The Difference in Christ and the Difference it Makes Part III

Why I Need Christ to be Moral:

I think this is the question to be answered after all is said and done. Inevitably, someone will think, that it is nice and all that you have found meaning and whatnot from Jesus Christ. I'm glad it makes you moral. I, however, don't need it to be moral. In fact, I wonder why you couldn't just do the right thing. It is a good question. Let me attempt a response.

Morality is not the problem, according to the Bible. Morality is the symptom of the problem which is idolatry, the problem that people have put things before God in significance. Morality is not some abstract principle. It is rooted in the very nature of God. The more we pursue goodness the more, whether we know it or not, we pursue God. God, being all that is good and holy, expresses ultimate goodness in Jesus Christ, who told us to love even our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us.

The longer we seek after goodness, the sooner we will find Christ at the end. The ultimate expression of human morality might be to die for a family member or a friend. In dying, we give up something for ourselves that we cannot get back. The ultimate expression of God is to die for those who hate Him, so that they might be set free from themselves. It is not like a family member dying for a family member. It is like an American soldier taking a bullet for Osama bin Laden not because bin Laden deserves it, but because the soldier recognizes that even someone like this terrorist is made in the image of God. I'm not saying that bin Laden doesn't deserve justice, but love is not about what we deserve. Love is ultimately about giving of one's self for the sake of another.

The first part of the answer is this: the degree of goodness of which we are capable pales in comparison to the goodness of God.

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48)."

Without the realization of God, we fail to see the true depths of our own shortcomings (read: sins). The wrongs of others are worse than our own, or our own are grossly exaggerated in comparison to others. In either case we measure ourselves against other people and use it to justify either loving or hating ourselves, whichever we are prone to. Measured against God there is no place left to hide. We see ourselves as we are, compared to the only measure that matters, the nature of God Himself.

The moment of my conversion I was able to see my own sins for what they were, and how I had contributed to relationships which I had felt victimized by. I had no where to hide, no reasons to throw up in the face of God's convicting spirit, no sob stories to justify what I had done. I saw my own sin, how my sinful behavior had trapped me in certain behavioral cycles that were crushing the life from me, and that I was incapable of freeing myself. I needed a savior because, without Him and still suffering through the realization, it would have been me on the cross, dying under the weight of my own sins.

The second part of the answer is this: I am both victim and victimizer, and to see both as they are rquires being measured against the unwavering standard one cannot hide from - God Himself.

"For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23)," and "So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand (Isaiah 41:10)."

If I am not living for God, then I am living for myself or for some other creed. Living for myself, I have no one to answer to, no one and nothing to reveal the truth of my sin, and I can basically do as I please. If this is how I choose to live, the question is - why be moral if I live for myself? However, perhaps I live for someone else, or for some other creed, or religion, or whatever. These can still give us places to hide from the truth. Heck, even professing Christians can hide from the truth even though they regularly attend church and Bible. They hide from the truth in the very fact that they do these things. We hide for so long that we become lost, and we are lost for so long that we think to be lost is actually to be home, and to know the truth is to become lost!

We realize we need a savior when we realize that we are lost. Now, someone without Christ may very well not feel lost. Lostness, like belief, is not a feeling so much as a state of being. Coming to the point of realizing our lostness often requires us being, to some extent, broken. We will never become Christian until we see our brokenness and our moral ugliness for what they are. Much like breaking a bone so that it may be properly set, so it is with those of us, professing Christians or not, who have lost or buried the truth about what we are really like. Only the conviction of the Holy Spirit, in light of the crucifixion, can bring us this truth about ourselves. Otherwise we either explain it away or we are unable to live any longer in the burden of our own trespasses.

The third part of the answer is this: we hide from the truth about ourselves. We may conceive of ourselves as people desperately searching for the truth. We're not. We are people alienated from the truth, who want to fill that need we have for real truth but are content to fill ourselves with a comfortable one.

"The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way. But what will you do in the end (Jeremiah 5:31)?"

I have heard many people complain about the things Christians do. As the prophet Jeremiah says, however, yes sometimes the religious leaders are corrupt. Yes soemtimes they lie, cheat and steal while holding themselves up as exemplars of the faith. The question the skeptic must ultimately ask, however, is not why are so many Christians terrible people - but rather: why am I a terrible person? And what is there to be done about it? But what will you do in the end?
The answer for the hypocritical believer and the skeptic will, more often than not, be the same.

Why do I need God to be moral? To be truly good is to be like God, and only God Himself can enable me to do that. As Jesus says, "there is none good but God!" His truth lets me see what I really am and does not let me hide in circumstances, rationalizations, or existential sollipsism.

Aldous Huxley put it well in his book "Ends and Means," that he and many others declared life to be meaningless not because it was true but because it allowed them to chase their own desires.

It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that... My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind (The Last Word by Thomas Nagel).

How are you served by what you believe? And what service does that belief demand? Not what you think is true, but why do you want it to be true?

"Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it (Matthew 16:24-25).'"