The New Self

Keepers of the status quo do not like or appreciate those who threaten what they are committed to preserve.  Usually, their persistence about preservation of the status quo is not so much about the institution as the power they seek to preserve for themselves.  Certainly, this was true in Jesus's day.  Those who stood at the top of the Jewish religious system saw Jesus as a threat to everything upon which they stood.  There was no room in their world for someone like Him.  Surely, as He was dying on the cross, they were saying and thinking, "He got what He deserved."  Through their words they tried to justify what was happening and their part in it.

 

They had it wrong.  Instead of saying, "He got what He deserved," they should have said, "Jesus got what we deserved."  But, of course, they could not even think such a thing.  Their sense of personal righteousness would not have allowed it.  In their mind Jesus' death on the cross had nothing to do with the fundamental wrongness of their lives for they could not perceive that there was anything wrong about them or their way of life. 

 

Surprisingly enough, it is no different with today's culture of religious people.  It remains hard for us to admit that there is something fundamentally wrong with us.  We may not think of ourselves as self-righteous, but we still tend to value what is perceived as an innate goodness in the human spirit.  It causes us to mistakenly think that given enough time we can correct whatever personal flaws we might have making ourselves better as well as the world around us.  According to the Word of God, it is a flawed way of thinking.  When Jesus died on the cross, He got what we deserve. When we figure that one out.we are on the road not to a better self, but a new one.