Providence Points: 9mm Gospel
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Biblical, Devotional & Informational
April 20, 2007
Vol. 2, No. 8
Special Edition:
The 9mm Gospel
To understand the Virginia Tech massacre, one must understand sin and
redemption.
In the midst of blame-throwing, soul-searching & question-begging on
the national scene, such a statement appears unbelievable. But please
bear with me.
Guilt is an inescapable condition of sinful man. Thus, in the Old
Testament economy the main thrust of the ceremonial law was sin and
redemption. The temple, the priesthood and the animal sacrifices
portrayed these realities. To assuage a guilty conscience
satisfaction had to be rendered. Justification before the tribunal
had to be accomplished.
During the Day of Atonement, besides the offerings, a goat was sent
free. The sins of the people were placed symbolically upon the
creature and it was sent into the wilderness. It was the scapegoat.
Through the centuries peoples and nations have lived with guilt.
Before the absolute perfection of God's moral Law, all men are
guilty. They have transgressed the Law in thought, word and deed
(Rom. 1:20ff.). Accordingly, they have all sought freedom from such a
guilty conscience. They have sought self-atonement and self-
justification. This attempted jail-break from the prison of
culpability has taken many forms, but can be narrowed down into two
types: masochism and sadism.
Masochism is not merely that narrowly defined sexual sin wherein the
person demands self-punishment as a license to sin, it is broadly self-
punishment to satisfy a guilty conscience. (Rushdooney list five
variations of this in his book, Politics of Guilt and Pity (1978, p.
2ff.)).
Sadism is sometimes described as inverted masochism. This approach
tries to level the moral playing field by attacking an innocent
party. It, too, is a form of self-justification, but through
punishing others it justifies its own sin. For instance, "Some parents
will both indulge flagrantly and then punish savagely their children
as they alternate between a mood of longing for the triumph of self-
indulgence and a resentment that anyone can escape the punishment when
they cannot" (p.6).
The need for atonement, purity and justification is strong in the
minds of sinners. The Christian church must understand this fact in
its analysis of itself and the society around it. Man's basic problem
is sin and the accompanying guilt that consumes him. Thus, Christians
of all the world philosophies have the explanation for today's
troubled world.
The 9mm butchering of 30 students at Virginia Tech was not an
unexplainable happenstance, as one popular conservative talk-show
opined. Nor was this macabre act a result of a mind that was "ill,"
"irrational," or "confused," as many other commentators claimed.
No.
The student was only acting out his 9mm Gospel.
It is a gospel that would destroy everyone so as to save itself.
It is a gospel of frustration, trying to appease a guilty conscience
through a bloody atonement accomplished in a rain of gunfire.
It is a gospel hemmed in by the man-made strictures of godless men.
It believed the lie that truth is relative, that social restrictions
and responsibilities are merely the product of man's ever-changing
mind. It bought the lie that this world is a product of chance and
whim.
Thus, he concluded that might makes right. Why should the ones with
the biggest guns make the rules? Why should the majority be right?
Why should other people be free from the sins gnawing at his soul?
In an ever-increasing de-Christianization of America through outright
denials of God to churchly downplaying of sin and grace, the fruit of
generations of gospel-hatred are maturing. This is not simply a
"blame society" observation, but a realization that sin is leavening
society to a critical point. The seams are fraying; the buttons are
bursting.
And this young man is but one manifestation of rebellion against God.
Most likely brought up in a semi-pagan home and fed nihilism and
evolutionary thought, he simply acted out the logic of such anti-god
systems.
He could not live with his guilt and he would not seek justification
in Christ alone. So, he sought self-atonement through the bloody
sacrifices of others.
Then he realized his sadism was insufficient. To prove his self-
autonomy, his control over himself, he murdered himself.
Thus, his 9mm gospel brought him peace in this world. The controlling
voices of family, friends and state are shut out forever. But the
controlling justice of God is not.
Proverbs 8:36 sets before the world the antithesis between the 9mm
gospel & God's Gospel, Wisdom & foolishness, Life & death: "But he who
sins against me wrongs his own soul; All those who hate me love
death."
To the newscasters, students and professionals, this horrible event is
a terrifying peek into the soul of man. It is a peek into their own
black rebellious soul. Every man is guilty before God's tribunal.
And many will seek a scapegoat to avoid that tribunal.
Yet, if they renounce their own self-justification and claim Christ's
atonement, their consciences will be assuaged and freedom will ensue.
No man is more docile than a guilty man. And no man is more empowered
than a guilt-free man.
If they do not learn the lesson of this wake-up call, the 9mm gospel
of will spread its bloody hands far and wide across this country.
Guilty men will see the failed attempts of less bloody forms of
atonement and heed the siren call of power and control through the
barrel of a gun.