Though we don’t feel guilty about it, we are guilty of conflating our feelings of guilt with the reality of guilt. That is, perhaps because we live in a therapeutic culture, or perhaps because we live in a relativistic culture, we only think we are guilty when we feel guilty. And then we turn around and feel guilty for feeling guilty. It’s not, after all, like there is some list of rules out there that we’re supposed to measure up to, right? If there is no list of rules, whence comes the guilt? Is guilt merely a cultural construct, a societal super-ego that we ought to ignore? Is it just a man-made tool designed to keep us in line? Are we showing ourselves to be slaves when we are shackled to guilt? And is this shame something we should keep in the closet, lest others be tempted to fall into the same morass?
Herein is a dilemma. If there is no “ought” that we fail to measure up to, then there is no “ought” for failing to measure up to our conviction that there is no “ought.” If there is no “ought” why ought we to believe such? To feel guilty for feeling guilty is to be guilty of the greatest sin of our age, affirming a standard of right and wrong. Heck, feeling guilty for feeling guilty practically makes you a raving fundamentalist. That is, if there are no rules we can be actually guilty of breaking, then there is no rule to say we must not think ourselves guilty.
Our little minds are haunted by this hobgoblin of inconsistency. Sometimes we live as if there actually were a set of rules somewhere, and sometimes we live as if no such list exists. To put it more bluntly still, all of us deny the reality of an objective good and evil, a standard higher than our preferences, when we want to do that which makes us feel guilty, but all of us assume the reality of good and evil when others want to do to us what makes them feel guilty. When we cheat on our taxes, there is no right and wrong. When we are being mugged, there is a right and wrong. There are no atheists in foxholes, and there are not moral relativists in Dachau.
If we want to hold onto our moral indignation over holocausts, global warming, and the clubbing of baby seals, then we are stuck with a moral standard, something above us that we are accountable to, something which may demonstrate that whether we feel it or not, we are guilty. And so it is. We feel guilty because we are guilty. The truly scary thing is that we will not escape the reality of our guilt, should we succeed in casting off our feelings of guilt. They’re not the same thing at all. A seared conscience may not feel guilt, just as a paralyzed hand may not feel the heat on the stove. In both cases, however, great damage is done.
Your guilty secret isn’t a secret. Though I don’t know you, I know this about you. You, when no one is looking, when you go to sleep at night, know that you are guilty. You know that you don’t put in a full day’s work for a full day’s pay. You know that you visit websites that you are ashamed of. You know that you speak ill of your friends and neighbors, that you spread gossip. You know that others suffer for your temper. You know that you enjoy far more than you deserve, and yet you do not give thanks. Which brings us to another guilty secret- you know that the good you do does not make up for all that you do wrong. You tell yourself, “I try to be the best person I can be” but you know it isn’t true. You know that even if it were true, your best does not make up for your worst. And so the guilt feelings hang around, nestled up close to your very real guilt. You feel guilty because there is a standard of right and wrong, something higher, more transcendent than mere societal norms. You know the standard exists, and you know that you do not measure up.
I know you know this not because I have been given second sight, not because I am a prophet or the son of the prophet, but because I too am a sinner, and the son of a sinner. I too have fallen short of my own moral calling. I too fail to give thanks for the many blessings I receive, that I do not deserve at all. I too lie awake at night, alone with my guilt. I too have tried any number of strategies to jettison this ball and chain, and like you, each time I have failed.
Guilt is real, and must be punished. When you consider that in order for there to be a transcendent law there must be a transcendent law-giver, then you begin to realize the depth of our problem. We violate the very law of our Maker. We are rebels against our Creator. As small as we are, we have managed to offend the infinite God. And because He is who He is, He too cannot disregard the law. He cannot wink at our sin, or simply “nice” it away. It must be punished. And so it was.
This is the good news. The sins of those who are His, our real guilt, they have already been punished. For while God cannot wink at sin, He can and does love His children. Out of this love, He took on flesh and dwelt among us. The very Son of God was born in a stable. From there He grew. He experienced what it is to be a man, save one thing. He never felt guilt, because He alone was never guilty. He kept the standard, perfectly. And then, when His time had come, He was punished for our sins. His Father poured out His just wrath toward our sins at His only-begotten Son. This is the answer to Jesus’ cry of agony, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” He was forsaken that we might be forgiven. And then, so that all the world might know that Jesus was not guilty in Himself, He was raised from the dead. He walked out of the tomb, having defeated our guilt, and having defeated death.
This is God’s only solution to our guilt. If we confess our sins, He promises, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. If we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths that Jesus has been raised from the dead, we are forgiven. This is why God became man, to solve the problem of our guilt. That is why we celebrate His birth, His death, and His resurrection.
Those who deny their guilt are, quite literally, damned liars. That is, they will pay for their sins on into eternity, suffering themselves the wrath of God for their sins. Those, on the other hand, who confess their guilt will have it wiped away, will be declared innocent on that great and final day. Of course, until that day, we all continue to sin. And those who have been forgiven continue to confess, and continue to be forgiven. Like the bumper sticker says- Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven. We confess that there is a standard. We confess that we fall short of that standard. We confess that there is a Giver of that standard. We confess that it is He that we offend in our sins. And we confess that unless Jesus has paid for our sins, we too are doomed.
The same God who established the standard that we fail to meet, the Bible tells us, likewise calls all men everywhere to repent. This is the only way to not only escape our guilt, but to escape what our guilt has earned, the wrath of God. We are guilty, but in Christ we can be declared innocent. Repent, and believe the good news.
We’re so bad, we think things are worse than they are. Were I to traipse on down to Quizilla and take the “Who are you in the Hundred Acre Wood?” quiz, I’d surely come up Eyeore. Every single time. My “spirit-animal” is a marshwiggle. I’m the guy who doesn’t much care whether the glass is half full or half empty, because I’m convinced whatever’s in the glass is poison. Love may be like a warm blanket- I’m more of a wet blanket.
I, and those like me, can be especially skeptical, even cynical, about the evangelical church. We don’t like it that in some of our churches pastors dress up in baseball uniforms while deacons, handing out orders of “worship” cry out, “Programs, get your programs here.” We don’t like it that increasingly the rock stars in our universe are young, restless and revoiced. Sometimes I can’t help but wonder, though, if some of us are up in arms because we don’t have a thousand members waiting anxiously to hear part 17 of our sermon series, Turretin and You- Toward an Elenctic Cosmogony, or because our learned articles on the 2nd Temple Rabbinic Tradition of Pre-exilic Rabbinic Traditions don’t reach the audience we hoped. The world, we seem to think, must be going downhill, because our genius has too long gone unnoticed. Which is rather a foolish reason for pessimism.
Doesn’t anybody remember when everyone attended mainline churches, when we were grateful for a pastor that believed in a real resurrection? Doesn’t anybody remember when the most famous evangelical author was Mirabel Morgan? Doesn’t anybody remember when dispensational churches were to Reformed churches what haystacks are to needles? Doesn’t anybody remember when Gordon-Conwell and Fuller were considered hard-right seminaries? Doesn’t anybody remember when most evangelicals, Reformed and otherwise, were embarrassed by Genesis 1 and 2? I remember these things. Which should be a goad to me to remember to be thankful, even though the Bride, just like me, has much about which we should be ashamed.
While the problem with the rest of the evangelical church may be frog-in-the-fry-pan complacency, our problem may instead be even worse. We are ungrateful. As we put on our prophetic mantles, may we remember to give thanks for every knee that hasn’t bowed to Baal, and honor the weeping prophet who told us, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” And may we remember that we too are those of whom the rest of the evangelical family are rightly embarrassed over.
The problem in the evangelical church isn’t that everybody else fails to be as sound and godly as me. The problem in the evangelical church is that everybody else fails, just like unsound and ungodly me. The good news for me is that Jesus died for me, and the He is washing me. The good news for the evangelical church is exactly the same.
I was blessed to be a guest on The Uneven Road podcast. You can listen in here:
The RC Sproul Jr. Principle of Hermeneutics can be quite helpful. It affirms “Whenever you see someone in the Bible doing something really, really stupid, do not say to yourself, ‘How can he be so stupid?’ Instead say to yourself, ‘How am I stupid just like him?’” That means that we should learn to recognize ourselves in the foibles of those in the Bible.
Consider this common failure among the disciples. How many times do we see them jockeying for position, arguing who will be at the right hand of Jesus, bickering over who will be the greatest? We’re so familiar with it yet somehow we manage to miss the same spirit in us. We, fools that we are, turn their folly into an occasion for pride, thinking, “I thank you Lord I’m not like other men.” We may not literally clamor for the seat at Jesus’ right hand. We do, however, compete with all the zeal of an Olympic athlete in a good game of spiritual king of the hill. We parade our piety, display our doctrine, sing our spiritual gift. We confess with our lips our utter unworthiness to receive God’s grace, then turn around to see if everybody noticed how humble we are.
Which is why scandal can be such a potent means of grace. While I still face the same temptation to present myself as better than I am, while I may have once earned a black belt in self-deceit, my very public scandal eliminates me from the game. When you can’t win, you’re free to stop trying. When you are lying on the ground at the bottom of the hill, your nose bloodied, your legs broken, covered in muck, all from your own folly, you get a deeper understanding that the victory is found on a completely different hill, one the real King climbed- Calvary.
Sure, it means people, even your brothers and sisters in the Lord, treat you as a by-word. They scoff and they mock, treat you with contempt, determine you are not worthy of grace and forgiveness. This too is a means of grace, because I am a by-word, due scoffing and mockery, owed contempt and utterly unworthy of grace and forgiveness. It helps to be reminded of that. It helps me remember that it is all of grace. It helps me to rest in Him, and to praise Him. And it helps keep me from looking longingly at that other hill.
My sin is shameful, dishonoring to my Lord. It is something to be repented of, not something to be celebrated. What we celebrate instead is first the forgiveness of the sin, because of Jesus. Second, we celebrate how the Spirit uses something so ugly to beautify me, something so dirty to wipe me clean. He covers the scandal with grace, and in His grace, reveals the grace of the scandal.
There are two raging rivers, culturally speaking, that converge to form the lazy river of mediocrity. First, we do not know the excellent. Goodness, truth and beauty, as the great triad of virtues, are so much more demanding, not simply to create, but to even enjoy, than okay-ness, funny-ness and pretty-ness. Entering into that towering poem The Wasteland by T.S. Elliot requires of us a higher aesthetic than we have obtained. It requires a greater familiarity with that which was great in the past than we are willing to acquire. It requires training, and work. To enter the more familiar wasteland of our culture all you need is a remote control. To put it another way, one of our great problems as we receive culture is that we are too easily satisfied, too easily entertained. We get mediocrity in large part because that is what we ask for. Ninety-eight percent of us in the past year consumed a “meal” at MacDonalds, not because we were reaching higher, but because it would do.
The second great river at the source of mediocrity is one that precedes our particular culture. It is a problem, a weakness, a sin that has been with us since Adam first led Eve east of Eden. The problem is sloth. The medieval theologians, when compiling the list of what would come to be known as “The Seven Deadly Sins” included in their list things we might expect, like lust, or even gluttony. But sloth? Where did that come from? How did it make the list? The list had two fundamental criteria. First, the list would include those sins that are most apt to beset most of us. It is almost certainly a sin to smash your car up with a sledgehammer. Not many of us, however, fight desperately against that temptation. Lust, gluttony and sloth, however, have wide appeal. The second criteria, however, is that these sins were believed to be root sins, sins that were apt to sprout still more sins. It may be that sloth is what gives rise, for instance, to theft.
That list, we must remember, was concocted during the Middle Ages. Things moved pretty slowly then. Surely the same warning wouldn’t apply to us. We live in America, home of the Puritan work ethic. We have smart phones and laptops so that we can carry our work around with us wherever we go. We put in long hours so that we might climb the corporate ladder. We burn the midnight oil, and the candle at both ends. How can sloth get a toe-hold on us? Because there is a great chasm that separates feeling busy with being busy, and an even greater chasm between being busy and working hard.
We feel busy because we schedule too much stuff. If I can’t miss my weekly golf game, my monthly poker night, my five favorite television programs, the Braves game, and a little “me time” here or there, I will surely feel busy. The trouble is I feel busy because work creeps into my insatiable demand for play time. But even if that doesn’t describe me, if I am busy checking for emails, looking up the stock indexes, going to meetings and writing things down in my daytimer, I still haven’t actually produced anything. Work means getting real things done that actually help people. And that is a far greater challenge than being busy.
It has been said that any given job can be done with two of three qualities. It can be done quickly and cheaply, but not well. It can be done quickly and well, but not cheaply. It can be done cheaply and well, but not quickly. We have, as a culture, chosen quickly and cheaply. And having chosen thus, we find ourselves diminished, for we find that we like it that way. We find that we are not merely willing to accept mediocrity, but that we crave it.
The Bible offers a different call. We are to do our work “as unto the Lord.” We should be known the world around as the most diligent of laborers and craftsman. We ought also, however, be known as those with the most discriminating tastes. For we are to seek out those things that reflect the Lord, that show forth His glory. We are to surround ourselves with “whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” May our work and our play be suffused with excellence, that our Maker’s name might be praised.
