I've noticed that whenever any Christian tries to raise the topic of sin, judgment and the wrath of God, other Christians tend to shut those queries down with something along the lines of "That's very discouraging, you'll hurt their self confidence."
But what if self-esteem isn't Christian? After all, we are hopeless, horrifying, crappy little beings who went against a holy God, and we so well deserve His wrath. It is only by the Cross that we have any cause to rejoice, because it is by Christ's propitiation that we are counted as righteous, even though we clearly aren't. If anything, we don't count on ourselves as worthy. Rather, our confidence is in Christ, who made us count as saints even while we are sinners.
When we talk about sin, we usually address it as just some bad things we need to NOT do, and people who aren't Christian will do those things. But that's not a full picture of what sin is. We cannot reduce the magnitude of sin by transforming it's meaning from lawlessness/rebellion against God to simply moral wrongs. By doing that, we undermine the grace and mercy of God through the Cross and easily determine ourselves to be our own Savior, thinking we have authority and control over our lives. But we don't. Sinners are attracted to sin, we don't do the good we are called to do.
However, as Christians, people of God, we have accepted Christ in faith and have the Holy Spirit within us. We become renewed beings, dead to our old selves and made new by the work of the Spirit. Now belonging to Christ, we are transformed. We don't learn to leave behind our old ways, therefore creating a schism between the supposedly holier than thou preacher and a new believer, we simply leave it behind because we fathom what weight the Cross carries and we pledge our allegiance to Christ. In other words, we become a Christian.
Yes, we still are inclined to fall. We live in very interesting times, where Christ has come and is still to come, between creation and the new creation. But no matter how many times we fall, we know that Christ has paid the price of sin for all time, therefore imputing His righteousness to us. We struggle with sin and are enabled to repent and return to the Cross, counting on God's faithfulness and grace to be our source of sanctification. And we trust that the Lord will complete the work that began in us.
We need to paint the full picture of the gospel. It's not one that leaves us happy and comfortable with our lives, but one that compells us to live in submission to His will which is in accordance to His word. There's no way we can take the "not so desirable parts" out and still preach a true gospel. We would only be so naive to think that. Yet if you think about it, this truth offers us immense comfort. This offensive and radical gospel takes the weight off our shoulders and grants us confidence not in ourselves, but in God. He chose us from the very beginning - not because we are somehow righteous or good (which clearly we're not at all), but because it is for His glory, through His love. He knew we would never be able to acquire it by merit, through the law, so Christ and the Cross was the answer.
This has been as far as I've understood the gospel in the past couple of months. If, however, there has been a mistake or a need to clarify something, please by all means, message me. In the past few months I've met so many people who have been struggling like me with what the gospel really is, as a result of a lack of/complete absence of biblical theology and doctrine education within the church. We don't know what the Bible says, we only know what we think it says. We talk about a loving God, but we don't define what love is biblically. We are unsure of Christ's role in Christianity, and that's grave because everything in the old and new covenants points back to Him. We have confined the Holy Spirit to the supposed displays of power via the supernatural that we forget the Holy Spirit lives within us when we have faith in Christ. We have prioritized social justice to the extent that we forget that evangelism is not merely the doing of good works but the preaching of the gospel where it is unheard.
So how can we blame others who see us Christians as hypocritical? And why are we surprised when we have to suffer for doing what is right, in submission to His will, for His glory? Christianity is countercultural and no amount of frills/hipsterity will ever change that.
If we know the gospel and understand what it is, we see that we only ever had two choices to begin with: 1) To submit our lives under the lordship of Christ, or 2) to continue rebelling against Him.
That's as raw as it gets.
