PROOF OF THE GOSPEL FROM WHAT WE ALREADY KNOW ABOUT OURSELVES

 

PROOF OF THE GOSPEL

FROM WHAT WE ALREADY KNOW

ABOUT OURSELVES

 

CHAPTER SUMMARY

As strange as this might sound, every single one of us already knows the Gospel. It has been implanted within our DNA.

 

·       For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Romans 1:19-20, ESV)

 

So, we have the truth but 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)

 

Even though we reject and refuse the truth, 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.  This, of course, is a portrait of Jesus.

 

However, there are other ways and means by which the Gospel is revealed to us:

 

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

 

2. We know that our lives are controlled by the insatiable need to cover over our problems and to convince ourselves that we are worthy and deserving. We do this through a variety of inadequate strategies, seeking human validation rather than divine mercy.

 

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;

we even know 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)

 

Furthermore, when we sin, the sin-alarm goes off. We feel guilty and ashamed. We even experience the terrifying prospect of judgment. We try to cover over our transgressions, just as Adam and Eve did when they sinned in the garden. Yet, the manner in which we “cover up” today is just as flimsy and inadequate as the fig leaves of our first parents.

 

Those who believe in evolution are aware of these truths. They too acknowledge that every one of us is wired to have an uncomfortable reaction when we do something “wrong.” Instead of acknowledging that God created us this way, those who believe in evolution describe the uncomfortable reaction to our wrong-doing as a mindless biochemical process. 

 

Even if we believe that we have been wired by evolution, the sin-reaction—the uncomfortable feeling that we have done something wrong—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 our feelings, “medicating” ourselves, or by trying to compensate for it in a myriad of different ways. We point to our attainments and acclaim, the wealth we have accumulated, our power or our popularity. All of the above are metrics by which we hope to prove to the world that we are worthy human beings, even when our deepest feelings are screaming out 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.”¹

 

Writer Gore Vidal was also unabashedly transparent about this:

 

·       Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.²

 

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 our preoccupation with our affirmations and achievements is the way we fight back against the feeling that we are undeserving and unworthy. However, this way of living one’s life can only cover over the problem and never eradicate it completely. The core issue is never eliminated. Once again, we are like Adam and Eve, trying to cover over our sense of guilt and shame—all to no avail. Worthless “coverings” for sin didn’t work then and they don’t work now.

 

v   v   v

 

Weaver also points to an even more bizarre attempt at regaining a sense of worthiness…through an act of absolute 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.”³

 

Evidently, this drive to cover our guilt and shame is so powerful that it can overrule the moral dictates of conscience. One mass-murderer explained in his suicide note:

 

·       “I’m going to be f_____ing famous.”⁴

 

This drive for esteem can over-shadow 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.”⁵ 

 

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

 

Many have devoted themselves to the practice of virtue in order to feel that they are good and deserving. However, from what I have observed, those people are well-aware that their chosen way is fundamentally self-serving. In fact, they tend to become even more aware of their moral deficiencies as they strive to be virtuous. Consequently, Buddhists—those totally committed to right-living—have little hope of ever reaching nirvana, the presumed bliss of 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 rather than commends 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

 

Whatever our self-management strategy might be, we remain aware of the fact that something is terribly wrong with us. Even if we convince ourselves that the dis-comfort we sense when we sin is no more than a meaningless biochemical reaction, we spend our lives trying to prove our worthiness. What we might deny with our mouths, we affirm with our lives. Sadly, the whole time we are riding this insane merry-go-round, the self-condemnation never goes away.

 

However, our problems go far deeper than this. For, no matter how hard we try to convince ourselves otherwise, we cannot shake 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 we deserve punishment, it is not surprising that many are contemptuous of the idea of a God. Atheist Aldous Huxley once confided:

 

·       I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently, I 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.⁶

 

We know the truth of the Gospel but deny it because we feel judged by it. That is why Huxley embraced and found refuge in the “philosophy of meaninglessness,” which he used as a shelter from truth and judgment. However, denial of the truth is not freedom from the truth. Those who deny the truth 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 observed, such a person would not say, “I am an evolutionist and don’t believe in such objective moral laws.” Instead, this same person would try to defend himself when charged with his wrong-doing. The fact that he endeavors to defend himself is a tacit acknowledgment of an objective, implanted moral law. Although he would not admit it, he knows that such truths provide the basis for a meaningful life.

 

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 do we feel this way? We sense that we don’t deserve any pleasure, and therefore we feel more blameworthy, even deserving of punishment.

 

Continuing to explore this idea, when people harm themselves—like those who are “cutters”—they often experience a temporary reduction of stress. Why would this be so? If our internal script is informing us that we deserve punishment—and we then oblige and punish ourselves—we are left with a fleeting sense that we have atoned for our sins.

 

2. We know that our lives are controlled by the                                  insatiable need to cover over our problems and to convince ourselves that we are worthy and deserving. We do this through a variety of inadequate strategies, seeking human validation rather than divine mercy.

 

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

 

The richest man in the world was asked, “How much more money would you need to be satisfied?” J.D. Rockefeller answered, “Always a little bit more.” This illustrates the fact that our solutions are only temporary at best. We are so addicted to our quest for validation that we need increasingly greater “fixes” in order to maintain our sense 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 the empire exterminated.

 

No matter how rich, respected, powerful or accomplished we might become, we will always crave more. Once again, we are like drug addicts forever trying to experience our initial high. However, our attempts to validate ourselves are no better than over-the-counter aspirin, which is unable to address the underlying cause of our stress.

 

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

 

Our addictions are life-controlling. We remain so vulnerable that we cannot handle criticism. Instead of taking responsibility for our wrong-doing, we blame others. We become jealous when anyone else receives acclaim and recognition instead of us.

 

3. We hunger for an ultimate solution.

 

Many people realize that their strategies for finding peace have failed. Therefore, some have turned to spiritual solutions beyond themselves. There are even some people who acknowledge that there must be a payment for our sins. Here are some signs of this awareness:

 

ü  We try to do good, and there is some satisfaction in what we do. But we soon discover that any euphoria is temporary, and the effort expended is arduous. Even though this is the right thing to do, ultimately, it is not what we need.  It is just another way for us to purchase a very short-lived sense of well-being.

 

ü  When we harm or at least deny ourselves, we experience temporary relief from feelings of guilt and shame. This is a clear indication that we are aware that we deserve punishment. 

 

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

 

ü  The major religions of the world recognize these truths and the necessity of obtaining the complete mercy of a deity. But how is this to be done? Often, people create idols of wood and stone that they can easily placate with their daily offerings. However, we know in our hearts that we can never be good enough for God, despite our many sacrifices to attain good karma. Yet, the futility of our position forces us to “overcome” it with trophies of our superiority and moral worthiness. However, these mere tokens of worth only end up making us arrogant, judgmental, and self-righteous.

 

ü  We long to be loved unconditionally, despite our failings. However, we have also found that human relationships cannot provide this for us in any deeply satisfying way. This leads many to begin to search for One who can.

 

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. The Muslims long for their deliverer, known by some

as the Mahdi. The Jews long for their Savior, the Messiah.

 

v   v   v

 

Any of our own efforts to achieve peace are destined to fail. 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. When we try to attain peace with God by our own means, there will always be a pervasive awareness that we have not been truly cleansed of our sins. We might go so far as to give alms of everything we have. We might even sacrifice our lives and yet still remain in bondage (1 Corinthians 13:3). When we come to the end of ourselves—our ideas and plans and machinations—we come face-to-face with the acute awareness that we need the mercy of God.

 

It is only through Jesus that our sins can be utterly eradicated. Then we can serve our God in joy rather than from a sense of 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 of all the proofs. However, the more we are disconnected from ourselves and our feelings, the more we remain unconvinced. Nevertheless, I think this proof 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.