Since the Garden of Eden and the first sin, man has been a blame-shifter and played the victim. God asked Adam what he had done, and Adam blamed his wife – “The woman you gave to me, she gave me the fruit, and I ate.” And the woman, following her husband’s example, passed the buck as well, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
And ever since, we have followed in the footsteps of our first parents, not only in sinning, but in our blaming and playing the victim. But remember that the explicit penalty for disobedience to God’s command was death. So, Adam, by blaming his wife, was implicitly condemning his wife to death. Since the wages of all sin is death, every time we blame someone else for our sin, we are condemning them to death. And, given the fact that God created all things, all blame-shifting is ultimately blaming God. The woman you gave me, the serpent you created, the parents you gave me, the children you gave me, the health you gave me, the job you gave me, the weather, the traffic, the internet. You’re blaming God for creating the circumstances in which you couldn’t help sinning. You’re accusing God of victimizing you. Thus, blame-shifting is always an act of hatred and violence against our neighbor and against our Maker. We are always implicitly saying that we wish they would die for our sin.
But trying to find safety in playing the victim is a dehumanizing black hole. Playing the victim is ultimately saying that your choices are worth nothing, that you are not free, and that your existence is meaningless. But God in His great mercy has come in His Son in order to restore to us the dignity of being His images in this world. And He does this beginning with insisting that all men embrace the dignity of guilt. People thrash about doing everything they can to avoid their guilt. But Jesus said He only came for the sick. He came for the blind, the lame; He came for the guilty. So do not pretend. You are not here because you are good. We are here because we are not good, but we have met the One who is Good. And He was the only innocent victim, and He bled and died for our sin.
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