The Gospel Graph: Disorders of a Small Cross
For a counselor, the whiteboard is like a carpenter’s hammer that we use to drive home the truth. It’s like a trusty hunting dog that fetches the grace of God from the realm of the abstract. (It’s also a useful way to wake someone up who is dozing off after a big lunch.) Whatever the reason, if something is not registering in ordinary conversation, I get out of my chair and begin to doodle on the whiteboard. And often it makes a difference. I’d like to share with you one such graph I often use that puts certain problems in a gospel context (adapted for counseling purposes from Jack Miller’s Sonship curriculum).
The Christian life begins with a crisis: the sinner before a holy God, which can manifest in a number of ways: guilt, shame, fear, emptiness, existential dread, and so on. And it is resolved by faith in Christ, whose work on the Cross, a holy sacrifice in place of sinners, reconciles us to a holy God. We’ll draw that like this:
So far, so good. Simple enough. The problem is we often leave the gospel there and move on to other things, assuming that the gospel is only something that begins the Christian life. Sure, we continue to look back in gratitude for the work of the Cross that brought us into the kingdom, but it gradually loses relevance (in our eyes) for today, not having much to do with ongoing growth and change. We think, ‘He saved us, and now it’s up to me to remain and live that way.’ Growth and change, we think, is merely a matter of elbow grease and discipline. “Keep on keeping on,” as some say.
The good news is: that is not the way it was meant to be.
Keeping the gospel as merely a matter of past salvation becomes an enormous problem as we move along, disordering the Christian life in all kinds of ways. There are (at least) two reasons for this.
First, as we grow in awareness of our sin, we can’t help but wonder if the work of Christ is really sufficient for someone like us. We began the Christian life by trusting that the Cross covered our sins: the “big,” outward one time mistakes, sinful lifestyles we’ve left in the past. But over time we learn with dismay that we are still sinners. We start to notice sin not just in what we do, but in what we say. We notice it mixed into our desires and motives. We begin to wonder - does the blood of Jesus cover not just the wrong I do, but the wrong I am? Or perhaps we are wrestling with some kind of bad habit, besetting sin or addiction. The doubt inevitably surfaces - does the Cross only cover past, defeated sin? Or does it also cover the sin I continue to wrestle with? The more sensitivity and awareness we have of sin, the less sufficient that past gospel seems to be, creating a “gap” in the conscience.
Second, as we grow in understanding the holiness of God and the call to be like him, the more we see how far we truly fall short. We yawn in worship. We wake up early to read the Bible but end up on TikTok. We intentionally ignore a chance to share the gospel. We catch a glimpse of our hearts for a moment and quickly look away, having seen that we don’t love God nearly as much as we thought. Most disturbing of all is to have an Isaiah moment and see the Lord in his “dreadful majesty” - the utterly Other, pure, perfect, thrice holy God. All of these things have the same effect - showing us that we are nothing like him and lack, in ourselves, the right to be in his presence. Thus, another “gap” is created in the conscience.
Continuing on our whiteboard, we’ll draw that like this:
Where does this all leave us? Actually, right back where we started: in crisis. Admittedly, it is often a quiet and hidden crisis, one that we don’t like to admit to ourselves. But there it is again - all the old feelings. Guilt, shame, fear, emptiness, existential dread. There may even be a few new feelings: a lack of assurance, doubt, impostor syndrome, paranoia, obsessive thoughts. Our consciences are driven mad by those gaps and can’t rest until there is something in place to cover them.
Before we go to the solution, it’s essential to consider the ways we attempt to “bridge the gaps” on our own, trusting in our own efforts.
To deal with the lower gap created by our sinfulness, we make various attempts at self-atonement:
We deprive ourselves of good things. Good things would only put us further in “debt,” we think, so we give them up. We withdraw from or sabotage relationships. We avoid certain foods or stop eating altogether. We renounce nice clothes and jewelry. We suffer in silence, refusing to ask for help.
We live in condemnation, resigning to a life of self-loathing, constantly dwelling on our faults, making self-deprecating remarks or incessantly confessing to others. We consign ourselves to an early hell and live in depression.
We cause ourselves physical pain. Cutting, recklessness, and suicide can all be ways of putting forth our own blood to pay for our sins, sometimes literally.
Rather than doing the above, we deprive, condemn, and hurt other people. Our minds have an uncanny ability to divert guilt onto another, making someone else pay for what we have done, making them a “scapegoat.”
We could go on. There are lots of ways we do this. The common denominator is this: we are trusting in our own efforts to atone for our sins, attempting to soothe our own consciences. And sometimes it works, sort of. These things can provide some measure of psychological relief. But at what cost? And even if they remove an inner, subjective sense of guilt, are they actually dealing with our objective guilt from breaking God’s law? You can tear up and forget about that speeding ticket, but that will not stop traffic court from putting out a warrant for your arrest. There is a better way, which we’ll get to shortly. For now, let’s add these things to our graph:
Next, to deal with the upper gap created by God’s holiness, we make various attempts at self-righteousness:
We become legalists, selecting various commands and instructions to create our own version of the law, which we stick to rigidly. We “lower the bar.” These are usually measurable, attainable external laws (e.g. “Don't drink, smoke, chew or date girls that do”) rather than a matter of the heart (like humility or love or faithfulness). Not only does this give us a sense of our own righteousness before God, it comes with a bonus: we get to judge everyone who doesn’t live up to our law. We all have a little Pharisee within us begging, “Put me in, coach!”
Similar to the above, we turn to works-righteousness. For those who don’t want to appear so religious, this form of self-righteousness is not limited to religious deeds. Works-righteousness can be made up of career accomplishments (a position, salary, degree), possessions (house, cars, clothes), family (kid’s grades, athleticism, behavior). In fact, the human heart is able to use just about anything to justify itself to the watching world.
Related to the previous two, we give our ego a little boost by comparing ourselves to others, particularly those who fall short of our self-made standards. And if we encounter someone who is better, we inevitably find a way to disqualify them so that we still come out on top.
Lastly - and the current therapeutic world is a major proponent of this - in response to that feeling that we have “fallen short” of the standard, we attempt positive self-talk, telling ourselves that we matter, that we are enough, that we are important. We attempt to convince ourselves that we are good.
These are all our attempts to provide a righteousness for ourselves. In each of them, we are sewing fig leaves together to cover our nakedness, to give ourselves a sense that we don’t really fall short of what is required of us. Similar to the first gap, although some of these may provide some measure of psychological relief, they don’t provide an actual righteousness that would justify us before God and make us acceptable in his presence. Let’s add these things to the whiteboard:
So what’s the solution then? Here’s one way of saying it: the way in which we first entered the Christian life is the same way we continue in it: by faith. If you don’t believe me, here are two instances the apostle Paul affirms this:
“Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving” (Colossians 2:7)
“O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:1-3)
So we continue just as we began, by faith. For Paul, that faith is not general, but faith in the work of Christ. To use the language of the graph, that Cross has to become bigger - sufficient to cover the gaps. Simply put, the real solution to the gap created by our sinfulness is a renewed faith in the atoning blood of Jesus, not just for past sins but present, not just wrongdoing but wrongbeing: his condemnation in our place, depriving himself of every good, painfully shed his blood, and becoming the ultimate Scapegoat. And the real solution to the upper gap is a renewed faith in the righteousness of Christ, which makes us once and for all acceptable to God: his fulfillment of the law of God on our behalf, his works of love, devotion and humility, the perfect Human to whom there is no comparison, whose worth and dignity and even glory are shared with us. It is amazing how natural and vigorous growth and change become when the gospel is allowed to be, as Martin Luther put it, the “Queen of the Conscience.”
That completes the graph on our whiteboard, like this:
Alright, so the Cross has to grow; our faith in the person and work of Christ has to be renewed. But how? How do renew our faith? As a way of conclusion and a form of homework, here is a handout with some ideas for you to take home and try. PS: Don’t get overwhelmed - just pick a few that stand out. And don’t think of these as exercises that directly build faith. It’s not like working out at the gym. Rather, think of these as ways of “setting the sail” in hope that the wind of the Spirit would blow, carrying you into deeper waters of faith.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading.
In Christ,
David
