What parent has not heard something similar to the headline of this post from his (or her) young child at some point? In the process of helping that child to mature towards responsible freedom and an awareness that s/he is not the center of the universe what parent has not experienced the pain of rejection? And what parent has not cringed and eventually accepted such insistence, knowing that whatever mess the child makes, they can eventually clean up and that the pain of the child’s failure will be their first necessary step on the road to true maturity, wisdom and humility? (I.e., recognizing that s/he doesn’t know all that s/he thought s/he did–and couldn’t).
I share the following only because I was reading it last night and found it profound. It relates to no particular current headline. It’s excerpted from John R.W. Stott’s 1986 classic ‘The Cross of Christ’, pages 160-162 [emphasis added]:
We cannot bear to acknowledge either the seriousness of our sin and guilt or our utter indebtedness… Surely, we say, there must be something we can do, or at least contribute, in order to make amends?…
The proud human heart is there revealed. We insist on paying for what we have done. We cannot stand the humiliation of acknowledging our bankruptcy and allowing someone else to pay for us. The notion that this somebody else should be God himself is just too much to take. We would rather perish than repent, rather lose ourselves than humble ourselves…
Other religions teach different forms of self-salvation. Hinduism, for example, [from which Buddhism is directly derived] makes a virtue of refusing to admit to sinfulness…
Quoting Emil Brunner, from his book ‘The Mediator’, page 474 (1927) Stott continues:
“All other forms of religion–not to mention philosophy–deal with the problem of guilt apart from the intervention of God, and therefore they come to a ‘cheap’ conclusion. In them man is spared the final humiliation of knowing that the Mediator must bear the punishment instead of him… But we cannot escape the embarrassment of standing stark naked before God. It is no use for us to try to cover up like Adam and Eve in the garden. Our attempts at self-justification are as ineffectual as their fig leaves.”
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