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The Cross; God’s Plan for Radical Honesty
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 Jay's Blog |
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Tuesday, March 07, 2006 |
The great reformer Martin Luther had a problem as a priest. He couldn’t understand how a perfectly holy God could accept him when he was so filled with sin and imperfection. At one point Luther protested, “Love God, I feel I hate Him!” When Luther uttered these words, he felt it impossible to be good enough to gain divine acceptance. In His grace, God showed Luther the biblical doctrine of justification by faith. The world has not been the same since. Luther wrote volumes on the practical value of justification. Here is his formula for heroism and courage in dealing with sin and conscience: according to the Gospel, the believer is justified, yet a sinner. Therefore, he may be absolutely honest about his sin without jeopardizing his perfect status in Christ.
When God justifies the believing sinner by grace through faith; the righteousness of Christ is credited to the believer’s account (this ‘crediting’ is the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the believing sinner).
The imputation of Christ’s righteousness draws the blood of Christ into real situations. This is the basis for radical heroism; The Reformer’s point is vital—I can be a very imperfect person who is honest about his transgressions and offenses without losing my perfect standing in Christ.
I don’t have to prove my worth (by using carnal defense mechanisms) because the Gospel proclaims the affirmation of my worth in a most dramatic way. The Gospel literally gives me permission, even urges me, to give up fleshly strategies for personal worth (Paul Zahl, Who Will Deliver Us? p. 73).
Zahl practically X-rays the human heart when he makes the following observation: When I become depressed, it is usually through the gateway of someone else’s perception of me as I perceive it. When I sense disapproval or criticism from others; it can induce defensiveness and gloom. I feel my own weakness so heavily—when I hear any negative comments, it seems to express the whole truth about my life.
Depression provides a clue to our need for value to be assigned to us. The absence of positive value can incarcerate us in a prison of depression. The only real and lasting cure must fulfill our need of value. Union with Christ decisively answers this need, nothing else can.
Because we are sinners, we carry a sense of condemnation and fear of judgment. Just below the surface, we feel our impotence, fear, weakness, and fragility. Because of this, the slightest thing can make us feel diminished.
So much of our energy goes into the effort to resist the verdicts of others; we forget to run to the atonement. But, Christ’s work is where we find heroism and courage to face our own sinful imperfections.
Due to our desperate need of worth, we tend to suspect the worst about ourselves. This colors our interactions with others. Anger is the response to perceived hostile invasions of self. The angry person is likely to interpret exchanges with others as attacks on self. Behind the rage is a most painful insecurity. Because we feel small, weak and vulnerable, we believe we must protect ourselves with all our might, even if relationships are damaged in the process (Zahl, pp. 13, 14).
If the lion’s share of our emotional energy is devoted to fighting a sense of judgment, we won’t be able to handle negativity nor will we be able to risk intimacy. God’s answer is the healing power of the Gospel. The Gospel delivers from judgment; therefore it liberates from the need to operate by defense mechanisms. The vulnerability and transparency necessary to love others is found in ongoing faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The powers of darkness have much to gain by keeping guilt in place in the conscience. As Puritan John Owen states, even one sin circulating within the conscience is enough to discourage us from drawing near to the throne of grace with confidence. The Gospel makes us heroes in our dealings with sin and conscience.
God’s only method for bringing peace to the conscience of the believer is by renewed “views” of our suffering Substitute. The justice our conscience cries out for against ourselves and those who have offended us is found only in the atonement of Calvary.
Our conscience only comes to a full rest when it sees (by faith) justice against our sin carried out in the bloody death of the Son of God. The Gospel is our source of peace; and it is the source of courage to be real with God and with others.
(Today’s post is an excerpt from Jay’s article, “The Cross, the Conscience, and Family Forgiveness.” View the article in its entirety at www.thegospelforlife.org, or at www.frontlinemin.org ) |
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