Loneliness (part 1)

Wayne Mack says the problem of loneliness is epidemic. Psychiatrist Paul Tournier is quoted as saying that loneliness is “. . . the most devastating malady of this age.” Loneliness seems to know no bounds, affecting every person in any place at any time regardless of age, sex, or culture.[i] One is alone, cut off, without companionship.

When God created man, He did so with relationship, companionship in mind. In the general description of the event as found in Genesis 1, God created man in His image, as a set (male and female) to rule and to fruitful and multiply in the context of his relationship with His creator. In the specific account as found in Genesis 2, we are able to zero in on some details:

1. God created the man;
2. God allowed man to be creative with language by naming the animals (God created with language, but in his image man was able to demonstrate rulership by doing something God did not, which was name the animals);
3. God made the man a helper in order that he be not alone, separate, isolated after he realized his state of being incomplete;
4. Man in his disobedience is declared by God (though he have a wife) one; that is, alone, isolated. Man’s relationship with God is changed because of disobedience, he is no longer in fellowship with God. Sin severs the relationship with God. Man is alone, now that he by his own hand knows good and evil.

God hides His face from perverseness and faithlessness (Deut. 32:19-20), staying away from the wicked (Ps 66:18). He will not hear if one holds onto any sin in the heart (Ps. 66:18). “But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear” (Is 59:2). With sin, we are excluding ourselves from salvation, God’s means of reconciliation, as well as from all the benefits of that relationship being strangers to His promises and without hope being Godless (Eph 2:12). To walk a road of separation from God is truly a lifeless walk, a futility, carrying on in ignorance and without understanding. Though so many would like to see change in their relationships, they reject God and continue in their loneliness due to a hard calloused heart, embracing instead false intimacy in sensuality, impurity and (at its root) greed (Eph 4:17-19).

One need not remain alone. God has through Christ Jesus brought about reconciliation! He Himself has “made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.” Through appropriating what God has done in Christ Jesus we are able to have a relationship with Him! We can say, “I was formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, but He has now reconciled me in His fleshly body through death, in order to present me before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach” (Col. 1:20-22). Christ’s death is not a “to me” thing. It is “for me!” Christ Jesus died for all sins one time for all time. He who is just took the place of the unjust, “so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit” (1 Pe 3:18).

He redeemed us through His blood in order to provide forgiveness as a gift, according to the riches of His grace. (Ro 3:24, Eph 1:7). “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility” (Eph 2:13-16). We are not justified and gain peace with God by what we do, but by faith through Christ Jesus (Ro 5:1).

A youth once borrowed a fast car, and in a drunken stupor, sped through his home town at 120 m.p.h. Since everything was horse-drawn in his country town, there were no laws against speeding. So the council passed a law saying that 60 m.p.h. was the maximum speed, and that any transgressors would be fined $100 for every m.p.h. over the speed limit.

On his way back through the town, the speedster decided to pull the same prank. He was apprehended, tried, and found guilty by his father, who was the town's only judge. He was fined $6,000, and because he had no money and no words of defense, the youth was led off to prison.
As he sat in despair in prison, his father appeared at the door, and told him that he had sold all is own prized possessions and paid the fine for him. The son couldn't believe that he loved him that much. They embraced as they never had before, and walked off in a new-found relationship, bounded together with love.

That's a picture of what God did for us through the Gospel.

We have all broken the Law a multitude of times, but God came to this earth in the person of Jesus Christ, and paid the fine for us. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." The Bible says, "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life, through Christ Jesus our Lord."[ii]

“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.” (John 1:12).

**********

[i] Mack, Wayne. A Homework Manual for Biblical Counseling. Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1981.
[ii] www.livingwaters.com