We are creatures who are driven by guilt. Our societies, be they primitive, or refined,
all have guilt as their governing principle.
Our laws, be they derived from scripture or not, all find their power in
guilt. A speed limit only finds its
effectiveness in the reality of the guilt it creates. Our parental rules for our children only find
their effectiveness if they create a consequence for guilt. We are punished for not completing
assignments, not performing as we are expected to perform in the work place,
not being the spouse we are supposed to be, and so on. Guilt is foundational to everything we
do. I do not venture to launch out on a
tirade against guilt, or even to say guilt is a bad thing, or an improper
emotion or reality. My purpose here is
to say that guilt is the very fabric of society, it drives everything.
The strange thing to realize is that this is actually the
way we like it. We get very
uncomfortable when something begins to tear at the fabric of guilt. For instance if an employee no longer feels
guilty for not doing the job they are paid to do we have no choice but to
remove that employee from our company.
If a student no longer feels guilty for not doing their work we no
longer have a means to make them learn. If
we remove guilt from our legal system we no longer have a legal system. If a man has no sense of guilt for
mistreating his wife or children he becomes a very dangerous man. Anything, or anyone, that would seek to remove
guilt from a conscience of someone who has done wrong is making a horrific
affront against all that is humane. We
cannot understate the importance of guilt to our life, and when we see someone
who feels no guilt we are frightened. A
person unresponsive to guilt is, in our eyes, an incredibly dangerous or incredibly
useless person.
When we look at texts like Romans 2:12-16 and we get the
idea that the Law is written on everyone’s heart, this is exactly what we are
getting at. Let’s not make the mistake
of oversimplifying here. Paul is not
writing that everyone universally knows, understands, and affirms the Law of God. That really is not the case at all. Moral law is relative from society to
society. The universal truth is that
everyone is driven by Law, and that the guilty vs. not guilty paradigm is
intrinsic to everyone. In that sense the
Law is written on everyone’s, without exception, heart. If the concept of ‘law’ was not written on
everyone’s heart, there would be no sense of guilt, and without the sense of
guilt society would not function. We
would be mere animals.
Enter the Gospel. The
Gospel is an absolutely terrifying message when taken at face value precisely because
it tears away this fabric of guilt upon which our society rests. Make no mistake, the Gospel, really does
undermine and redefine society as we know it.
I can recall disciplining my child when his actions caused him to be
guilty of violating our family’s laws, and my little man reminded me that on
the cross Jesus already paid for his sin (true story). In one sense I was very proud of my son for
realizing that glorious truth, and applying it to his situation, but as a
parent it was terrifying. It was
terrifying because if Christ really took away his guilt, and he really believed
that to be true, then maybe all of my family ‘law’ was in jeopardy of being
rendered useless. At the very least the
family ‘law’ had been rendered useless in the way that I was applying it to him
as a believer in Christ. Take the
situation of my son, and expand it to our entire society and you can see how
the Gospel message of ‘not guilty’ undercuts everything. If a person believes themselves to not be
guilty then they are truly free… free from me and my laws… free from society
and its laws… free from God’s Law. Maybe
the Gospel isn’t such Good News after all?
Maybe we’d be better off to never speak of this Gospel again for fear
that people might actually believe it, and actually believe themselves “not
guilty.”
Of course the Gospel is by definition “Good News” and should
not be seen as anything but Good News, but it is terrifying news. The Gospel creates a New Kingdom that is
driven by a completely different paradigm than the one which our society
operates under. The Gospel creates a
Kingdom where obedience to the law is driven by gratitude for what has been
done for us, not by fear of guilt for not upholding the Law. The Gospel has created a people who cannot be
driven by society’s most effective driving mechanism, which is guilt.
Don’t underestimate how much people really fear the Gospel, even
believers who know it is true (myself included) are terrified to realize the
relief from guilt which Christ has given to us and the world. The charge of Antimonianism which often gets
leveled at true preachers of the Gospel is a frightening charge. If I am going to proclaim righteousness apart
from the Law it feels like stepping off of a cliff and expecting ground to
somehow appear under my feet. There is a
very real fear about what could possibly happen if people decide to believe the
Gospel we proclaim. I ask myself the
questions; “What if someone really does believe themselves to not be guilty,
but then they are not filled with gratitude for what Christ has done? Will
these people just do whatever they think is right and become lawless creatures
that are bound to no sense of right and wrong?”
Or this; “If a person can no longer be driven by guilt, do they have any
reason to serve people in need? Do they
have any reason to seek the forgiveness of people they have wronged?”
We must be willing to believe that the Gospel really is the
power of God unto salvation, and that the effects of the Gospel really will be
a society that lives in gratitude to God and willingly obeys the Law which he
prescribed, without fear of condemnation from that Law. In this light we can see that the Gospel is
not quite as easy to believe as we initially think. The Gospel upholds, and is not in any way at
tension with the Law. Yet the Gospel
removes the guilt which is society’s only reason for upholding that Law.