Grading on the Curve

The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed than we ever dared believe, yet more loved and accepted than we ever dared hope. — Tim Keller

For many of us, the problem is acknowledging how sinful and flawed we are because we still have a belief stowed away in a small corner of our minds that we must be good enough to somehow merit salvation.  Therefore, we try to convince ourselves and God that we are good enough because we are better than most. Sometimes we attempt to do that by pointing out everyone else's flaws.

Several years ago, a young single woman who was very involved in our church introduced me to her fiancé. She explained to me later that he was a great guy, but was not a Christian.  She hoped I could convince him to give his life to Christ.  I met him for coffee several times and he was a great guy.  He was honest, hard-working, generous, and, no doubt, would have been a faithful husband.  The problem was he knew he was a good guy by the world’s standards and lived a more moral lifestyle than many Christian men he knew.

He could not accept his need to be saved when he lived a more moral life than many believers he had encountered.   I could never change his mind.  The problem was he thought God, like a college English professor, graded on the curve.  He compared himself to other people he knew and assumed he must be in the top ten or twenty  percent of those around him, which he believed would be a passing grade and gain him entrance to heaven.

Many people fall prey to that same assumption.  I really like the quote above from Tim Keller above.  I think he nails it when he reflects on those underlying truths of the gospel.  Too many of us view God as a school teacher collecting grades.  We think God simply compares our righteousness to the righteousness of others and then, in the end, will extend salvation to those who are better than most - maybe the top fifty percent. Satan loves to peddle that lie. 

The problem is that the standard to which mankind will be compared is not the righteousness of other men, but the righteousness of a perfect and holy God. I’m always struck by the response of the great men of the Bible when they experienced the presence of God…even in visions.  For instance, when seeing a vision of God in Isaiah 6, the prophet trembled. “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.  With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” (Isa. 6:5-7).

The power and the majesty of God is awesome, but I believe the overwhelming fear comes from a sense of his perfect holiness next to our own abundant wickedness.  Like Adam after his sin, in the presence of God he felt fear and shame.  God did not make him feel that way, but his own conscience convicted him so heavily that he hid from his creator. In the presence of God, we may well feel that great chasm of wickedness that separates us from him. .

John declared, “God is light and in him there is no darkness at all” (1 Jn. 1:5). Even when we don’t detect it, we have great darkness within us.  Even if we don’t act on our unclean thoughts, we have still harbored them in our hearts…envy, pride, rebellion, judgments, lust, adultery, selfishness, idolatry, unbelief, etc.  Who has never lied?  Who has never put our own interests before others?  Who has never savored a moment of gossip or loved something in this world more than God? Often, we do not feel the weight of our unrighteousness because our sensitivity to sin has been dulled, like a spiritual neuropathy, as we live surrounded by a culture pursuing the things of the flesh and justifying doing so…even glorifying doing so.

Isaiah went on to say, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6).  The Hebrew actually compares our righteous acts with the menstrual rags of a woman when compared to the holiness of God.  When we compare ourselves to other fallen humans, we may fair pretty well. However, when we compare ourselves to God, who is the righteous standard, we feel ashamed and terrified…even the best of us.

That is why we each need the cleansing blood of Jesus.  In a sense, God has to reconcile two opposing parts of his nature.  One is his perfect, sinless holiness that cannot tolerate sin and demands justice from law breakers.  The other is his unfailing love and compassion that has no desire to condemn even the worst sinner.  Speaking through the prophet God said, “Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign Lord. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live” (Ezek. 18:23).  Paul declares in the same way,  “This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:3-4).

The heart of God is for all men to be saved, but the character of God demands justice which condemns all who have sinned. The cross, however, reconciles the demands of God’s character and his heart. Sin is not ignored but paid for.  The sin that we harbor in our thoughts, words, and actions do not get a free pass.  They are not swept under the rug.  Rebellion carries the sentence of death.  All sin is rebellion.  Therefore, each of us as we sin (according to God’s standards) are worthy of death.  Someone has to die for the sins we have each committed and that someone was Jesus for those who give their lives to the one who gave his life for them. 

Justice is served.  Love is satisfied.  All at the cross.  The amazing thing is that Jesus was not forced into his role but, in concert with the Father and the Spirit, volunteered to take on our death, our punishment, and our curse before the foundation of the world was ever laid. 

Satan loves to paint God as a cruel, vengeful tyrant who gladly sends millions to an eternity of suffering.  It is just the opposite. Hell is what we all deserve because all have sinned and in doing so have all rebelled. God is about saving us from the fire, not sending us.   Paul put it this way. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us”(Rom. 5:8). What else must he do to prove his love?

In his love, Christ died for us.  In his love, Jesus took on our sin and imputed his righteousness to those who believe. Jesus became a curse that we might be blessed.  And all of this through the grace of God without any merit on our part.  God does not grade on the curve.  None of us are “good guys” by God’s righteous standards.  But because God is a good God, he has still provided a way based on what Jesus did and nothing we have done. I think Tim Keller’s insight into the gospel is spot on.