No GENERATION IN HISTORY has seen the completion and use of more bridges of every size and type than has our own. Not only are arches longer and higher but modern engineering has successfully spanned greater bodies of water and bridged over wider valleys and chasms than ever before.
But the greatest Bridge of all was completed more than 1900 years ago—the Bridge between God and man; between the finite and the infinite; between time and eternity; between earth and heaven; between Paradise Lost and the Paradise which may be regained.
It is this Bridge which is the heart of the gospel message. It is about this “missing link” between God and man that men are to preach. And it is of this Bridge’s perfection and uniqueness that men need to know.
The foundation of this Bridge is the Incarnation—that God actually assumed human nature, and came into the world that men might be transformed for now and for eternity.
No one has ever fully explained the mystery of the Incarnation. It is one of those facts of divine and human history which must be accepted by faith, the effects of which can be experienced in the heart and demonstrated in the life of the believer.
The uniqueness of this Bridge is attested to by our Lord himself when he said: “No man cometh unto the Father but by me”; by John the Baptist in the words: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him”; by Peter, filled by the Holy Spirit, as he affirmed to the rulers in Jerusalem: “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved”; and by Paul when he wrote: “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
We all love to assume an attitude of sophistication but this has no place in such matters of life and death. The import of these statements should make us accept them with childlike faith and proclaim them with the conviction they deserve.
In the Cross of Calvary, with all of its implications, we see this Bridge. For in the Christ of that Cross and in this great central fact of all history God, disclosing his holiness and justice and his infinite love and mercy, provided the Way whereby sinful man may be reconciled to a holy God.
Just as the Bridge from God to man is found in the redeeming work of Christ, so too he is the Bridge to the enigma of Truth itself. Affirming himself to be the Way and the Truth and the Life, he is the only answer to man’s quest for answers of eternal import—“Who am I?” “From whence did I come?” “Who is God and what is he like?” “How explain the enigmas of life and death?” Only in Jesus Christ do we come to positive answers which are the embodiment of Truth itself.
Christ is also the Bridge of communication between man and God for it is only in his name that we can come with boldness to the throne of grace and hold communion with the infinite and eternal God. In fact, to pray on the basis of personal worth, without coming in his Name, is both presumption and blasphemy.
One of the ironies of our scientific age has been man’s unending search for a missing link between himself and the lower animals. This has led to some ludicrous and often utterly unscientific assumptions and conclusions. At the same time the missing link between God and man remains available for all who will recognize and receive Him. This bridge of the gap between man and his Maker is the only connection which leads to a certain future. Strange that in these modern times we are so often more concerned about a hypothetical link with an unrecallable past.
The necessity for this Bridge is expressed by our Lord in the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Prior to death they stood on a common ground, but by inference we know that Lazarus knew and made use of God’s provision of salvation.
When these two had experienced the irrevocable step of death the means of transferring from one realm to the other was no longer available. In torment the rich man lifted up his eyes and sought relief. In this story, so full of awe-inspiring implications, Lazarus is heard to speak: “And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.”
Where now there is a Bridge available to all, there will some day be a chasm across which no Bridge is cast. So clear are the teachings of Holy Scripture on this subject that to hold out hope of a future opportunity for repentance and salvation does violence to revealed truth and creates a mirage to lure the unwary to eternal loss.
In all this a warning is also to be found against the erection of false bridges, bridges which are structurally unsound and which can never take the traveler into the presence of God. Such bridges are to be found on every hand—attempts to reach over into eternity in some way other than God’s way and by some person or method not ordained of him. False Christs, who bear no resemblance to the Christ of the Bible, religious leaders incapable of saving themselves or of saving others.
Certain conclusions are inescapable: Between unregenerate man and God there is a great chasm, a chasm produced by sin, because of which sinful man is separated from the holy God. But God was not content to have it thus and himself provided the Bridge in the person of his Son.
That which now confronts man is a fact—a chasm. But he is also faced with an alternative, the Bridge. God’s offer is a “whosoever will” which makes this Bridge available to all. The divine factor is God’s unlimited provision. The human factor is man’s will, bent to receive the goodness and mercy of God, or hardened to reject his gift and walk on in blindness to ultimate destruction. It is precisely at this point that man is confronted with his dilemma and also with his hope.
There is always danger in over-simplification. There is also danger in “ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth.” There is no need for man to walk in the darkness of uncertainty when there is open to him the privilege of walking in the sunshine of revealed truth. In such a revelation is to be seen the chasm of eternal separation from God and the Bridge without which no man can cross over into the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.
