The Riots: What’s Obvious

The Riots: What’s Obvious

What has become obvious in the riots is that the old evolutionary hope in the innate goodness of mankind and its gradual improvement over time is entirely unfounded, just as the Bible states, and that there is no answer therefore except in Christ who was sent to us to deliver us— again, just as he has said.

We should not hold any vestige of remaining hope in religious rituals to save us, or yet other social constructs or programs but ultimately and first only in the pure, stark saving gift of Christ seen in Scripture. He came down from heaven, lived without sin, and died for (in the place of) sinful and truly destitute people like each of us, including those in riot videos and those who gaze at riot videos as if they are looking in a mirror. Yes, there is a systemic problem here. It is my problem and yours, the problem of the sinful heart resulting in the inevitable rebellious actions of EVERY person.

Christ alone gives hope because he alone effectively died not only to provide a needed example, but to truly forgive our sins by bearing them himself in our place in order to make each of us who desperately come to him a new creation. He rose from the grave in a true body, ascended to his Father and will come again to judge the world and to issue in an entirely new order “where righteousness dwells.” He sent his Spirit to live in us and remake us from the inside first. There is hope now. It has always been so.

It does not help to once again presume that we are good and can reform the heart of man with some posturing and this or that program, when merely looking and thinking about ourselves reveals otherwise. The problem is in the heart. There has been and will continue to be only one way out for us, but it is entirely sufficient.