Rebellion of Sin

It is hard for the mind to wrap itself around the fact that no man does good. This is hard for believers also. It is hard for us to understand how even our righteous deeds are filthy before the Holy One who made us. That man, apart from Christ, simply CANNOT please God. Yet this is what the Bible teaches. Over and over. Apart from faith, we cannot please Him.

One way to understand this is the model of a rebellion. When a rebel leader attempts to knock over the government, that rebel leader certainly does SOME good deeds in is life. Yet the government isn’t really impressed by this, are they? They will send their armies to crush him. Not because he never does anything ethically good. Rather because he is in a state of rebellion. In the 1850s and 60s in China, there was a rebellion led by a Confucian scholar from a provincial town in the south. His name was Hong. Not many people outside China know this, but it is a fascinating and terrible event in history. Hong actually claimed to be the brother of Jesus Christ, and he led a rebellion of “God-worshippers,” one that claimed a territory about the size of a large province, and which could have knocked over the ruling Qing dynasty. Now this rebel leader had done many ethical reforms. He was knows as a reformer. He passed laws against polygamy. He passed laws against judicial torture. Most of us would call them “good.” Not only that, but he had associates who had lived in British territory, and learned a great deal of how their more advanced administration worked. Therefore he began to institute more efficient systems of administration, such as postal services and the like. So basically, the rebel did some GOOD THINGS. He increased ethics and efficiency.

Yet do you think that Hong’s moral laws impressed the emperor of China? Did it please him? Did the emperor say – well that rebel sure is a good man, I’m going to let his armies march across my domain and take the capital right now? Did he say – This genius sure has some good administrative systems, let’s make him our next king instead of me? No, of course not. You see, even the rebel’s righteous deeds were like filthy rags before the emperor. Nothing he could do would please the king. He could pass all the just laws in the book, and he would STILL be condemned. That’s because he was in a state of rebellion, and the emperor sent his armies down south, fought battle after battle, and crushed his rebellion forever. Hong was living in a state of rebellion. Similarly, we are in a state of sin.

You see, what the rebel leader needed to do before the emperor was not pass just laws in his stolen land. It wasn’t to create efficient administration in his stolen land. Rather, it was to surrender, make peace with the emperor, and live submissively in his kingdom. THAT is what he needed to do to please the king. No righteous laws would ever do that. He’d still be under the emperor’s wrath. Only surrender. Submission. Peace. That would please the king. That’s what you and I need to do too. Not pat ourselves on the back for some good deeds. We just need to surrender to the King, accept the peace offering of His Son, and live obediently in the kingdom of God. The rebellion has to end. Then we’ll talk about our deeds possibly being good before God. Not while we are still in rebellion.