Pretension Busters: Arrogance

www.despair.com --"Increasing success by lowering expectations" (so much like the Old Adam and the Old Eve)

Arrogance cannot be avoided or true hope be present

unless the judgment of condemnation is feared in every work

--Martin Luther

(Heidelberg Disputation, Thesis 11)

The wicked man is so arrogant he always thinks,

“God won’t hold me accountable; he doesn’t care.”

Why does the wicked man reject God?

He says to himself, “You will not hold me accountable.”

Psalm 10:4 & 13

There is a wide-spread tendency in contemporary Christian circles to fulfill H. Richard Niebuhr's prophetic statement: "A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross." The most obvious symptom is easily heard in the vocabulary of its leaders. "Wrath," "sin," "judgment," "cross" have been eliminated and in their place stand "love," "tolerance," "acceptance," and "hospitality" or "welcome." By ridding their congregations and churches of the past's "negativity," these leaders are convinced they've established a "kingdom" presence--a beachhead of the new creation--in the midst of this old one.

What they and their congregants fail to realize is that they've done nothing "new." Without the preaching of Christ and him crucified (1 Cor. 2:2) there is no end to the old, no new creation, and all they've done is to establish a new regime of the law. Only this time--without Christ to be the end of the law--there is no end to the tyranny of their "love," "tolerance," and "hospitality." Without Christ and him crucified, their churches are merely social clubs and mutual admiration societies where the iron rule of "niceness" must be held inviolate. Unless... unless someone should be so foolhardy as to name a sin or an intolerable behavior then the "niceness" disappears and brute intimidation makes its appearance: "Love! or else!

Now to be sure God is love (1 John 14:6), and God so loved the world (John 3:16), and while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). The Gospel is good news only to sinners. When the proclamation of Jesus Christ--crucified by you and resurrected for you--when that proclamation ceases to be "news," then arrogance has set in, faith and hope have vanished, and the good news is merely a hollow claim of divine affirmation upon the status quo.

O, let us cry with Paul: "Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:24-25) How nice of those in their mutual admiration societies to give Jesus a rest! Dietrich Bohnhoeffer made the radical--but biblical--claim: "When God calls a man, he bids him come and die." (The Cost of Discipleship) God does indeed take all comers, sinners all. As God loves them in the cross of Christ, those sinners see that God's wrath against them is indeed justified, that his judgment upon them is appropriate (You're going to die!). And right there... right there in the midst of sin, wrath, judgment, and death... right there the Gospel is not only Good News, it is the best of all possible news!

When Jesus heard this he said to them, “Those who are healthy don’t need a physician, but those who are sick do. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Mark 2:17