Most people, when reading Scripture, have a difficult time discerning God's viewpoint (the absolute viewpoint) from the viewpoint of humans (the relative viewpoint). Many are unaware that these two viewpoints even exist—although the consideration is quite simple.
For instance, most will agree that every good thing is of God. But wait a minute. I know of a Boy Scout who did a good deed. Do we have a contradiction here? No. Relatively speaking, the Boy Scout did a good deed in relation to (that is, relative to) other human beings, who didn't do anything. Absolutely speaking, however, God did the good deed through the Boy Scout.
To use a Scriptural example, the apostle Paul writes in Romans 3:10—"There is no one righteous, not even one." In Luke 1:6, however, the writer notes that Zechariah and Elizabeth (the father and mother of John the Baptist) were "both righteous in front of God." Has God's word just contradicted itself? No. Romans 3:10 takes an absolute perspective, with God's righteousness (and
nothing else) as the standard of comparison. Compared to God and God alone, no one is righteous, not even the parents of John the Baptist. Zechariah and Elizabeth on the other hand (in the Luke passage) are being compared (related to) others in Israel who, with them, were also attempting to do the law of Moses but failing. Compared to these other people (in other words, relative to the performance of other human beings), Zech and Lizzy stood above all the rest in the "righteousness in accord
with law" department.
Who killed Christ? Was it the Romans? The Jews? Satan? Was it the actual soldier who drove the nails into His hands and feet? Or did GOD kill Christ? All of these answers are correct. Only one answer, however, assumes the absolute viewpoint, and that is that God killed His Son in order to take away the sins of the world. All these others were relative actors. That is, they performed
their various roles in relation to others who did not perform the roles.
In this audio from 1997, I explain in detail the absolute vs. the relative perspective, and explain to you how a man I debated on the topic of the so-called free will of humanity (Pastor Clay Kent) so badly misunderstood the topic (in fact, he didn't understand it at all) that he contradicted himself continuously during the debate. As the sovereignty of God over His universe is one
of the most important topics for human beings to properly grasp, I would say that this is one of the most helpful presentations I have ever presented.
This message was recorded at a hotel conference room in Newport News, VA, in the fall of 1997. You would not be hearing it today were it not for my friend Rodney Paris of Texas, who has generously taken it upon himself to digitize many of my analog cassette tapes (does anyone own cassette players anymore?) from the 1994-2001 era of my career, put them to interesting video, add text
frames for enhanced teaching, and upload them to YouTube.
Let me know what you think in the comments below. Your thoughts on this matter are absolutely important to me—relatively speaking.
From the Floridan peninsula, —Martin Zender
