Denial and Admission

Nothing keeps people away from Christ* more than their inability to see their need of him or their unwillingness to admit it. As Jesus put it: ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’ (Mk. 2:17). He was defending against the criticism of the Pharisees his policy of fraternizing with ‘tax collectors and “sinners”’. He did not mean by his epigram about the doctor that some people are righteous, so that they do not need salvation, but that some people think they are. In that condition of self-righteousness they will never come to Christ. For just as we go to the doctor only when we admit that we are ill and cannot cure ourselves, so we will go to Christ only when we admit that we are guilty sinners and cannot save ourselves. The same principle applies to all our difficulties. Deny the problem, and nothing can be done about it; admit the problem, and at once there is the possibility of a solution. It is significant that the first of the ‘twelve steps’ of Alcoholics Anonymous is ‘We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.’ -- John Stott, in commentary on Romans 1

* RP: I think this is true of original forgiveness of the guilt of sin AND of ongoing power over indwelling sin