We are not called to understand God or to explain God or to present God made pretty with frills and velvet wrapping—we must simply obey God. This obedience includes accepting the reality that everything we see, hear and touch in “this present evil world” (Galatians 1:3-4) is tainted by “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4) and should be held very lightly. What the world values, copies, promotes, and enjoys is seldom likely to bring anyone closer to God, however well packaged it might be.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul urges us to break away from the anti-God way of thinking that deforms the world system—nothing but a mind transformation will enable us to see the truth that flows only from the mind of God (Romans 12:1-2).
Karl Barth, in his great commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, expands this thought when he notes that discipleship demands our death to the world because the alternative is an ineffective peace-pact with the world in which Christianity finds itself as one among many religions and philosophies vying for attention. He declared: “If men must have their religious needs satisfied, if they must surround themselves with comfortable illusions about their knowledge of God and particularly about their union with Him—well, the world penetrates far deeper into such matters than does a Christianity which misunderstands itself.”
Barth says man’s desire to understand the world and how God fits into it produces religions which are arrogant and foolish in their attempts to reach God. The alternative is to receive Truth which exists beyond birth and death – a perception, in other words, which proceeds from God outwards and is recorded in a Book for our instruction and enlightenment.
The Gospel speaks of God as He is and what He has done to redeem sinners. The most we can do, and should do, is simply to receive Him and submit wholly to His will.