A Door of Despair

The door to salvation is a door of despair. Only the wretched, the discontented, the outcasts, the freaks--the sinners--and these loathing their current state, can ever be touched by the GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST. They have come to terms with the gravity of their problem. Within the core of their being, they know and feel that they are out of line. They have reached the end of their ropes. Every attempt at fulfillment has flopped; and now all that is left is dark, ominous, and foreboding DESPAIR.

No other remedy for this condition exists in the universe but the GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST. The good news is that the imperfection and nonconformity of the creature to the Creator's standard (moral law) has been dealt with by the Creator Himself, by making a way for His nature to be refashioned in the creature. This He accomplished, without circumventing His own justice, by becoming as the creature, living an earth-bound life that showcased the ideal nature, and laying down this perfect life in order for it to be as a seed that is planted on the ground, seemingly discarded, but then growing into a tree of life that would bear the fruit of lives redeemed from the despair of a corrupted nature.

The door to salvation is a door of despair. This door is the preaching of God's displeasure over the ugliness of those that should reflect His image but do not. It is making known that God prizes His beauty so much that everything in the universe that does not point to this beauty will be destroyed. This is eternal banishment from God's presence for intelligent beings, commonly called HELL, and a new heaven and a new earth for the rest of creation. "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." (Ro 8:22)

"Of course, I quite agree that the Christian religion is, in the long run, a thing of unspeakable comfort. But it does not begin in comfort; it begins in the dismay I have been describing, and it is no use at all trying to go on to that comfort without first going through that dismay. In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. IF YOU LOOK FOR TRUTH, YOU MAY FIND COMFORT IN THE END: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth--only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair." (emphasis mine) - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, book 1, ch. 5, pp. 32