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Recently I was thinking about the fact that many people feel that they’ve been hurt by religion. They feel like they’ve been judged by religious people. Many people raised in the Church, don’t go to a church anymore because they were made to feel bad when they did. This isn’t all bad though – it’s good to feel bad. Now, before you conclude that I’m just another horrible religious person hear me out.

The Bible reveals to us God’s standard of goodness, and it is a standard which none of us live up to. The Bible presents to us God’s Law, which if obeyed leads to life. Unfortunately, not one of us has obeyed. Now, if we think that Jesus somehow lets us off the hook; if we think he doesn’t really care if we obey God’s law we are mistaken. When we actually read the teachings of Jesus found in the Bible, we see that he not only upheld the Law (Matt 5:17), he made good and sure we understood how strict the standard actually was. It’s not enough that we don’t murder, or commit adultery; if we so much as hate our brother, or lust after a woman we are guilty of breaking God’s standard of goodness (Matt 5:21-30). Jesus proclaimed Law and warned of the coming judgment more than anything else. Thus, the Church has a responsibility to proclaim God’s Law. And, the Law is meant to convict us; to make us feel bad; to make us realize how not good we are – how terrible, sick and bent we are. The Law is meant to crush us.

Why would God want to crush us? Doesn’t he love us? Yes he loves us and that’s why he must show us how sinful we are. Many years ago, Adam and Eve (representatives of us) decided they didn’t need God to be good. The Serpent convinced them that they could be self-righteous, equal to God; that they in their own ‘goodness’ could stand in the presence of the Holy God. God needed to show them, he needs to show us that we can’t. Apart from God we are not good. In our autonomous self we are not good; only in union with God can we be called good. We need to know that; so we must come up against God’s standard and we must see ourselves for what we truly are, so that we may be reconciled and redeemed. We must learn that we are sick before we will ever seek a cure. And this is the primary purpose of the Law. It is because God loves us, that he exposes our wretchedness with the light of his goodness, because only then can we be restored to union with God through the savior Jesus Christ who enables us to stand in the presence of the Holy God without dying.

Therefore, we sinners should feel guilty when we are exposed to God’s standard of goodness, and the Church should be proclaiming that standard. However, problems arise when a church doesn’t also proclaim the Gospel of Jesus. Problems arise when a church starts to think they are actually living up to that standard through their own goodness, and are somehow not as in need of Jesus as other people. When a church starts to think that Christianity is about climbing a ladder of self-righteousness up to God and they are higher up the ladder than the non-Christians below them. When we think we can please God through our own righteousness, and we no longer need the righteousness of Jesus. We produce the fruit of goodness, not the Spirit working through us. Then we have replaced The Way of Jesus with a way of death and we are even more lost than the prostitutes, drug dealers, and adulterers, because we don’t think we need our savior anymore.

There are many churches who think Christianity is about learning how to be a moral person, so they focus on teaching the Law. They make sure people who aren’t moral know they aren’t. They try in every way they know how to try and get these immoral people to act right. Grace doesn’t have much place in a church like this, because grace offers forgiveness for sins, and these people just want compliance. Two commonly employed tactics used to ensure compliance are shame and exclusion. These work pretty well in a small community where people need the acceptance of the community in order to survive. But, these tactics don’t work well in places where you can just leave and find another community that will accept you as you are. These days it’s very easy to find a church that will accept you no matter what you do, or at least one that’s big enough where it’s easy to hide.

Many people who have received a healthy dose of conviction as a result of hearing God’s standard of goodness either don’t also receive the wonderful Gospel message which should always accompany the proclamation of the Law, or they just don’t want to repent – but they still want to feel good about themselves. Often these people can eventually find a church which is a lot more lenient and they feel loved and accepted for who they are. The problem is that their sin hasn’t really been dealt with and they haven’t been reconciled with God. Furthermore, many of these churches, which seem so loving, are actually just as legalistic – just in a different way. There still is a standard to which you are supposed to live up to in order to consider yourself good; it’s still up to you to win God’s approval through your own self-righteousness. Often these types of churches don’t care much about what may be called personal righteousness and instead focus upon social justice and activism. However, this burden can still be incredibly difficult to bear leading to burn out, hypocrisy, condemnation, self-righteousness, and despair. And, this is because even if we aren’t too concerned about say our sexual purity, if we’re trying to do justice we’re still going to come up against God’s standard of goodness and we’re going to be found wanting. For the person who truly desires not just to transform themselves, but also transform the world, and who recognizes their complicity in the injustice and hatred which plagues our world, this can be overwhelming.

Now if we refuse to acknowledge our sin – our failure to be the person God created us to be – our failure to be good apart from God – then the Law is exactly what we need to hear. If we think we can stand before the Holy God in and of our own goodness – if we think we deserve to go to heaven just because we aren’t as bad as Hitler – then we need to know what God actually requires of us. Because, it’s only after we learn that we are dead in our sin and in need of a redeemer that we will care to hear the news about Jesus. It is only after we learn that we are enemies of God in need of reconciliation that we will accept our need for a mediator. When we look at what Jesus actually taught, he had no problem preaching the Law to, and being harsh with, those who refused to recognize their need for a savior.

The Church has a responsibility to proclaim God’s Law – his standard of what it means to be good. The Church has a responsibility to tell the world that God is Holy and if we hope to stand in his presence without wanting to die we must be Holy as he is. This is exactly why we also cannot fail to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus, because he is our only hope for being reconciled with God, forgiven of our sins and redeemed from death. He is the only Way in which we can boldly enter into the throne room of God.

Many, hopefully most, churches proclaim the Gospel and they teach our need for God’s grace in relation to our need for salvation. Unfortunately they do not proclaim the Gospel and our need for grace in relation to our sanctification (sanctification being the process by which we learn to obey Jesus’ commands). Too many of us are taught that we are saved by grace, but after that it’s really up to us. Sure we ask God for help, but when we fail it’s because we didn’t work hard enough. This leads right back to the problem of people being hurt by religion. Some Christians who are good at not committing obvious sins, or at least those sins which are culturally unacceptable think they get to attack those Christians who aren’t so fortunate. Some of us forget that apart from God we can do nothing. We forget that ‘good’ works motivated by self-righteousness are just as displeasing to God as those more obvious sins. Too many Christians who say they know we are saved by grace are still trying to live as if our goodness is based upon our ability to fulfill God’s Law. Then we start thinking we’re better than others; that God loves us more; and that God has to bless us because we ‘obey’ him. Or, we are crushed by our failure. This is how even churches that proclaim the Gospel can still end up trying to live according to a covenant of works righteousness; a covenant God never made with them.

Then how are we supposed to live the Christian life? Do we just get to keep on sinning since God’s grace will cover it all? Or, are we supposed to do that which Jesus commands? If so, how? How do those who have already believed the Gospel live in light of it? I’ll answer those questions in my next post.