Death By Love Thoughts

Read another chapter of Driscoll's Death By Love(see below). Driscoll wrote the chapter to a guy who molested a girl and plead guilty. The horror of his act and the life long shame it brings (his name is on the known sex offenders list) has brought him into suicidal depression. Driscoll starts off the letter: "Dear John, you are a despicable human being." Okay, that is not at all where most people would start, but that is where the gospel starts. Later in the chapter Driscoll comments on the fact that sin is so real. Honestly, I think on some level we, and certainly guys like John, are grateful when we call it like it is. There is something wholly disingenuous about the self-esteem culture that tries to paint everything pretty. How do you paint rape up pretty? "You just molested a little girl and probably messed her and her family up for the rest of their lives. But don't feel too bad, you're really a good person." I don't know, something about that just doesn't ring true. So long as you don't do something atrocious, there is hope for you. But for guys like John, who's acts are so beyond redemption the message is quite despairing.

Of course, Driscoll doesn't stay at "your despicable." He goes on to point out that in Christ there is no sex-offender list. He took the punishment and disgrace and has exchanged his purity and righteousness. Due to the cross, John doesn't have to be seen by God as a pedophile but as a righteous, pure, holy, and perfect son. Sin is real, but so is this love. I think that is what I appreciate most about this book. As you delve into the darkest corners of human depravity, corners that make sin so real, and you see blood atonement provide the solution, you cannot help but see how real is the power of the cross.