The Encouragement of Human Depravity

I subscribe to the belief that human kind, at it's core, desires to do evil and that, without God, man is unable to attain salvation on his own and by all accounts is...I also believe that when a person is saved, he is still flawed and imperfect, prone to sin and wander...but forgiven/pardoned by God though his incalculable grace.

Does this make me a theological pessimist? Hardly...I would argue that it is the only realistic approach in the question of human evil. If man were innately good...then the amount of evil in the world would be truncated greatly beyond where it is now. When I look around at humanity, and I tend to view life though optimistic lenses, I see the truth of a passage in Romans 3 that has greatly affected the amount of clarity in the way I view God and the world the he created.

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9What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. 10As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one;
11there is no one who understands,
no one who seeks God. 12All have turned away,
they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good,
not even one.” 13“Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips.”
14“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” 15“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16ruin and misery mark their ways, 17and the way of peace they do not know.”[g]
18“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”(Romans 3:9-18 NIV)

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A better general description of the fallen and troubled world that we live in can hardly be found. War, crime, hate, racism, murder, lying, rape, thevery, senseless destruction...these are unfortuntely not just exceptions in a pattern of overall good human behavior...they are common traits of mankind and have been for millenia.

Pessimistic or realistic, is Paul merely writing from blind emotion? Mabye he was just having a bad day. I would disagree. What he writes is the truth, we cannot brush it off and just try to avoid thinking about man's depravity. We cannot ignore the way that all of us, including Christians, are in our flesh. We cannot ignore that the power of God's salvation, avalible though the sacrifice of His Son on the Cross, is the only thing that can save us from what we truly are.

So where is the encouragment that I have somehow found in this passage? It is right there in verse 10. I have always striven to save myself by whatever means, only to become angry and frustrated when my problems remain. My recent recognition of the fact that I truly cannot do anything about my sinful state except to place my trust in God to refine me according to his will takes so much of the pressure that I have put on myself and tosses it away.

Of course, this is merely a recognition, not something that I have begun to put into constant practice. However, I am sensing a newfound freedom in this passage. When the Bible speaks of being "Free from the Law"...is it not saying that we should do what we want...hardly so (see my entry on Authority from a few days past). What it is saying is that we are free from the burden of having to accumulate salvation on our own (something that is impossible for us to attain because it is a perfect end and we are imperfect beings). We are free from having to trust in something other than God (in this case the Law) to save us from our sinful and evil nature. What a great encouragement this is to me! I cannot begin to recount all of the stress, depression and frustration that I have dealt with because I have trusted in many things other than God to save me.

My hope is that I will contenue to see the truth of what the passage in Romans is saying. If I would only trust God more, and trust in myself less, I might begin to be free of the pressure that I place on myself every day to be succesful in a number of areas. My hope is also that I would finally grasp the hope that is found in the passage that immediately follows the one that I quoted above:

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21But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished– 26he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

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This passage is my answer to the accusation of pessimism. Is there anything more optimistic than believing that, in spite of all of the evil that clearly exists in the world, there is still hope for mankind and the Grace that facilitates that Hope is avalible freely to us reguardless of the sins that we have commited. It is avalible freely because we all deserve the same sentence. It is importiant that we do not accept the condemnation of 23 without believing in the truth of the pardon in verse 24...that we (Paul here is speaking to those who have been saved by God's grace) are JUSTIFED FREELY by God's Grace though the REDEMPTION that came by Christ Jesus.

I feel that I have only covered a small part of the range of thoughts that I have been having on this often glanced over but rarely deeply studied chapter of Romans. I plan to keep it near the top of my mind and discuss it many times in the future. It is my hope that Christians everywhere would do the same.

Until then, take it easy.

- Jordan