Is Jesus God and Can He Remove My Shame? (Part 2)
Let me introduce you to shame. You may have already met, or perhaps you are scratching your head, wondering why he looks familiar but pretty sure you don’t know him. Sometimes in Western cultures, he gets mixed up with his cousin Guilt.
Guilt says You did something bad.
Shame says You are bad.
Guilt points to conviction. He helps us see our actions clearly and how they impact others. He gives us a shove toward repentance. Although he is an unpleasant-looking fellow, he does generally good work if we cooperate.
Shame, on the other hand, points to condemnation. Actually, he does more than point to it. He shackles his victims with condemnation and forces them to believe there is no hope. His work is evil and destructive.
Shame is a liar. He whispers to his bearers, You are not enough. I know who you really are. I won’t let you forget. You are too bad to ever be made good. You are too dirty to become clean.
Have you met him?
Sin committed against us, sin committed by us, imperfections, failures, limitations, all can lead to shame. We curl up in a corner in our minds, hiding, listening to paralyzing accusations.
In Western cultures, shame is often concealed deep in one’s heart, hidden away and avoided like the closet filled with junk that no one wants to clean out. Western, individualistic cultures have that privilege, the privilege of keeping to one’s self and hiding the truth from their communities.
Western Culture: A broad term used to refer to a heritage of norms, values, political systems, customs and belief systems originating in Europe. The “Western World” includes, but is not limited to, nations in parts of Europe, the Americas, and Australasia.
Individualistic Culture: Societies characterized by emphasis on the individual over the group.
In many non-Western cultures, particularly those with an honor-shame worldview, shame is not private. In such collectivistic societies, shame is a family, a community, even a national affair. If one does something against the norm, shame catapults her outside of the group and honor is lost. The individual’s behavior impacts not only her but every group to which she belongs. Shame’s ripples broaden and spread to the very edge of her existence, exposing her for all to see.
Collectivistic Culture: Societies characterized by emphasis on the group over the individual.
Regardless of one’s culture, shame is thriving in human hearts everywhere. And it is keeping people from knowing their real worth to God.
Each and every one of us is beloved by God. Beloved by God should be the bedrock of every person’s identity, but for many, the truth has been obscured by shame. Who is qualified to rescue us from our captivity?
Can the Messiah, sent because of God’s great love for us, remove our shame?
Flawed
Original sin (the sinful nature we all inherit because of Adam’s fall) rendered each of us imperfect. Romans 3:23 affirms our flawed condition: …for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Shame is but one consequence of this inherited state.
But lodged within the desolation of Romans 3:23 is a priceless gem, sparkling with hope.
The Greek word for “glory” in Romans 3:23 is doxa, from dokeō, meaning honor and approval. We are all sinners who have lost the original honor intended for us. Doxa gives us a breathtaking glimpse into that original intention of God’s heart for the people he created. The Lexical Aid to the New Testament describes doxa like this: “It is a state in which one is accorded the fullest enjoyment of the admiration and honor of God—the object of His highest regard and praise.”
This description should make our jaws drop. The Creator God, He who designed the intricacy of the snowflake, He who made the remarkable chameleon with eyes that can look two different directions at one time and three-fingered hands to grip a rubber tree, He who with mere words made the stars appear in the heavens, That One designated you and I the object of his highest regard and praise.
But instead of walking with heads held high, confident we are loved, too many of us slump and shuffle along, not sure if He even cares.
Jeremiah 18:4 says, The vessel… was marred…so he made it again (KJV).
As Jeremiah watched the potter remake the vessel, he witnessed the centrality of God’s redemptive story. The imperfect is perfected, the marred is remade. Sin flawed the human soul, God redeemed it. Herein lies hope for the shamed.
The Two Perfections of Jesus
The good news of what Christians call the Gospel is that God cared so much that He sent Jesus, the Messiah, to release us from the verdict of Original Sin and restore our honor with God. This Messiah has the authority to both forgive our sin and also abolish our shame, and it all has to do with His perfection.
In Part One of this series, we discussed the two Greek verbs used in John 1 that compare what Jesus had always been and what He became at his incarnation. Jesus had been (ēn) and also became (egeneto). We see a similar pattern of contrast regarding the perfection of Jesus.
Jesus was morally perfect, yet he became perfect through suffering. He was, yet he became.
Morally Perfect
Colossians 1:19-20 says of Jesus,
For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
Jesus was perfectly, completely, God. This was his first perfection, ascribed to him by God the Father, who was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him. Without sin, Jesus was morally perfect.
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin (Hebrews 4:15).
God became human through Jesus Christ. In doing so, he identified with us in the pageant of human experience. He was tempted in every way, just as we are.
Yet, he was without sin. Herein lies our first clue that this Jesus is more than a mere mortal.
For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man (Romans 8:3).
Rules and laws look promising at first glance. They seem powerful. The right plan can inspire us to tackle the worst habit. When He gave the laws of the Old Testament, God gave his people a good plan, rules for living a holy life. But the sinful nature weakened the law, corrupted it, and disabled it. The law could not save because the people following the law could not stick to it. Neither can we today.
Human religious systems of good behavior can never overcome Original Sin. A price must be paid, and it must satisfy the debt. Its requirement is perfection, and no human is perfect. Therefore, no human can satisfy the debt.
God came Himself, sending His own Son to be the sin offering. An unblemished, morally perfect Savior. The debt could be paid permanently. The grinding machination of the sacrificial system came to a halt, and the Lamb of God became the final offering for sin.
God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21, NET).
He who knew no sin became sin for us. His life for ours. His perfect, unblemished life, for our imperfect, marred life. And all who will believe in Him are made again, clean, forgiven, righteous,
Only a sinless Savior could render sinful humanity completely righteous.
Made Perfect Through Suffering
Jesus was morally perfect, without sin. And He also became perfect through suffering. This was His second perfection. Made perfect through suffering, He was qualified to abolish sin and shame forever for all who will trust in Him.
For the Jews in Jesus’ time, a suffering Messiah was a stumbling block. This remains true for Muslims today. How could an all-powerful God allow Himself to suffer? God the great and merciful, the all-powerful, surely would never allow Himself to experience such shame and dishonor.
In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering (Hebrews 2:10, NIV).
The Greek word in Hebrews 2:10 for perfect is teleioō (Strongs, 5457), meaning literally to carry to the goal, or consummation (the point at which something is completed or finalized). This verse is not talking about Jesus’ moral perfection. Rather, it is stating that the Savior had to enter fully into the human experience of suffering in order to bring completion to the goal: to bring many sons to glory.
Jesus was fully God, and here we see He was also fully man. He was completely qualified to both lead humanity to salvation and to be the very author of their salvation.
Jesus was perfect and He became perfect through suffering. In other words, He was fully God and He entered fully into the human experience of suffering, completing and finalizing the salvation of humanity. These are the two perfections of Jesus.
The author of Hebrews urges believers, Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2, NRSV). He who is perfect is also our Perfecter. He disregarded the shame of the cross that we might run free from its bonds.
This is the beautiful Messiah, Jesus Christ. And yes, He can remove our shame. Indeed, He has already completed the task for all who will trust Him.