If ever we were chatter-ing

It's pretty exciting to think of the productivity that will come from this blog with the addition of Burdeshaw. I'm probably blogging at the same time as Chris, which is pretty fascinating.

I've gotten away from some of the other focus points of Cut the Chatter, Red 2, and that's because this blog has had a worldview focus. Tonight isn't really that much different, because I want to address an issue that came up about a week ago at my fellowship group. I promise I'll get back to topics on music and perhaps sports, now that March Madness is starting up.

One of the questions in our study asked for our perspective on justification. The question asked us how we would respond to the claim that justification meant that God treated us "just as if we've never sinned."

Anyone in the group could easily recall my reaction to the statement, as if it was high heresy or something. I suppose it's my SBC roots or something that leads me to hate this phrase, which at least on the surface level seems harmless enough. But if we take a hard look at this phrase, we begin to see some of the problems in current Christian thinking that, if left unaddressed, could lead to some serious theological complications.

"Just as if I'd never sinned." It's hard enough to pick a starting point with what's wrong, so I'll start at the beginning of Genesis. Adam was our federal head. Adam represented all of humanity in his actions and as a result, his sin is our sin. Furthermore, our nature has fallen and become corrupted. This corrupted nature and original sin is more than enough to condemn us, because we are by nature enemies of God. Being natural enemies, we could never progress outside of that original scheme without some form of divine intervention. This phrase, "Just as if I'd never sinned," ignores all this, focusing only on actual sin, or perhaps our sinful actions. But you can't ignore our sinful nature, inherited from Adam who spoke for us all (and do you really think you would have done much different if you were in his shoes? Didn't think so).

This idea is patently unamerican, since we pride individuality and personal responsibility. But if we won't have Adam, as Paul tells us in Romans 5, we can't have Christ. We ignore original sin at our own peril. If we focus on our actual sin alone, all we have to distrust is the past, which leaves us some confidence in ourselves. Yet are totally fallen, in body and soul as the Confession says, and we must learn to distrust our whole selves so that we can cry out with Paul in Romans 7 to the Lord and Savior who will deliver us from even ourselves.

Thanksfully, in our Savior's sacrifice we do not find merely and evening out of the tables. Jerry may have broken even and been in a great equilibrium in the world of Seinfeld, but really, all that does for us is leave us where we started. We begin to grasp the graciousness of God when we have not only our sins taken away, but Christ's righteousness creditted to our accounts. That grace becomes so amazing. God sees Christ's blood covering us and welcomes us as his children. Why in the world should this happen? It seems like it would have been enough to leave us even.

But God went further and gave us a right standing before God. "JustasifI'dneversinned" ignores this, suggesting that all God did was make us even. The statement says far too little, ignoring the truth that has caused Christians to pen poetry and sent musicians tuning their instruments.

The statement goes further, ignoring God's omniscience in that particular area. Additionally, when Christ returns and our faith is rewarded with sight, we will see his stricken body that bears the scars and wounds that finally convinced Thomas of the resurrection. Do we think God somehow can't see what his Son endured? Do we think that God actually pretends the wounds of sin are not indelibly on his Son's body? And yet this wounds are not merely wounds of sin, they are the proofs of grace.

The problem I have with JustasifI'dneversinnedism is that it really doesn't preach the Gospel. It's just a quip that we can easily memorize to propogate the shallow understanding of the Gospel in the South. When we try to make the Gospel simpler, we actually make it tougher to understand. It's already so simple to begin with. "Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead."

If we could really learn what it means to believe those words, as Han Solo said, sometimes we might even amaze ourselves.