The S Word (3)

(Continued series from devotional at work)

"Judge not, that ye be not judged...." -Matthew 7:1

"I ain't taking no man's bleeding charity." -CS Lewis

Before closing out this study of the S Word, let’s look at some common objections raised when people are told they are sinners:

First: “You’re judging me.” Unfortunately, this is too often true, and people who respond this way are in good company. Nothing made Jesus more angry than the judgmental attitude of the Pharisees toward the poor and dispossessed. Judging says more about the judger’s knowledge of the gospel that the judgee’s. The judger is assuming that he has superior knowledge, and stands on a higher ground than the judgee, both of which are contrary to the gospel. True believers are such because they have an overwhelming sense of their own fallenness, and a humble thanks for the work God has done to free them. Paul, who understood grace better than most of us, called himself “the chief of sinners.” He was not being super-pious. He really believed that. The more light he had, the more he saw his own darkness. Therefore when a Christian talks about human sin, he is talking “up,” not “down,” because he perceives himself in worse shape than his hearer. He is more like a sick man telling another victim where to find a cure. Of course, there are a lot of folks who resent being told they are sick at all, which leads us to:

Second, "Well, I ain't no axe murderer!" I don't know why axe murderers get such bad press, but they're right up there with Adolf Hitler. Anyway, the idea here is that compared to a lot of unsavory folks, I'm not so bad. God supposedly has a moral scale, and I always stay just under the "wrath" meter. I am not comparing myself to God, but to others. And therein is the problem. God's standard of judgment is His own pure and holy character, and that standard is revealed in the Law, particularly the Ten Commandments. There's not time here, but there's no way I can look at any of the Commandments and claim innocence. And just in case I could, Jesus comes along and says that sin is not just a matter of action, but of attitude. One conclusion: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Third, “It can’t be that bad, because Jesus loves everybody.” This is known in theological circles as the Gooey Galilean theory. It forgets the horrifying images of Christ in the book of Revelation and Jesus’ prophecies of the fall of Jerusalem. But more than that, it misses a central tenet of Western jurisprudence which is based on Hebrew law: “the punishment must fit the crime.” If Jesus died in my place, in fact, became my Substitute, then I deserved what He bore. And He bore unspeakable pain, rejection, loneliness, and ultimately severance from the Presence of God Himself. The more we look at the Atonement, the more we see the horror of human rebellion against God and our own real standing with Him.

In conclusion, consider that our antagonism to the doctrine of sin is itself an evidence of our sinful nature. God calls us to quit arguing and agree that He is right. Interestingly, the word “confess” means just that: it is a combination of the Latin word for “with” and the word for “say.” Its Greek counterpart is “homo-logeo,” literally, “to say the same thing.” To confess means to say about ourselves what God already says about us.

Next: Christ’s Active Obedience for us.