No Innocent Harm

Scripture

(Romans 5:6-8) For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die--but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Observation

It is pointless to argue that many people choose to die for others. Paul was not writing of a parent's sacrificial, life-risking love for their children, a husband's risks for his wife, a police officer's for the community, or a soldier's for national security. He certainly wasn't referring to the safety-defying attitudes that mercenaries, treasure hunters, sociopaths, and thieves nurture within themselves. He was acknowledging the rarity of a person being so righteous (rigidly law abiding) that a good (benevolent and kind) person would die in the righteous person's place--which sounds rare if only because of the absurdity of such a situation.

But far more absurd would be a good person deliberately dying so a bad person--someone who had been opposing that goodness--could continue to plague the community. Righteousness, by definition, opposes evil. Goodness, likewise, hates to hurt others. So, at the point of Jesus being impaled to the cross, when He prayed, "Father, forgive them--they don't realize what they're doing," God's holy righteousness and His unblemished goodness would have remained unblemished if He'd chosen to return the torture and annihilate all humanity. Either Righteousness or Goodness should have stopped the crucifixion, but Love chose absurdity. Still being rigidly righteous, He chose instead to absorb all unrighteousness on Himself, to pay for it; thereby, creating the opportunity for sinners to be forgiven and healed.

Application (Psychological)

Any harm against innocent people should appall and anger us. Fyodor Dostoevsky (like Shakespeare and so many others who preceded modern psychology) observed the human psyche and wrote for us with disrupting insight. He lived in a culture that argued for the occasional suitability and greater good of innocent people suffering miserable lives or even worse deaths (it's suitable as long as someone else is the sufferer). Class privilege is built on that premise, but for it to be established, it must first thrive in individual hearts.

Trying to jolt our consciences and ethical alarms awake, Dostoevsky wrote The Brothers Karamazov. To demonstrate that even one innocent person's death isn't justifiable for the common good, he described (near the end of the chapter called Rebellion) the horror of an innocent eight-year-old boy who was chased and killed by hounds. "If the suffering of little children is needed to complete the sum total of suffering required to pay for [eternal harmony]," he concluded, "I don't want that." Righteous and good people should be shocked by that absurdity of requiring others to suffer on their behalf. This is why Jesus' death has to be honestly absurd to us: He should not have died for us, which in turn makes His love even more appalling and inviting. And only God--not any of us--could fulfill that task of dying an innocent, substitutionary death for others. It never was, nor will it ever be appropriate for us to consider that sort of death ourselves (which is a huge relief).

Application (Personal)

Surprisingly then, Paul later advised the Romans to duplicate Jesus' all-giving, sacrificial love back toward God: "I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, with is your spiritual (reasonable) worship" (12:1). When I first became a believer, in my youthful optimism and physical safety, I gladly offered myself to the Lord for any life-risking service He might deem beneficial. Privately, I considered martyrdom to be a profitable escape from life's or ministry's miseries. What I didn't appreciate was that, in God's mercy, He called me to be a living martyr (the Greek meaning of Paul's words). My demonstration of living righteously with long-suffering kindness towards others is the highest form of voluntary self-sacrifice. Sure, Paul agreed that dying would be much easier, but living for Christ--loving Christ--is far better (Philippians 1-3).

Prayer

Lord, I pray that my love might abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment so that You may liberate my life to be a living demonstration of what is excellent, pure, and blameless. Would You fill me, Lord, with the fruit of Your righteousness so I might bring glory and praise to You? (Philippians 1:9-11).