made himself clearly known in the universe we inhabit—that “his eternal power and divine nature” (v. 20) are evident all around—and, as a result, we’re utterly “without excuse” (v. 20) when we refuse to worship him or thank him. When we refuse to know God as he’s revealed himself, we don’t give up on worship—we just worship something or someone else. 
Which brings us to the matter of human sexuality—not because it’s a hobbyhorse or because we get some (perverse) sense of satisfaction out of being controversial but because that’s what comes next in God’s Word. If we simply choose the parts of the Bible we like and reject the parts we don’t, we don’t really believe the Bible; we believe ourselves. Why would we ever want to consider a passage like Romans 1 unless we believed Scripture is God’s Word, it’s unerring, and it speaks life-giving truth—even in our 21st-century Western world? We’re not at liberty to rewrite the Bible to accommodate godless perspectives on abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, transgenderism, and the like. We’re not free to tamper with God’s Word.
As we continue reading Paul’s inspired words, it’s clear that having broken our connection with the Creator—who made us purposefully for himself—we struggle to know who we are. As the apostle goes on to explain, when men turned from God toward idols, including the idol of self, God
gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. . . . God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. (vv. 24, 26–27)
The exchange of the normal, natural function of human sexuality for that which is contrary isn’t the first “exchange.” Paul has already described mankind as exchanging “the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things” (v. 23)—the exchange of the Creator God for created idols. We have also “exchanged the truth about God for a lie” (v. 25)—the exchange of knowledge for ignorance.
Read More
Related Posts:

Just because we have an emotional experience, goose bumps, warm fuzzies, or a dream doesn’t mean it came from the Holy Spirit of God. A man once told me, “The Holy Spirit gets a lot of credit for saying things the Holy Spirit never said.” He was spot-on. I’ve had people say to me: “God-told-me-to-tell-you . . .”.  If it truly was God, we should reduce it to writing and staple it to the back of our Bible. “Why?” they ask. Because if God said it, it constitutes divine revelation. 

Maybe it’s just me, but I seem to attract people who’ve had the strangest spiritual experiences imaginable. A man in Ft. Worth, Texas once told me a wild tale about how he’d died and gone to hell. He looked up and saw a bright light. Jesus told him he could return to the living if he would tell everyone of his experience. When he opened his eyes, he was on a gurney, in a morgue, with a sheet over his head! He even claimed he had a tag on his big toe! He got up, walked out of the morgue, and ran home . . . completely naked! You may think I’m joking, but this conversation truly happened. I met him in the Ft. Worth Stockyards.
Did this this man meet Jesus? I can neither prove nor disprove his experience. Yet, these stories seem so appealing to people, even Christians. Surely, you’ve heard similar stories (without the nudity, we hope!). Perhaps this example is extreme, but how can we verify when people claim God spoke to them?
Scripture is Sufficient
D.A. Carson’s book, The Gagging of God, deals with the key issue at-hand:
“Many [Christians] now rely far more on inward promptings than on their Bible knowledge to decide what they are going to do in a situation.”1
Donald Whitney, in The Compromised Church, states:
“The evangelistic method of Jesus and the apostles was not to urge people to seek direct experiences with God; instead they went about preaching and teaching the Scriptures (see, for instance, Mark 1:14-15). And Jesus did not say that once we have spiritual life we live by direct mystical experience with God; rather, we ‘live . . . on every word that comes from the mouth of God’ (Matthew 4:4). . . .
Read More

You can be as “lucky” as the penitent criminal was, although the Bible teaches that salvation is not a matter of luck. Salvation is a matter of God giving his grace. You can receive that grace. You can meet Jesus at the cross the way the penitent criminal did. But you have to admit that you are sinful and confess that Jesus is sinless. You have to ask Jesus for the eternal, personal salvation that he offers.

The thief on the cross had to be the luckiest man alive. He was nothing more than a lowlife criminal, a loser. He had com- mitted a crime. He was convicted for it, and he was crucified for it. So he had no future; he was going nowhere; or, worse, he was going to hell. Yet of all the criminals, on all the crosses, on all the hills in the Roman Empire, he was crucified next to Jesus Christ.
Just before he died, just before he plunged into the abyss of eternity, at the last possible instant, he received the gift of eternal life. If he had died on any other cross, at any other time, in any other place, he would have been forgotten forever. But he did not die on any other cross, at any other time, in any other place. He died at the Place of the Skull, outside Jerusalem, on a cross right next to the cross Jesus died on. Because he died on that cross, he was able to ask for eternal life and hear the beautiful words that Jesus spoke from the cross: “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” He not only heard those words—he went to heaven that very day and has been there ever since.
If that sounds pretty lucky, you can be just as “lucky.” That penitent thief did not get anything from Jesus that you cannot get from him. You can meet Jesus at the cross the same way he did. You do not even have to be crucified for your troubles. But you do have to do three things this bandit did.
Facing Up to Sin
First, you have to admit you are a sinner. Salvation is for sinners. By sinner, I mean someone who lives life in rebellion against God. That rebellion includes everything you might think of as sin—like lying, stealing, adultery, and hypocrisy—and a few things you might not think of—like impatience, greed, pride, unforgiveness, and prayerlessness.
You might think it would be easy for a convicted criminal, dying on a cross, to admit that he is a sinner living in rebellion against God. Not so. There were two criminals who were crucified with Jesus, one on either side of him, but only one of them repented. The other criminal refused to admit he was a sinner. The Bible says, “One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at [Jesus]: ‘Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!’” (v. 39). There was no way he was going to admit he had done anything wrong. He was the kind of man who always looks for someone who is in worse shape than he is, someone he can kick when he is down. Even when he was dying a death by slow torture, he took advantage of his opportunity to pour abuse on the Savior of the world.
It is not easy for sinners to admit that they are sinners. It can be the hardest confession a sinner ever makes. We usually try to make ourselves feel better by finding someone who is worse than we are so we do not have to deal with our own guilty consciences. The minds of sinners are confused. They cannot see clearly into their own hearts. They do not realize how rebellious they are. They do not understand how much God hates sin.
That is what makes the confession of the penitent criminal, the criminal who became Jesus’s friend, so amazing. He said to the unrepentant criminal who was hurling insults at Jesus, “Don’t you fear God, since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve.” He admitted he was a sinner. He admitted that it was right for him to die for his sins. He admitted that his crucifixion was only a matter of getting his just deserts.
He also admitted that his sins were an offense against God, not just an offense against humanity. Dying on a cross put the fear of God into him. It should have, because a sinner who lives in rebellion against God ought to be afraid of God. Your own con- science will tell you that you ought to be afraid of God . . . if you listen to it. This man listened to his conscience, and he was moved to admit that he was a sinner who deserved to die for his sins. He knew that he deserved not only a physical death at the hands of Rome, but also a spiritual death at the hands of God.
You cannot take your sins with you to paradise. If you want to go there, you have to admit that you are a sinner and thus take the first step to having them removed through faith in Christ.
Confessing That Jesus Is Sinless
You will also have to confess that Jesus was not a sinner. That is the second thing the penitent criminal did: he confessed that Jesus is the perfect Son of God. “We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong” (Luke 23:41). Even though he himself was a sinner, he could tell that Jesus Christ was sinless. It was obvious to him that Jesus had done nothing wrong.
He seems to have figured that out while he was dying on his own cross. Remember the first thing Jesus said on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
The penitent criminal heard those words, and he must have been moved by the forgiving heart of God that was revealed in Jesus’s prayer. He rightly concluded that a man who could pray for his enemies like that must be a perfect man.
In any case, what the penitent criminal said about Jesus was true. Jesus was innocent. He was illegally incarcerated, falsely accused, wrongfully convicted, and unjustly executed. It was the greatest miscarriage of justice the world has ever known. Study the teachings of Jesus, and you will see how good and true all his words were. Examine the biography of Jesus, and you will see how right and perfect all his actions were. The more you get to know Jesus, the clearer it becomes that he was the perfect Son of God. You must confess that Jesus is sinless if you want to get to paradise.
Asking for What Jesus Offers
There is one more thing you must do, and that is ask for the salvation Jesus offers. One of the remarkable things about Luke’s history of the two criminals crucified with Jesus is that both of them asked for salvation. Have you ever noticed this? “One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at [Jesus]: ‘Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!’” This man met Jesus Christ face to face at the cross; he asked for salvation, and he did not receive it! That fact should terrify us. It is possible to meet Jesus at the cross and fail to receive salvation!
How is that possible? Both thieves were bad men, and they both asked for salvation. So why didn’t they both receive salvation? How can it be that only one thief went to paradise?
For one thing, the unrepentant criminal was not sincere when he asked for salvation. He was insulting Jesus, abusing him with sarcasm. “Aren’t you the Christ?” he sneered. He was asking Jesus for salvation with his lips, but he was not trusting Jesus for salvation in his heart. He did not accept Jesus as King.
But there was another problem with his request. He was not asking for the salvation that Jesus actually offers. “Save yourself and us!” he said. That is to say, “Climb down off that cross and get me out of this mess!” He was not asking for eternal life so much as he was trying to save his skin. He was not trying to get salvation for his soul in the life to come; he was only trying to get protection for his body in the here and now.
Jesus could have delivered that criminal from the cross, of course, but he had more important things to do, like paying for the sins of his people, winning a permanent victory over death, and opening up the pathway to eternal life.
The penitent criminal who became Jesus’s friend and was invited to paradise must have understood some of these things because he did just the opposite of what the unrepentant criminal did: he asked Jesus for the salvation Jesus actually offers. He said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
The penitent thief was asking for an eternal salvation. He was asking for something from Jesus in the future, asking that Jesus would remember him when he came into his kingdom. He was not asking to be delivered from the temporary and momentary troubles of this life. He was asking for a lasting and permanent salvation.
The penitent thief also seems to have understood that he would have to wait for that salvation until Jesus had finished his business on the cross. Jesus could not have saved anyone if he had climbed down from the cross. That was part of the unrepentant criminal’s problem: he wanted Jesus to leave the cross. But Jesus had to stay on the cross to win salvation. He had to die first before he could save anybody. Only after he had finished dying for sins could he offer salvation.
The penitent thief was also asking for a personal salvation. Notice how he addressed the man next to him on the cross. He called him “Jesus.” That is not found anywhere else in the Gospels.
Usually people addressed Jesus as “Teacher” or “Master.” But this man, convicted criminal that he was, addressed Jesus intimately by his first name. He talked to him in a personal way because he was asking him for a personal salvation.
That is the kind of salvation to ask for because it is exactly the kind of salvation Jesus offers. When we hear what Jesus said on the cross to this penitent criminal, we think the important word is “paradise.” It is true that Jesus has gone to prepare a place in heaven for every sinner who repents (see John 14:1–6), but salvation is not really about paradise. What Jesus offers is better than paradise. He offers intimacy with himself. “Today you will be with me,” Jesus said. Being with Jesus is what makes paradise paradise. As that penitent criminal hung on his own cross, he finally found the personal relationship he had been waiting for his whole life—a personal, intimate love relationship with the living God.
You can have the same thing. You can be as “lucky” as the penitent criminal was, although the Bible teaches that salvation is not a matter of luck. Salvation is a matter of God giving his grace. You can receive that grace. You can meet Jesus at the cross the way the penitent criminal did. But you have to admit that you are sinful and confess that Jesus is sinless. You have to ask Jesus for the eternal, personal salvation that he offers. When you do, Jesus will give you the same answer he gave to the criminal: “I tell you the truth, . . . you will be with me in paradise.”
This is an excerpt taken from the reprinted edition of the book The Heart of the Cross by James Montgomery Boice and Philip Graham Ryken. Originally published in 1999 by Crossway. Reprinted in 2022 by P&R Publishing in hardcover. Printed with permission.
Related Posts: