Reply To: The Holiness of God, Chapter 5 – The Insanity of Luther

‘We’re all mad here’, famous quote that kept coming to mind when reading about Luther. “Some theorists argue that people may have a more accurate view of reality when they’re insane than when they are sane. There’s a fine line between genius and insanity.” And so I see a continuum, and how we usually strive for balance in most areas of life. On the one extreme end I see where Luther falls with his guilt complex, being labeled “abnormal because he lost his defenses to ignore danger. Yet he saw things that many(way too many) people miss.” I’d much rather err on this end of the spectrum, focusing on how far I am from God’s holiness than the other where sadly I feel too many fall- overusing the defense of denial of sin. I read a devotional on Jeremiah 6 yesterday, ‘the people “were not ashamed,/they did not know how to blush”, a version of the unpardonable sin- a state of soul in which people have so shut themselves off from correction that they are incapable of response. And to think that this could happen to a people chosen by God! A slow process of hardening of the heart.’ I guess we can’t accuse Luther of that and we pray for the same softening our own hearts as well as other’s. So that echoed Sproul discussing the “great transgression- to fail to love God with all the heart; He is concerned about our deepest motivations, not our tarnished good deeds.” So funny but probably true that people would want “God to compromise his holiness and grade (our negative behavior or thoughts) on a curve”!
Love the image of standing in front of and “being undone and shattered by the mirror of a holy God.” May we repent and lay all our guilt and sin at the foot of His saving Cross and only see Christ when we look at ourselves in the mirror but also as we reflect that image to the world.