Perfect Isn't Good Enough

What Sunday School got wrong:

1. The reason we can’t get into heaven is because we’re not perfect

2. The reason we must accept Jesus is to makes us look perfect to God so we can slip past Him into heaven

Christianity is the only theistic religion that doesn't require moral conformity.  In fact, the greatest moral conformists have usually been least respected by God, according to Jesus.  Remember the “Rich, Young Ruler” (Matthew 19:16-26): he asked Jesus what he needed to do to get to heaven.  Jesus said, “Follow all the rules.”  The guy said, “Great.  I’ve done that.”  Now this next part has always bothered me.  As much as religious people may hate it, assuming the above Sunday School indoctrination, Jesus only had two options: (1) “You’re lying.  You’ve broken rules and you know it,” or (2) “Great job.  You’re in.”  For Jesus to say, “Okay, you’ve followed all the rules, but I’m going to add more rules right now” would be unfair, unjust, and generally sleazy.  What if you get to the end of those rules?  What’s to keep Him from adding more?  How can you win with a God like that?  How can you like a God like that?  So how does Jesus get off the hook? Before we get to the rest of this story, let’s draw from a parallel example:

John is married to Jenny, but he also wants to date Sally because Sally has lifetime court-side tickets to his favorite sports team.  John read Sally’s eHarmony ad, and is prepared to sweep her off her feet.  He memorized her favorite poems, delivered her favorite flowers; he has collected many of her favorite books and DVDs, and he presents them to her as he asks to take her to her favorite restaurant.  She says no.

He demands, “Don’t you know how much time I’ve spent working on making this relationship work!?  You owe me at least one date!  What else do I have to do to make you love me?!?”  Ridiculous, right?  It doesn’t matter that he matched himself up perfectly with her online profile.  A perfect match wasn’t good enough.  Even though he’s done everything she would want a man to do to fall in love, there’s not a chance they’re getting together.  In fact, a man could do so much less and win her heart.  She’s not nearly as cornered by his question as he wishes she was.  She doesn’t owe him an answer.  In fact, we would all be quite proud of her if she responded, “You’re disgusting!  You know what?  If you really love me, try divorcing Jenny and swear off sports forever.  Then come back to me and I might consider letting you start all over again…you [insert expletive here]!”

John doesn’t love Sally; he is only hoping to use her standard to force her into owing him.  She wasn’t lying when she wrote all those things on her profile.  Those were really the things she liked and wanted, but in the end, doing those things only counted if they were symptoms of a relationship.  They could never be the cause of the relationship.  There is almost no difference in action between John and Sally’s true love.  There is almost no similarity in heart between John and Sally’s true love.

Now back to Jesus: in response to the rich man asking “what do I have to do to earn heaven?”  Jesus responds, “If you can show me that there’s nothing more important than me, you can move in with me.  Otherwise, your perfect moral conformity just isn’t good enough.”

On my best Christian days, when I am most like Christ, I am almost as good as a Pharisee.  They tithed, went to church, they were nice, they never missed devotions, they worked hard.  Their school teachers had it made!  Their neighborhoods were safe, and they were some of the cleanest people alive.  By the age of 15, they all had more scripture memorized than I do.  And yet, Jesus says to them, “The cheats and the whores are entering heaven before you!”  (Matthew 21:31)  Jesus does not say “The cheats and the whores MIGHT enter heaven before you if they clean themselves up.”  The perfect moral conformists are not getting into heaven, and the rule breakers are.  And it angers the moral conformist every time!

This is precisely why the church can’t win a debate with an atheist about salvation.  The American ‘christian’ may have the license plate frame that says, “Christians aren’t perfect, they’re just forgiven”, but we look down our noses at people who are doing wrong.  When the alcoholic walks into church, we all know we’re all better than he.  He says, “Well I’m a Christian too,” but we look at each other knowingly, right?  We know we’re better because we’re sober.  That’s what sets us apart.

But Americans are not good enough to really bank on it – and we know it.  For example, atheism is condemned by the Bible, but atheists are often very good people, and it’s frustrating.  We like to ignore the good atheists, and we teach the children to be afraid of them.  Homosexuality is also condemned by the Bible, but homosexuals are often very good people, so we strain to point out the perverts (as if the heteros had no perverts among themselves).  In these cases, when pressed in a reasonable debate, we end up falling back on our “forgiven” status to set us apart.

So when we’re better than the competition, we’re better; when the competition is better than us, we’re forgiven.  Either way, we win.  I was on a high school basketball team like that once.  When we won, we were proud; when we lost, we were better sports.  (We were ‘better sports’ a lot.)  When I close my eyes, I can still hear the echoes of protective team moms on the way back to our private school, “I’m so proud of you boys.  They may have won, but it’s better to lose with dignity than to win and be like them.”  That would be followed by a point-by-point character assassination, recalling all the ways in which our opponents had played dirty or how the referees had been just horribly biased.

None of us really believed it.  We all just hoped everyone else did.  Kind of like church.  We’ve worked so hard to do good – we want it to make us better than someone else.  What separates us from the Pharisees is that we also have our crutch of God’s grace.  We want to be the best, but we’ll settle for being forgiven.  Whichever one we are at the time, that’s the right one to be.

It’s frustrating to the religious person that God’s requirement for heaven is not that a person stops sinning.  Repentance is not a requirement for salvation; it is an effect of salvation.  The real requirement is the relationship.  As soon as I catch myself trying to be good, there is a good chance I’m pursuing the wrong goal.  I’m trying to fix the scale instead of fixing my diet.  The scale is important, but even if I can fix it to say the right thing, I have only deceived myself.  Judgment day will be devastating for such people, because “Perfect” is good, but it’s not good enough.  Never forget that, as a disciplined and educated Jewish Rabbi, Jesus was never upset with the Pharisees for being religious.  He was primarily angry that they were only religious.

Romans 2:14-15, paraphrased:  When the non-religious (who do not know scriptures) get saved, they naturally obey the scriptures, because the requirements of the God are written on their hearts and in their consciences.