The Story of Reality: How the World Began, How It Ends, and Everything Important that Happens in Between

by Gregory Koukl

“What is Christianity?” is this: Christianity is a picture of reality.2 It is an account or a description or a depiction of the way things actually are. It is not just a view from the inside (a Christian’s personal feelings or religious beliefs or spiritual affections or ethical views or “relationship” with God). It is also a view of the outside. It is a view of the world out there, of how the world really is in itself. Put another way, Christianity is a worldview.

Confused talking leads to confused thinking. Some beliefs are true. Others are not. The difference matters. If a story is not accurate to reality, it’s not any kind of truth at all, so it can never be my truth or your truth, even though we may believe it. It can only be our delusion, or our mistake, or our error, or whatever else you may want to call it. But it could never be our “truth.” I hope that’s clear. This your-truth-my-truth move is just a less direct way of asserting there is no Story, only a bunch of individual stories with none any more reliable than the other, and we’ve already seen that this approach is not going to work.

As we will see, evil is not the problem for Christianity that people think it is because it is not foreign to the Story. It is central to it. It fits right in. In a certain sense, the entire Story is precisely about how the world went bad and how it gets fixed.

removing God from the equation, though understandable, does nothing to eliminate the problem that caused someone to doubt God’s existence in the first place. God is gone, but the original problem remains. The world is still as broken.

God existed before he made anything else, and he himself was never made. Before anything else was there, God was there. The universe is not eternal, but God is. He is an everlasting Spirit with no beginning and no end.

God is the very first piece of the Christian Story because the Story is all about him. God is the central character. The Story does not start with us because the Story is not about us.

The Story is not so much about God’s plan for your life as it is about your life for God’s plan. Let that sink in. God’s purposes are central, not yours. Once you are completely clear on this fact, many things are going to change for you.

Since God made everything out of nothing, it all belongs to him. He has proper authority to rule over all because none of it would exist without him. That includes you and me, by the way. We don’t own ourselves—God does.

if God made us, then our bodies are not our own, strictly speaking. We inhabit them, of course, and have an important connection with them. But if God is God, then we are not completely free to do as we wish with our bodies. In the end, the Potter has the right over his own clay.

Did you ever wonder how to sum up the main theme of the Bible accurately in a single, simple concept? It’s right there in the first line: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

The universe is managed by some One, not some thing. We are not abandoned to the fates or to the blind and brutal forces of the natural world. Instead, we have a powerful King carefully watching over us and who is there for us.

Only while under God’s rulership can man fulfill his chief purpose—glorifying his King—and only under God’s rule can man discover his deepest satisfaction—enjoying him forever.

According to the Story, though, when God made everything, when he formed the world at the first and set up his Kingdom, everything was exactly the way his noble mind intended. Everything was in its proper place. Everything was fulfilling its designated purpose. This is the heart of happiness—all the world, and everything and everyone in it, working together in perfect harmony just the way God wanted it. That isn’t to say nothing could ever disrupt it, disorder it, throw it out of kilter. The happiness was not immutable. It could change. Things could go wrong. But they did not start out that way. They started out right. Everything was just the way it was supposed to be. Which is just another way of saying that everything God made was good.

Remember too that when people get to make their own purposes, the door is opened to limitless variety, with no individual purpose better than any other. There would be no way to say, for example, that Megan the social worker could have a purpose that was any better than Robert the stockbroker or even (as ghastly as it sounds) Drake, the sex-slave trader, since that would require a Purpose that served as a kind of benchmark the others could be measured by. But in matter-ism that benchmark does not exist.

The demands of karma are inflexible and unalterable. All creatures must get what they deserve. Every “sin” must be suffered for, and the suffering we experience is the suffering we deserve.

When man is reduced to a mere animal—when the force of one’s worldview logic demotes humans to mere biological machines—morality and human rights die and power is all that remains. This has happened with every communist regime, and happens with all governments as they get increasing secular. It cannot be otherwise.

Whatever rights man alone gives, man alone can take away. No, only the image of God in man can give us absolute value, ultimate purpose, and deep worth.

We are broken, true enough. But we are not simply malfunctioning. We are not machines that need to be fixed. We are transgressors who need to be forgiven. We have not merely “made mistakes,” like getting our sums wrong when balancing accounts. We have sinned. And with sin comes guilt. And with guilt comes punishment. The sin must be answered for. It must be paid for in some way. Atoned for, if you will.

God gives commands for reasons. When we disobey him, we always break something valuable. Here is the key to understanding the problem of evil: When God’s children disobeyed their heavenly Father, they damaged everything. When Adam and Eve rebelled against the King of the universe, they broke the whole world. This is why there is evil and suffering. Bad things happen in a world that is broken. Every evil that assaults us is the result of rejecting God’s rule.

Sin is what has broken the world. And a broken world produces broken people and crippled circumstances. Because of sin—man’s sin, our sin—the world is no longer the way it is supposed to be.

The recycled-redeemer crowd asks why we should consider the stories of Mithras, Horus, Attis, and other pagan mystery saviors as fables, yet treat as factual (what they think is) a similar story told of a Jewish carpenter. The answer is simple: There is no good historical evidence for any of the ancient mythological characters and their deeds, but there is an abundance of reliable historical evidence for Jesus. And if the primary source documentation for the man from Nazareth is compelling, then it does not matter how many ancient myths share similarities.

According to their own testimony, the Gospel writers were not telling tales, but were reporting their personal encounters8 with Jesus: “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands concerning the Word of Life [Jesus] . . . what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also . . . .” The writers were not testifying to myths, but to “sober truth” about events that had “not been done in a corner.”9

Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—I have come to do your will, O God.’ ”7

This is why Jesus came to earth. God’s Son surrendered his sinless human self to be the future unblemished offering to perfectly and completely save sinners. And this we do find in the birth narratives, everywhere. God tells Joseph that Mary “will give birth to a son, and you will give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” In the field that first Christmas night the angel tells the shepherds, “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah, the Lord.” Zacharias prophesies over his son, the infant John Baptist, saying John would prepare the way for “the Lord,” and “give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins.” Thirty years later John points at the Lord Jesus Christ and says, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”8 Each of these events echoes our unsung Christmas verse: “A body you prepared for me.” The Lord. The Christ. The Savior. Emmanuel. God with us, who would die for us. The Lamb of God.

So, the Story tells us the precise reason the Son came to earth. Not to teach love and peace and care for the poor, but to submit himself to something unspeakably violent and brutal.

So, Jesus came to earth to save sinners. The statement is so common to our ears, it is easy to miss its significance. Save means to “rescue from imminent danger.” Jesus came to rescue us because we were in danger. What was that danger? What was Jesus rescuing us from? Here is the answer. Jesus did not come to rescue us from our ignorance or our poverty or our oppressors or even from ourselves. Jesus came to rescue us from the Father.10 Remember, the King is angry. He is the one who is offended. He is the one who is owed. He is the Sovereign we have rebelled against, the Father we have disobeyed, the friend we have betrayed. And that is a dangerous place for us to be. Jesus said, “Do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

First, Jesus lived the life we should live but do not. We rebel; he submitted. We sin; he obeyed. We live for self; he lived for the Father. We falter; he succeeded. He had no hint of sin, no darkness, no shadow. As one has put it, “He remained free, uncontaminated, uncompromised.”15 Jesus never failed, obeying even to the death. This no one has ever done. There was no one like him. Second, Jesus made a trade. He took his perfect life and he traded it for our rotten lives. He gets our badness—and the judgment and punishment that go with it. We get his goodness. We take his place, and he takes our place.

Jesus’ solitary word requires three English words to translate: “It is finished.”11 Do not misunderstand, however. Jesus is not collapsing in exhausted relief at the end of suffering. The ordeal is done, true enough, but the Son of God rejoices not in what is over. He celebrates, rather, what has been accomplished. His words, precisely rendered, mean, “It has been and will forever remain finished.”12 Christ’s torment has not simply ended. His goal has been reached; his task has been achieved. The divine transaction is complete. Jesus takes our guilt. We take his goodness. That is the trade. And its effect extends forward, continues on, and changes the world forever.

in those dark hours when Christ hung from the cross, the Father took those who would put their trust in Jesus and wrapped them in his Son who shielded them, taking every blow that they deserve. You see, there are actually three passions woven together in this single act of Divine surrender. The passionate intensity of God’s anger at us for our sin collides with the passionate intensity of God’s love for us, causing the passionate intensity of the agony of the cross to be shouldered by God himself in human form.

This is why Jesus of Nazareth is the only way to God, the only possible source of rescue. He is the only one who solved the problem. No other man did this. No other person could. Not Mohammed. Not the Buddha. Not Krishna. Not anyone else. Only Jesus of Nazareth could save the world. Without him, we are crushed under our overwhelming debt. Without him, every single one of us would have to pay for our own crimes, and that would take eternity. Jesus alone, the perfect Son of God, paid the debt for those who trust in him so they would not perish under God’s punishment, but have life with him fully and forever.19 And that is only the beginning, since fixing man is the first part of fixing the world.

“believing that” (what I want to now call “belief”) and “believing in” (what we will now call “faith”).

And here I want to suggest the substitute word I mentioned earlier that I think captures the Story’s original meaning of faith. That word is trust, what ancient Christians called “ fiducia.” According to them, true faith was neither belief without knowledge (a “leap of faith”), nor a simple assent to certain truths (“believing that” Jesus was the Christ, for example). Rather, faith was knowledge in motion. It was “belief that” combined with “faith in”—active reliance, trust, in what they believed was true. Each was necessary. Neither was optional.3

faith requires belief, but it requires more than that. It requires action. It requires active trust.

This relationship between faith and fact may be why Jesus had more to say about truth than he did about trust. He said that authentic worship had to be based on truth. He taught that walking in truth was the secret of genuine freedom from sin’s enslaving power. He wanted his followers to be sanctified in truth through God’s Word, which he said was the truth. He promised that everyone who valued truth would hear his voice. Indeed, Jesus was so filled with truth himself, he personally identified himself with it: “I am . . . the truth.”7

The “trust your feelings” advice denies you the tools necessary to separate smart from foolish, wise from silly, safe from perilous. This is not good counsel since in life there are lots of lemons, and many of them are spiritually deadly. Never trust anyone who tells you to rely on experience over careful thinking. “Look before you leap” is sage advice. It applies especially to leaps of faith. Feelings are important. They make life beautiful. But careful thinking—reason—makes life safe.

Second, when you trust in Jesus, something else is happening at the same time. This step of trust marks a radical change in loyalties. There is a change of mind that results in a change of heart that results in a change of direction. This is trust in the deepest sense, not just trust for something, but trust in Someone, trust enough to follow faithfully in spite of the inconvenience. Like the prodigal son, you are returning to your Father.

You do not change the way you live in order to get on Jesus’ path. Rather, getting on Jesus’ path will change the way you live. Christ first catches his fish, then cleans them, the saying goes. Living the kind of life God wants us to live will not be possible until we get God’s own life inside of us first. That happens when we take a step of trust. And what exactly is it we are trusting Christ for? Two things, for the moment. First, that your sin went to Jesus’ account and his goodness went to yours. Since Jesus was punished for your crimes against God, God is not angry at you anymore.9 Indeed, he cannot be angry, since he has already poured every ounce of his anger on his Son. He is emptied of his wrath. He is satisfied.10 This thought alone could transform your life, if you let it sink in. Second, you trust that God’s own life inside of you will help you, day by day, to live as you ought.

Remember, bias can take two different forms. The first has just been mentioned—a point of view, an interest, an agenda. If dismissing reports for this reason were proper procedure, then the study of history would never get off the ground, since virtually everyone in a position to give accurate information has a “bias” of this sort. No, this kind of bias is largely benign on its own. A problem arises only when a bias of the first sort leads to a bias of the second sort, that is, a tendency to distort or in some way misrepresent facts for personal gain. But what gain here? What advantage did these writers enjoy by fabricating a fake? Common sense tells us that men will not suffer martyrdom for myths they make up themselves.

truth cares nothing for trends.

The impulse to reject the idea of a resurrection even before the evidence is examined does prompt a question, though. Why must we accept this constraint? I know it is a popular maneuver, but it strikes me as self-serving in a way that is not quite right. And here I need to remind you of a warning I offered earlier.4 Certain details of one story will not be at home in a story of a different sort. If you disqualify the details of one worldview based on standards appropriate in a different kind of world, I think you will come perilously close to arguing in a circle. Would it not be best, rather, to simply follow the evidence where it leads instead of disqualifying certain options out of hand because the critic has a bias against them?

historians infer facts of the past based on evidence surviving in the present—written documents of different kinds, archaeological finds, assorted artifacts, and the like. Thus, historians do not trade in proofs, but in probabilities. Their craft is not mechanical, like math or logic, but more of an art, like detective work—following leads, assessing clues, weighing scenarios, seeking the best explanation given all the evidence, and so on. And that is the goal, of course—determining the most probable account of what took place in light of all the relevant information.

The world went bad because man went bad first. Since man’s brokenness broke the world, and only Jesus is able to heal man’s moral injury, he is the only One who can heal the world’s injury too. These two things are tied together. Put another way, Jesus, the God-man, is man’s only hope because only Jesus can fix the problem of evil. Only God coming down into the world can rescue the world from itself.

living forever will not be good news for all, because in this story not everyone lives happily ever after. At that final event of history as we know it, one of two things will take place: perfect justice or perfect mercy.6 Perfect justice—punishment for everything we have ever done wrong, and God misses nothing—or perfect mercy—forgiveness for everything we have ever done wrong, and God misses nothing.

Banishment from God will not be the pleasant experience some have imagined. God himself is the source of all things good—all pleasures, all joys, all satisfactions, all comforts. Everything wonderful you have ever experienced came from him.8 Even if you have never believed in God, he has still been good to you. All the pleasures of this life are only possible because he is gracious, even to unbelievers. But that will not last, because to be banished from his presence is to be denied every goodness that makes any enjoyment possible.

There can be no happiness without God, only anguish.

Hell is not an example of God’s love. It is an example of his justice. His love is demonstrated by his free offer of pardon from hell, which many decline. But they will not be able to decline his justice.

perfect justice for evildoers, perfect mercy for the penitent; evil banished forever, and everlasting good restored.

We have been longing for home, and for a Father who waits for us there, and we are lonely here in exile until we are finally together with him. God’s perfect mercy—forgiveness for everything we have ever done wrong—means we will finally, one day, be going home, and finally, one day, our hunger will be satisfied.

Here is the reason we will always be safe from sin. Earlier we learned that our badness made the world go bad, that the world is broken because we are broken. This will never happen again, because we will never be broken inside again. When the Maker makes all things new—the New Heaven, the New Earth,11 you, me, everyone, everything all overflowing with goodness—we will not have the kind of goodness we had before, the kind that could falter, the kind that could fail. Jesus has purchased a different purity for us—his own—and has given it to us in the trade. Jesus’ goodness, God’s own goodness, perfect goodness. Not as something we possess, but as something we are. Not attached to us, but rather the full Glory of God’s own goodness now built into us so we never fall short of it again.12 We will be free to do as we wish, since our every desire, like God’s, will be good and pure and right.

We were made for something far better than what we experience in this life. And we know it. And we long for it. And once in a while we get a taste, a glimpse, of something eternal, just the faintest bit, before it quickly fades.