In the 2016 United States presidential election, candidate Hillary Clinton in one of her now infamous speeches characterized ‘half” of Donald Trump’s supporters as “a basket of deplorables” and listed a number of unflattering characteristics that made them so. This was considered by a number of pundits as contributing to her unexpected loss to Trump in that election.
The term deplorable and the other “D” words noted in my title are adjectives describing someone or something deserving of strong censor or condemnation, someone who has evil, cruel, selfish or hateful intentions toward others, opposing the social norms of “good people” and thus bringing danger and great harm to their interpersonal relationships and/or to the society they live in.
No one wants to be described in this way nor to think of ourselves as such. We live in a culture wherein we believe that most people are basically good, including ourselves; that we have good hearts that sometimes go astray, and thus we minimize or justify our wrongdoing with the well-rehearsed excuse that “nobody’s perfect”.
Although most will acknowledge that there are truly evil people in the world who are responsible for horrific wars, for repressive and genocidal governments and mass murders, we consider such people to be the exception rather than the rule. Much of what would be categorized as morally wrong, undesirable or even criminal behaviors are theorized to be a result of poverty and economic oppression, lack of education, poor parenting, genetic deformities, “mental illness” or addiction. Tragically, mankind’s efforts to understand and eliminate such precursors to life’s miseries continue to fail and thus these precursors continue unabated along with their undesirable and often disastrous outcomes (Google Lindsay Clancy).
The Bible, however, presents to us with great specificity as to what is behind all that brings pain, sorrow, suffering, conflict, violence, destruction, illness and death in this world, and that is sin, our insane rejection of God’s rule and purpose for our lives, displayed in our defiant opposition to His order and design for human flourishing and our individual happiness in Him (Romans 3:23) (Ecclesiastes 9:3) .
The Bible reveals that “in the beginning”, God created mankind, male and female, for His glory, to display, proclaim and enjoy the infinite perfections of His eternal being (Isaiah 43:7). To that end, He created us with His holy and righteous moral nature and disposition, His wise and creative mind, and His motivating affections of love and faithfulness, while creating our bodies to outwardly display the beauty and excellencies of His glorious being (Genesis 1:26- 27) (1 John 4:8) (Proverbs 3:3-4) (Genesis 2:25).
As such, we were fully fit to live in intimate relationship with the triune God, enjoying and being enjoyed by Him and one another, and fully able to, under His wise and gracious authority as our creator, rule over and experience the enumerable pleasures and delights of His glorious creation (Psalm 16:11) (Revelation 4:11) (Genesis 1:28-31) .
However, that relationship was quickly shattered upon Adam’s one sin, his one insane act of disobedience to God’s gracious rule, joining the devil in His willful rebellion against God (Isaiah 14:12-15. In doing so Adam, brought himself, Eve and the whole human race that would proceed from them under the just judgement of God, death – being cut off from the glorious life with God for which they were created (Genesis 2:16-17) (Psalm 5:4). As such, they/we are now subject to the corrupting power of sin, living as enemies of God under the curse God imposed upon all creation in response to our sin, wherein nothing would be the way it was supposed to be, particularly mankind (Genesis 3:23-24) (Romans 5:12) (Ecclesiastes 7:29) (Genesis 3:17-19).
We thus now live in a hostile, evil world, under the deceitful influence of the devil, having taken into our hearts his rebellious lies and motivations (1 John 5:18-19). Thus we manifest more of his nature and character in our relationship with God and one another, than God’s (John 8:44).
Sin has corrupted us in every aspect of our being, what theologians refer to as “total depravity”. We are not just imperfect, but “desperately wicked”, with the thoughts and intentions of our heart – the very core of our being, diagnosed by God as “only evil continually” (Jeremiah 17:9) (Genesis 6:5). Jesus, in Mark 7:14-23 makes it clear that all which brings pain, sorrow, conflict and suffering into the world is not external – outside of ourselves, but comes from within our depraved, sin corrupted nature.
The Apostle Paul in Romans 1:18-32 tells us that God, in judgement, has given us over to our vile passions and disordered desires that produce shameful actions by our bodies, as well as a debased or depraved mind that is hostile toward God (Romans 8:7-8), and that as a result we are destined for death and Hell, unable in ourselves to do anything about it
There is a story regarding Christian author and apologist G.K Chesterton, who in responding to an inquiry from the London Times to famous authors asking the question, “What’s wrong with the world today?”, simply replied in his response, “Dear Sir, I am”. And until we are ready and able to acknowledge the same, we will not see ourselves in need of the God’s saving grace (Ephesians 2:8-9), nor come to love Him nor trust in His love as He deserves and commands in response to that grace (1 John 4:19).
Thus, the Apostle Paul goes to great lengths throughout his Epistles to reveal our deplorable, detestable, despicable, damnable condition, our helplessness/unwillingness to diagnose and accept the truth of that condition, and the impossibility of overcoming it apart from the grace and mercy of God revealed in the “Gospel of Grace”, through the person and work of God the Son, Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:1-5).
More in my next post.
Grace and Peace ×