Tim Keller in Counterfeit Gods:

“There is legitimate guilt that is removed through repentance and restitution, and then there is irremediable guilt. When people say, “I know God forgives me, but I can’t forgive myself,” they mean that they have failed an idol whose approval is more important to them than God’s.”

It comes across somewhat harsh. But I believe Keller is right. Many people, including myself at times, have no intellectual problem accepting God’s grace and forgiveness. But on an emotional level, we remain weighed down with guilt.

If we honestly believe that God’s approval is what matters and that, although we have failed him, he has truly and fully forgiven us, then part of accepting that forgiveness must be forgiving ourselves. If we refuse to forgive ourselves, we must not fully believe that God has forgiven us.

If we continue to wallow in guilt and despair, it must be that there is some other deity in our heart that we believe we need forgiveness from—an idol. But an idol can never forgive.

I see this illustration to be true in my own life. Ridding ourselves of idols doesn’t only mean that God gets all the glory he deserves from us, but it also means we get to live in the joy that comes from fully understanding and accepting what it means to be forgiven and accepted by God.

Tim Keller, in Counterfeit Gods says:

An idol is something we look to for things that only God can give. Idolatry functions widely inside religious communities when doctrinal truth is elevated to positions of a false god. This occurs when people rely on the rightness of their doctrines for their standing with God rather than on God himself and his grace. It is a subtle but deadly mistake. The sign that you have slipped into this form of self-justification is that you become what the book of Proverbs calls a “scoffer”. Scoffers always show contempt and disdain for the opponents rather than graciousness, This is a sign that they do no see themselves as sinners saved by grace. Instead, their trust in the rightness of their views makes them feel superior.

Does that sound personally familiar to you? It has to me. Perhaps not as severely right now, but in the past, definitely. Sometimes we may not even realize that we have placed some of our hope in something other than the Gospel.

Many churches look at the churches around them as competitors, rather than partners. Or theological diversity as a threat to their ministry. I doubt this is anything short of a sense of religious idolatry.

Even if our theology is right, and our church is healthy, our attitudes toward other people’s theological ideas and churches reveal a good deal about what our own thought and theology means to us. “Scoffing” and “disdain” for anyone is not a good thing. But it’s especially revealing when those things are directed at people who share the same salvation we do.

Toward the end of Deuteronomy before Israel crosses over into the promised land, God gives a song to Moses which is intended to be a sharp reminder in the people’s ear of their wickedness and proneness to sin. But more importantly, it’s stark contrast to God’s mercy and grace on his people.

Deuteronomy 31:19-21:

"Now therefore write this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the people of Israel. For when I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, which I swore to give to their fathers, and they have eaten and are full and grown fat, they will turn to other gods and serve them, and despise me and break my covenant. And when many evils and troubles have come upon them, this song shall confront them as a witness (for it will live unforgotten in the mouths of their offspring). For I know what they are inclined to do even today, before I have brought them into the land that I swore to give."

The song, which comes in the following chapter, is delivered to be a reminder and to deliver conviction to the wandering soul. God has been merciful, yet is a God of wrath.

This, of course, reminds me of my own inclination to please myself and my own constant need to remember the Gospel of Jesus, which is given for similar reasons yet from a very different direction.

The Gospel reminds us not only that we are sinful beings, and that God is a God of wrath, but also that he is gracious and patient. It is not his wrath that will lead us to repentance, but his grace! Remembering this can give us the confidence and strength to stand and trust God to sanctify us and conform us to his own image.

About a year ago I posted a review of a book by Milton Vincent called A Gospel Primer for Christians.

The book’s aim is this very thing. To help Christians remember the basic, strength giving, tenets of the Gospel. It begins with an explanation of the Gospel and concludes with a simple rehearsal of those truths for Christians to remember on a regular basis.

For me, this book has been a great blessing toward this end. It’s usually less than $10 and worth every penny.

Much like Moses’ song delivered to Israel to remind them, we can use similar tools to remember Jesus’ Gospel and find strength to move foreword even in the face of our own opposition.

When Paul was under guard traveling to be examined by Caesar, he was put under the charge of the centurion Julius. When they make port, Julius allows Paul to go ashore and visit the church and be ‘refreshed’ by them (Acts 27:3). The very next verse, Paul is back on the boat setting sail for the next port.

This struck me as fascinating.

The 26 chapters of Acts leading up to this one are filled with Paul and the other Apostles narrowly evading capture, sometimes in crazy ways. Like being lowered out of a window in a basket.

Now, it doesn’t say it, but I’d imagine that Julius probably had a guard on Paul as he went ashore. But, even under the watchful eye of a guard, this was probably the best of opportunities to escape and continue his journeys preaching the Gospel. Especially with the help of the Brothers who were there.

But, of course, he didn’t escape. As far as our text is concerned, he didn’t even try. He most likely left peacefully, met the Church, and returned peacefully in a reasonable amount of time. But why?

Respect for his authorities, probably. Concern for the church which he was visiting, probably. But I think he was also convinced that in his chains, God would use him in greater ways than he would with his freedom. In his chains he could speak to Caesar and the high officials. He could make converts of the guards. He could constantly share his testimony of God’s grace in his life.

This is beautiful to me. This is something I’d like to learn to emulate.

What kind of a perplexing, yet encouraging promise is this of God’s in Psalm 37:23-24:

The steps of a man are established by the LORD,
   when he delights in his way;
though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong,
   for the LORD upholds his hand.

It’s hard to miss this one.

Though we make choices and our choices fall on our heads, whether they are good or bad, there is a tension between God’s planning and man’s choosing.

Our steps are set out by the Lord. And whether it is passive, or aggressive in nature, they are God’s will. Among those steps will be failures, but they will not be to our detriment, but our progress, our sanctification, ultimately our joy and satisfaction.

This is a promise that I find it necessary to remember—often. For I seem to be in a perpetual state of forgetting.

I have had a few conversations in the past couple weeks in which the Christian on the other side seemed to argue that humans were not stuck with a ‘sinful nature’ per se. Rather, they were stricken with a kind of natural ‘mark’ or ‘sin’ at birth, passed down from Adam, which is washed away during infant baptism.

In the context of the argument (and that particular Christian denomination), the original ‘sin’ at birth would appear purely ceremonial, and nothing more. Once removed by baptism, a person returns to a pre-fall state. There is no ‘sinful nature’ which tends us all toward sin. And thus, human choice and absolute freedom is prized more highly than God’s grace.

This, however, I find both irrational and unbiblical.

1. Human beings are born bad. We don’t like to think that, but it’s hard to deny. And no, it’s not purely a kind of ceremonial mark of uncleanness. It’s real, and aggressive. Even a basic look at a small child reveals the tendency toward sin which exists. Among the first things we do once we learn to speak is to lie. We are not taught to do it. We just do. A mother sees that a child has broken a plate in the kitchen. She asks, “did you break this plate?” the child quickly replies, “No, it was…”. Fill in the blank.

In adult life, even among Christians, any rational, honest, self-assessment will reveal that we tend toward things that are bad for us. Even those who have been baptized. We are not always caring, loving, patient, kind or humble. In fact, we are not more often than we are. It requires a kind of delusion to miss this.

Even Paul experienced this and writes about it in an eerily relatable way in Romans 7:13-20.

2. Freedom to choose is not in question, it is the will to choose. There is only one human in all history who did not sin. If there were not some kind of block in a human’s heart or mind, this would be extremely unlikely. At some point, someone would’ve gotten it right.

It’s not that human beings don’t have the freedom not to sin, it’s that they do not have the will not to sin.

This, as I’ve already shown, is not removed by any kind of ceremonial practice at birth, or otherwise. Christians from every sect all over the world echo the inclination to sin. Rather, It is removed at God’s discretion by his Spirit, and it always accompanies a personal learning faith in Christ. Only at this point is a Christian freed from their own will which then allows them to choose not to sin.

In conclusion.

The topic of ancestral sin is very large and complicated. I’ve hardly scratched the surface of the discussion here. However, I am hard pressed to believe that there is any kind of spiritual ‘mark of Cain’, which believers must have removed. And, the scripture used in its defense is highly suspect (1 Corinthians 15:22, Romans 5:12-21).

Instead, I find that it sits well with scripture and my rational mind to say that humans are born wicked and in need of actual redemption from Christ.

Jesus teaches that our sins are our own, and the guilt belongs to no one else. It’s hard to accept. Even after Eve ate the apple in the Garden, she told God that the serpent had tricked her into doing it. And perhaps that was a unique event in history, but it didn’t exonerate her guilt.

Matthew 15:19:

…out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.

When a man and woman who are courting each other fall into sexual sin together, it was not the situation that created the sin, it only afforded the opportunity for the sinful nature to exercise itself. The things and situations around us are not to blame for our sinful failures, those failures reside in the heart already.

Matthew-Henry puts it this way:

It is the heart that is desperately wicked, Jer 17:9, for there is no sin in word or deed, which was not first in the heart. They all come out of the man, and are fruits of that wickedness which is in the heart, and is wrought there.

A mere disciplining of our situations is a dire insufficiency in our fight against sin. To block our chances to sin does very little but paste a pleasing veneer over the surface. The only real solution is to appeal to the grace of God in Jesus Christ to actually change our hearts, so that we might desire different things completely.