Are You Right With God?

MANY people may see no point in that question. In their view, feeling right with oneself is more important. ‘Do your own thing’ is a popular maxim these days. ‘Don’t feel guilty’ is another.

This is not just the viewpoint of a few youngsters imbued with the ‘me-first’ philosophy of life. For example, in France, where 82 percent of the population are baptized Catholics, a survey carried out in 1983 revealed that only 4 percent of the people accept the idea of sin. As to the United States, several years ago Dr. Karl Menninger, said to be the “father of American psychiatry,” felt prompted to write a whole book on the subject Whatever Became of Sin? In it he wrote: “As a nation, we officially ceased ‘sinning’ some twenty years ago.” The cover of the book stated: “The word ‘sin’ has almost disappeared from our vocabulary.”

Indeed, the concept of sin is so obscure today that many people, even those claiming to be Christian, would have trouble explaining what sin really is.

Modern-Day Misgivings

In spite of this devaluation of the notion of sin, several recent developments on the world scene have set people thinking. One is the large number of abortions in many of the world’s most developed countries. Some of these, although predominantly “Christian,” have very liberal abortion laws. This glut of fetal killings has produced reactions that people who reject the concept of sin must find hard to explain.

Why, for example, should some women whose philosophy of life permits them to have an abortion have feelings of guilt afterward, even to the point of becoming psychologically ill? Yet, “studies show a high proportion of abortees to be maladjusted,” even in communist Yugoslavia. (The New Encyclopædia Britannica) Professor Henri Baruk, member of the French Academy of Medicine, explains this phenomenon as being due to the violation of “a fundamental principle written in the heart of all people.” Written by whom?

Another recent phenomenon that has set people thinking is the worldwide spread of sexually transmitted diseases. AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome), with its high death rate, has triggered a wave of doubt and anguish among many people for whom promiscuous sex had supposedly brought liberation from outmoded taboos. The high price many are paying for their sexual “freedom” is causing some of them to wonder if, after all, they are not being punished. Punished by whom?

Such modern-day reminders that man cannot with impunity flout moral principles are making some thinking people reassess their opinions of sin and accountability to God.

The Churches and Sin

“The sin of this century is the loss of all sense of sin.” Pope Pius XII made that forceful statement as early as 1946. Obviously, the situation has worsened since then. In his recent document on sin and confession, called “Reconciliation and Penance,” Pope John Paul II quoted those words of his predecessor and deplored what he called the eclipse of the concept of sin in today’s secularized society.

The pope also reminded Catholic priests, and Catholics in general, that collective confession and absolution, as practiced in many Catholic churches today, is not good enough. He stated that individual confession is “the only ordinary and normal way” of observing the sacrament of penance. In Catholic dogma penance is associated with good works in reconciling the sinner with God.

Most Protestant churches deny the need for private confession to a priest. They hold that confession to God is sufficient for the forgiveness of sins, but some favor general confession and absolution at the “Communion service.” Many Protestants believe that faith alone is necessary to be justified before God.

Such conflicting doctrines within the so-called Christian churches on the subject of confession, penance, and justification, or how to find a right standing before God, leave many people perplexed. They have a vague feeling that they should be doing something to get right with God, but they do not know how to go about it.

The following article will explain why we need to be put right with God, and it will examine the Catholic and Protestant viewpoints on “justification.” Two other articles will explain what the Bible teaches on the subject of obtaining a righteous standing before God, and how this affects you.