Poor Poor Pitiful Me

A Sketch of Sin's Corruption

For we know that the whole creation groatheth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. Romans 8:22-23.

This is not what Warren Zevon meant when in the mid-1970's he penned the words to his song, Poor Poor Pitiful Me, a song made famous (as I recall) by Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Ponies. Zevon was writing more about the woeful things that happened to him in his carnal life (whether fictionally or not), not his own pitiful state of corruption, a state shared by all of humanity and creation as a result of Adam's sin. Nor was he writing about his hope of redemption. A sad song with an upbeat tempo to make it entertaining for modern listeners, it fails to identify true woe and fails to identify any true solution. That is the truth of it – man has limited capacity to identify the problem, and has no solution to offer even if he could. To identify our condition with clarity, to bring mankind to a state of contrition before a Just and Righteous God, the Law must be preached with all of its force, to humble man's pride and reduce him to a state of terror before the reality of God's pending wrath against him. What a wicked thing it is when Christians – especially pastors and evangelists – withhold from sinners the terrible truth!

The Curse of the Law
A curse against mankind is announced in God’s Law – the demand of perfect and continuous obedience to His commands (sinlessness) in all of one’s thoughts, words, and actions, and the requirement of a nature that is set apart for God (holiness). It is a curse because, by nature, mankind has neither sinlessness nor holiness – he is sinful from the time of his conception (Ps. 51:5), his mind dwells only upon evil and regards God’s truth as foolishness (Ge. 6:5; 1 Co. 2:14), he is by nature the enemy of God (Ro. 8:7), and by his works he can in nowise merit favor with Him (Eph. 2:1,3; Ro. 3:10-18). A perfectly Just God demands that man’s sin be punished (Col. 3:25), and the Just punishment is death and eternal separation from God (Ro. 6:23a).

In the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Curse of the Law is Lifted
In the face of the Law, our truly pitiful state is exposed. Yet, Good News comes to mankind through the Gospel: a perfectly loving God, desiring a relationship with man (Eph. 2:4-5; 1 Jn. 4:19) and knowing that mankind cannot reconcile himself with God (Ro. 3:10-18), sent His Son Jesus Christ to live a perfect life under His Law (2 Co. 5:21; 1 Pe. 2:22; 1 Jn. 3:5) and to suffer the punishment of death for the sins of the whole world (1 Jn. 2:2), that by faith in Christ all sinners have forgiveness of sins, spiritual life, and eternal salvation (Col. 1:14; Eph. 2:8 Ti. 2:11, 3:7). Through faith, such a person carries the name of Christ, bears His righteousness before God (Ro. 4:20-25), and is called His child (Gal. 4:4-7).

Yet, Sin Inheres...
St. Paul writes to the Romans:

For we know that the Law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.
For that which I do, I allow not;
for what I would, that I do not;
but what I hate, that I do.
If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the Law, that it is good. Now then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing; for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
For the good that I would do, I do not;
but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Now, if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

I find a Law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the Law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the Law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Romans 7:14-24

Only the man brought from spiritual death to life through the quickening power of the Holy Spirit can admit that, while the Law fully applies to him, the Law is good – nay, can delight in the Law of God, as St. Paul puts it. The Law is no longer a curse for the Believer, but a blessing; Christ has for us fulfilled the Law in all of its requirements. For the Believer, the Law continues to show him his sin (for he is still sinful) and to work contrition as, in his new nature, he struggles against the lusts of his flesh, against the old nature which is still with him. For the Christian, God's Law stands as a reminder of what he deserves (eternal condemnation) in the face of what he has instead received (full pardon and righteous standing before God), and so continues to remind him of the infinite value of the Gospel he eternally benefits from, and guides him in his acts of service for the sake of Christ. It stands as the basis for his continuing fear of God, that he should take His Law seriously – as Dr. Martin Luther makes plain in the leading phrases of his explanations of the Ten Commandments, We should fear, love, and trust God, that we... (LC I:319-333). The Christian both needs and wants to hear God's Law. He is indeed a wretched man, groaning within himself, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of [his] body.

That our bodies and all of Creation continue to suffer from the corruption of sin is evident. The Second Law of Thermodynamics declares by observation that all closed systems decay to a state of greater disorder (or, greater entropy). Living organisms suffer disease, deformity, and injury. They age and die. Even the stones weather to dust. The motions of the planets have been observed to slow down. Stars and entire galaxies, like people, are born to eventually die, and even the rate at which galaxies form new stars has slowed. Sin's corruption permeates Creation, death and the process of death surrounds us. It is inescapable. Our souls have been redeemed by Christ, and through faith we are given spiritual life, yet our bodies continue to decay under the effects of sin. And so we await the Second Coming of Christ and the Resurrection, wherein we shall receive new bodies uncorrupted by sin.

Death is Swallowed Up in Victory

Raised Incorruptible on the Last Day

Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For the corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

So when this incorruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written,

Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the Law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord (1 Co. 15:51-58).

Faith looks back to the completed work of Christ on behalf of all mankind, His righteous fulfillment of the Law and His payment for our sins on the cross, and appropriates to the believer the promises He offers in the Gospel: forgiveness of sins, spiritual life, and eternal salvation. Holding on to these promises in faith, the believer, full of hope, also looks forward to the Day these promises are finally delivered. Indeed, because Christ has raised Himself from the dead, demonstrating that He is who He said He is, that His payment was sufficient, and that He does what He says He will do, we can have every confidence that the promises He offers us in the Gospel are as good as delivered. Yet, faith alone, being the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen (He. 11:1-2), assures us of what these facts only point to: we are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time (1 Peter 1:3-9).


Further Contemplation

Freddy Finkelstein and the vocation of Home Improvement...

I was contemplating these things over the past few weeks. Two weeks ago, I posted a picture of my hands, displaying injury from “home improvement” activities. The prominent injury, on my left wrist, required a visit to the emergency room along with stitches. The E.R. surgeon was delighted that upon examination of the wound, no real damage was evident: “Oh, good!' he exclaimed, “You only cut skin. We don't need to do any tendon repair in the O.R.” Ten days later, when he pulled my stitches, my G.P. wasn't as thrilled: “Uh, oh.” He said. “We need to get you to an orthopaedic surgeon, fast.” Within an hour I was sitting with an orthopaedic specialist across town, making arrangements for urgently needed tendon and nerve repair surgery.

Over the weekend, awaiting surgery, I was speaking to my father about this and related things, and he mentioned something that is very true. “You've reached an age where responsibility has your attention on a dozen different things at once. Everything you do needs to be done fast so you can get on to the next thing, and in everything you do, you are distracted by what still needs to be done. I've been there.” Of course, there is no real solution to the realities of responsibility, other than to to be aware of them – short of abandoning responsibility in some form, that is.

Freddy Finkelstein and the vocation of Home Improvement. The rest of the story...

I view such toil as the consequence of sin and part of the curse of the Law. When God expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, He said to Adam,

Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, 'Thou shalt not eat of it': Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.(Ge. 3:17-19)

Some people, theologians even, claim that this only applies to farmers. Hogwash, I say. I may not cultivate real thistles, but I see the equivalent result from all of my labor. Most folks with a real job – who, in fact, also “eat by the sweat of their brow” – see it, too. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? ...I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation (Eccl. 1:2-3,14). Thus saith the author of the Book of Ecclesiastes (probably King Solomon). And by experience, I tend to agree. Moreover, the Scriptures would warn us that the responsibilities related to our labours, easily taken out of balance, threaten not physical safety, but our Spiritual welfare: He that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the Word; and the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the Word, and he becometh unfruitful (Matt. 13:22, in Jesus' explanation of the Parable of the Sower).

And yet, in a manner of speaking, man's labour has been redeemed as well. We see this vividly in the Lutheran doctrine of Vocation. This doctrine teaches the Providential aspect of God's work in the affairs of man by means of each person's respective calling in life, or Vocation. It teaches that a Christian’s service to his neighbor does not concern his past (it has been atoned for), it does not concern the future (it is in God’s hands), but focuses on the present (Wingren, G. [1957]. Luther on vocation. Philidelphia, PA: Muhlenberg Press. [pp. 213-234]), on how the Christian puts his God-given talents to use in what he is presently doing (1 Co. 7:17-24) in the interest of his neighbor, for the sake of the Gospel. In other words, he is not trying to earn favor with God, nor striving for special reward for his service, but carries on with contentedness in God’s calling for him and with confidence that He has equipped him for the work He wants to accomplish through him (c.f., Veith, G. [2002]. God at work: Your Christian Vocation in all of life. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books). The author of Ecclesiastes agrees, saying:

There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God. ...For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy; but to the sinner he giveth travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him that is good before God. (Eccl. 2:24-26)

Without him saying so, I know that this is what my father was getting at – not in any sense the avoidance of responsibility to avoid physical calamity, or that labour is a curse or a waste of time, but a reminder to keep balance in my toiling and maintain the focus of true joy and purpose.