PROOF OF THE GOSPEL FROM WHAT WE ALREADY KNOW ABOUT OURSELVES

As strange as this might sound, we all already know the Gospel. It has been implanted within our DNA. Nevertheless, although we have the truth, we reject it:

• The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. (2 Thessalonians 2:9-10 ESV; Romans 1:18-20; John 3:18-20)

They knew the truth but reject the truth. This can be observed in many ways. For one thing, we are drawn to the underlying message of the Gospel – the theme of the rejected, persecuted one coming back, against all odds, to save his people – a portrait of Jesus. However, there are other ways that the Gospel is revealed to us:

1. We know that there is something wrong with us and even that we deserve punishment.
2. We also know that our lives are controlled by the need to cover over our problem and to convince ourselves that we are worthy and deserving by a variety of strategies.
3. We hunger for an ultimate solution.

Let me try to explain each of these three points…

1. We know that there is something wrong with us and even that we deserve punishment:

The Bible declares that we already know the truth about ourselves, that we are sinners who automatically try to suppress or rationalize our sins:

• For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the [written] law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. (Romans 2:14-16 ESV)

Although we might deny it, we already know right from wrong and know that we sin. When we do sin, the sin-alarm goes off, we feel guilty, ashamed, and try to cover over our sins as Adam and Eve tried to do, when they sinned, with their flimsy fig leaves.

Even those who believe in evolution are aware of this fact. They too acknowledge that we are wired to have an uncomfortable reaction in response to our sin, even though they will ascribe it to a mindless biochemical process.

Even if we believe that we have been wired by evolution, the sin-reaction remains powerful, even life-controlling. We live our entire lives trying to successfully manage this damning reaction. We are in an endless wrestling match, trying to deny our guilt by suppressing, drugging, or by trying compensate for it through different means – attainments, acclaim, wealth accumulation, power, sex, popularity, or other ways to prove that we are worthy, in response to our screaming feelings telling us that we are not.

In The Significant Life, attorney George M. Weaver illuminates our ever-present need to establish our positive significance. For example:

• Salvador Dali once said, “The thought of not being recognized [is] unbearable”…Lady Gaga sings, “I live for the applause, applause, applause…the way that you cheer and scream for me.” She adds in another song, “yes we live for the Fame, Doin’ it for the Fame, Cuz we wanna live the life of the rich and famous.” (7)

Writer Gore Vidal had been very transparent about this:

• “Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.” (58) 

We are so controlled by the need to prove ourselves that we destroy our peace of mind and even our relationships. How can we explain this ruinous quest, which robs us of our peace? Perhaps we are always trying to fight back the feelings that we are undeserving and unworthy through positive affirmations and achievements. However, this is just a covering over of the problem and not its eradication. This is why the problem is never eliminated. We are like Adam and Even who tried to cover over their sense of guilt and shame with a covering of mere fig leaves.

Weaver also points to a more bizarre attempt to regain a sense of worthiness or OK-ness through infamy:

• In 2005 Joseph Stone torched a Pittsfield, Massachusetts apartment building… After setting the blaze, Stone rescued several tenants from the fire and was hailed as a hero. Under police questioning, Stone admitted, however, that he set the fire and rescued the tenants because, as summarized at trial by an assistant district attorney, he “wanted to be noticed, he wanted to be heard, he wanted to be known.” (44)

Evidently, this drive to cover our guilt and shame is so powerful that it can overrule the moral dictates of conscience. One mass-murderer gunman explained in his suicide note, “I’m going to be f_____ famous.” (45)

This drive to feel okay about ourselves can even override all other affections. On December 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman, a zealous fan of the Beatle, John Lennon, first obtained his idol’s autograph before gunning him down. He explained:

• “I was an acute nobody. I had to usurp someone else’s importance, someone else’s success. I was  ‘Mr. Nobody’ until I killed the biggest Somebody on earth.” At his 2006 parole hearing, he stated: “The result would be that I would be famous, the result would be that my life would change and I would receive a tremendous amount of attention, which I did receive… I was looking for reasons to vent all that anger and confusion and low self-esteem.” (47) 

What’s wrong with have low self-esteem? Why can’t we live with an accurate self-estimation rather than an inflated distorted one? Low self-esteem tends to reaffirm what we already know about ourselves – that there something wrong with us, which provokes feelings of unworthiness and dread. Consequently, no matter how high we will our self-esteem, we still live in fear of failure and rejection, which tend to invalidate us.

Many have devoted themselves to the practice of virtue in order to feel that they are good and deserving. However, they remain aware that that their practice is fundamentally self-serving. Besides, they also tend to become even more aware of their moral deficiencies as they try to be virtuous. Consequently, Buddhists – and they are committed to right-living – have little hope of ever reaching nirvana (nothingness). Even as they vainly strive to improve their karma, they live in fear that their next reincarnation will be downward.

The Bible confirms the fact that the moral law, imprinted upon our hearts, condemns us rather than commending us:

• Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. (Romans 3:19-20)

Whatever our management strategy, we remain aware of the fact that something is terribly wrong with us. Even if we convince ourselves that our sin-reaction is no more than a meaningless bio-chemical reaction, we continue to spend the rest of our lives trying to prove to ourselves and our worthiness in the face of our feelings of self-condemnation.

However, our problems go far deeper. We cannot shake off the impression that we actually deserve to be punished:

• Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. (Romans 1:32)

Knowing that they deserve punishment, it is not surprising that many are contemptuous of the idea of a judgmental God. Atheist Aldous Huxley had confided:

• I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently, assumed it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find reasons for this assumption.... For myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation...We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. (Ends and Means, 1937, pp. 270, 273, emp. added).

We know the truth of the Gospel but deny it because we feel judged by it. However, denial of the truth is not freedom from the truth. Consequently, truth deniers are constantly on guard against it. They remain defensive even when accused of a small wrong, such as cutting in line in front of someone else. As C.S. Lewis had reflected, we don’t justify ourselves by responding, “I am an evolutionist, and I don’t believe in such objective moral laws.” Instead, we defend ourselves. This demonstrates that we know the moral law and take it seriously. We also automatically assume that everyone agrees that cutting in line is absolutely morally wrong. It seems that when confronted with our misconduct, we are so threatened, that our beliefs in evolution and moral relativism provide us with no defense against our conscience and the judgments of our accusers. This is because we know better and agree with the painful verdict of our conscience.

This understanding also helps to explain masochism – harming or denying oneself. When we indulge ourselves in something that we enjoy, we often feel an increase in stress. Why? We sense that we don’t deserve this pleasure, and this makes us feel more blameworthy and deserving of punishment.

When we harm ourselves, we often experience a temporary reduction of stress and the uneasy sense that we deserve punishment. Why? It seems that our internal script informs us that we deserve punishment. Therefore, when we punish ourselves, we are left with a fleeting sense that we have atoned for our sins. In other words, we know the Gospel.

2. We also know that our lives are controlled by the insatiable need to cover over our problem and to convince ourselves that we are worthy and deserving through a variety of inadequate strategies.

There are many indications of this. We continue to lust after the approval of others no matter how much acclaim and success that we have already achieved.

The richest man in the world had been asked, “How much more money will you need to be satisfied. J.D. Rockefeller answered, “Always a little bit more.” This points to the fact that our “solutions” are only temporary at best, and that we are addicted to increasingly greater fixes to maintain our feelings of well-being.

In the Book of Esther, Haman had become the second most powerful man in the Persian Empire. Whenever he passed by, everyone bowed down before him except one - the Jew Mordecai. This so enraged the insatiable Haman that he set about to have every Jew in his empire exterminated.

No matter how rich, respected, powerful, and accomplished we may become, we still crave for more. We are like drug addicts seeking to regain our initial high.

Many are aware of the fact that our struggle to prove our worthiness and significance imprisons us and have rightly concluded that our validation has to be based on something beyond our self-centered achievements.

Our addictions are life-controlling. We remain so vulnerable that we cannot take criticism, and instead of taking responsibility for our wrongs, we blame others and become jealous when they receive the acclaim and recognition instead of us. Consequently, we also know that we need deliverance.

3. We hunger for an ultimate solution.

Many realize that their strategies to find peace have failed. Therefore, they have turned to spiritual solutions beyond themselves. They even demonstrate an awareness that there has to be a payment for Their sins. Here are some signs of this awareness:

·       We seek to do good and derive some satisfaction in what we do. But we discover that any euphoria is temporary, and our efforts become increasingly arduous. Even though doing good is the right thing, ultimately, it fails to address our deepest need.

• When we harm or at least deny ourselves, we experience temporary relief from the feelings of guilt and shame. This indicates that we are aware that we deserve punishment.

• When we sincerely confess our sins, we also find relief, even when the wronged parties refuse to accept our apologies. We find that the honesty and humility of apologizing for our wrongs are healing. However, we are also aware that this relief only lasts until our next moral failure. This too points to the fact that there must be something more.

• Our major religions recognize these truths and also that we need to obtain the complete mercy of our deity. However, we find that we can never be good enough for God despite our many sacrifices, which even tend to make us arrogant, judgmental, and self-righteous.

The Bible is also aware of these truths:

• For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. (Hebrews 10:1-4)

Aware of this, the Buddhists long for the coming of the Second Buddha, and the Muslims for their deliverer (for some, the Mahdi), while the Jews longed for their Savior, the Messiah.

Those who are more in touch with themselves have become aware that their efforts to achieve peace have failed. Our God is so perfect in holiness and righteousness that there is nothing that we can give Him that will satisfy Him and atone (make adequate payment) for our sins. There always remains the pervasive awareness that we have not been cleansed of our sins, even when we give alms of everything we have and sacrifice our lives. Instead, we remain in bondage. Therefore, many are also aware that we need the mercy of God.

It is only through Jesus that our sins can be utterly eradicated so that we can serve our God in joy rather than in compulsion. Only He, God incarnate, is the adequate payment for our sins:

• Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. (Hebrews 10:19-23)

Perhaps this “proof” is the most important one. However, the more we are disconnected from ourselves and our feelings, the more we will remain unconvinced. Nevertheless, I think it might demonstrate to some, those who are being drawn, that the Gospel is the missing piece in their puzzle. Perhaps for others, it might serve as a seed that will later germinate.