Romans 3:1-8 Response

In Romans 3:1-8, Paul argues that all people, Jew and Gentile alike, are subject to God’s condemnation. On Sunday Pastor Derek challenged us to examine those notions we harbor that would serve to exempt us from God’s judgment. For the Jews in Rome, it began with being descendants of Abraham, and included having been given the law, circumcision and other aspects of their Jewishness. For us it starts with and includes all kinds of arguments in support of what Pastor Derek likened to our claim of “diplomatic immunity.” Several days of reflection on this text and sermon have revealed to me just how fertile my own ‘immunity-claiming’ mind can be.

I spent the first four decades of my life absolutely counting on my “pedigree.” In my case this included being a member of Park Street Church, where my father served as moderator for years and years. Harold John Ockenga treated me as if I was special. I attended Camp Brookwoods every summer for ten years. I went to Wheaton College. The fact that I flunked out of Wheaton College did not spoil my sense of immunity - after all, my own behaviors weren’t the issue when Pedigree was at the table.

On top of pedigree, I had a good record for ritual. Perfect attendance from birth to age 18. Scripture memorization awards every year. I hoped desperately that these would count, because I knew just how unrighteous I really was, and I knew God knew it too.

In the last eight years, since God drew me back to Himself, I have rejoiced in being free from the need to make sure I was aligned with the Right Christians. I began to understand “in Christ alone.” Oddly enough, though, I still found “judgment loopholes” in my thinking when I reflected on this sermon. It may sound strange, but I have to confess to a subtle strand of believing that God would let me off easy because he knows I have ADD and blurt out a lot of things that I later regret, and forget to do the things I meant to do. Working in Special Education seems to have led me to imagine that I am due certain “accommodations” for my “disability” while everyone else has to face the music head-on. I had to laugh, ruefully, when I came to see this strand of the “immunity claim!” Finally, just to prove how inclined we are (or at least, I am) to tell ourselves we will get special treatment rather than face God’s judgment, I have had to acknowledge that the time and energy I put into working with prisoners and ex-prisoners, begun as a free expression of my love for the Lord, occasionally shows up as my own little “extra good works.” The sick logic goes something like this: “I know that my salvation is not earned by my works, of course – I know better. But coming from a guy who could be coasting on his pedigree and his ADD, my works ought to be worth some credit…”

I am thankful that I was asked to respond to this sermon, because it brought me through an extensive (I’ll spare you the rest) inventory of the ways in which I can convince myself that I am immune from God’s judgment. At the end of this process an amazing thing happened; stripped of every last immunity claim I could think of, I was left shaking with the overwhelming grasp of what Christ had done for me, of what only He could have done for me. These last printed words are familiar to us, but in print they seem only a feeble attempt to convey how utterly ashamed I was of myself, and unspeakably awed and grateful to Christ for His self-sacrifice. Pastor Derek also challenged us to examine the ways in which we abuse God’s promised grace. I know that is true of me, but I also have learned that the more I strip away my claims, and the more nakedly I see nothing but Christ crucified for me, the more appropriate my response to his grace. Having taken Pastor Derek’s exhortation to examine myself as thoroughly as this, I encourage all of us to keep identifying and stripping away our “claims”, and behold the only thing left in our defense, Christ crucified.

~Tom Peterson