Who is Your Savior?

One

After thousands of years of oppression by the Egyptians and Canaanites and Philistines and Assyrians and Babylonians and the Greeks and then finally the Romans, many of the Jewish people thought they knew what was wrong with the world. What was wrong with the world was that bad people were in power and oppressed good people. And so there needed to be some kind of revolution. Something to restructure society so it could be just. Then all of humanity’s problems would go away.

That was the Messiah they were looking for, someone who would lead a revolution, reform the system, and put the right people in charge so that there would never be any injustice ever again. And they missed Jesus, the true Messiah.

Ever since then, there have been efforts to forget the Christian message in favor of some, plan, some program, that would fix the world through revolution and careful planning.

Whether it was the French Revolution following the ideas of Rousseau, the Communist revolutions of China and Russia following the ideas of Marx, or the identity politics of today’s college campuses.

These alternatives to Christianity all share some common features. They all plan to fix the world through social reform and they all reject the salvation that comes from Christ alone.

Two

What is the Fundamental Problem of Human Life?

So what is the fundamental problem of human life? And what is the fundamental driver of human life?

For those whose religion is social reform, the main problems of human life are worldly problems that arise from the struggle between the oppressor and the oppressed. The main fact of human history, the main theme in the human drama, is that some people are bad-guy oppressors and other people are poor guys who are being oppressed. But for the Christian, that’s not how it works

Yes, there is societal injustice and oppression. And it’s a bad thing. And it should be resisted to the extent that it’s possible and prudent. But social problems, bad social structures, and social systems are the result, not the cause, of personal sin.

And that’s the real problem in the world, it’s sin. Yours and mine. And the fundamental dynamic in human history is the struggle between sin and salvation. That’s the story, that’s the drama, in every person’s life, in every period in history. 

Will we get over our sins with Christ’s help? Or will our sins consume us?

All the other events in history are expressions of that fundamental struggle. And that struggle is only won with the help of Christ, to help set us free.

Three

Fundamental Moral Obligation as Fighting Oppression

So many people make social activism the fundamental goal. They say that the difference between a good person and a bad person is whether you’re involved in the struggle, whether or not you’re fighting the oppressor. They say that it all matters whether you’re on the right side.

And notice that if the only standard for right and wrong is whether or not you’re fighting the oppressor, then truth itself is only valuable if it helps you in your struggle. If it doesn’t, if the truth actually shows that there’s something wrong with your side, with your way of thinking, then it becomes just an instrument of the oppressor.

This is why so many folks think discussion or dialogue is useless. Why dialogue with the oppressor?

That’s why the secular social reformer’s preferred mode of communication is simply protest. Because for them, protesting some evil outside themselves is the ultimate good. But for a Christian, the goal is to recognize and protest the evil inside yourself.

We realize, especially those of us who are adults and parents, that the main cause of our suffering is our own sin. And we realize too that broken social systems are much less likely to damage our kids than our own vices will damage our kids.

So we’re happy when social policies and institutions get reformed. But we know the world will not be made whole until everyone has converted to Jesus Christ and allowed Him to heal us from our moral brokenness. So we will never separate social reform from a call to Christian conversion. Because that would be treating the symptom while doing nothing to heal the disease.

Four

Fundamental Goal – a perfect world or Heaven?

Those of us who are parents know that there is no perfect system, no perfect set of rules that will force our children to be just and fair in every situation. Every system has weak points and loopholes, and people who are not virtuous will find them and exploit them.

So we know that simply restructuring society politically or economically will never solve the world’s problems. Yes, some policy changes will be good. But as long as there is personal sin, as long as people like you and I are still unconverted and not yet perfectly conformed to the image of Christ, there will still be wickedness and injustice and the suffering of the innocent.

Christians must be willing to help the poor and the downtrodden, work for peace, and for more justice in our laws. But at the end of the day, our ultimate hope is not for a perfect world. We know that’s not going to happen.

Our hope is in the next life, to be with God in Heaven, when all sin will be wiped away, and with it will disappear every other evil.

Five

Worldly problems or our own problems?

It’s always easier to fight external, systemic problems than deal with our own sins.

It’s always been easier for college students not to go to class, not to do their homework, not to worry about their own immaturities and insecurities and addictions. It’s way easier for them to have a protest rally or hang out together in a campus building and refuse to leave.

And it’s way easier for you and me too. It’s easy for us to blame our problems on some other system: the government, or the Church, or the economy, or our family of origin.

It’s easy for us to become consumed by a cause and say, “Everything will be alright if we can just fix this one thing.”

And then we become like so many of the Jews in the New Testament, and so many misguided revolutionaries and social reformers down through the ages. They all thought their fundamental problem was something other than sin. And so they all missed the Savior who could set them free from that ultimate source of all evil.

The best way to stay focused on Christ and fighting the real enemy, sin, is daily meditation and a resolution, a daily examination of conscience, and monthly confession.