Unworthy or Worthy? Nope!

 I love the Amplified Classic Bible, but there is something that, frankly, has come to irritate me. Virtually every time the word grace appears in the context of God’s relationship with us, the editors insert an explanatory phrase along the lines of “undeserved and unmerited favor.” I know that they cannot presume upon their readers to retain these explanations from page to page or even from verse to verse and so they repeat it every time. But the image it conjures up now, each time I read that phrase, is of these scholars, the translators, sitting around smacking their foreheads with a great big Bible while monotonously repeating, “I am unworthy. I am unworthy.” It makes me want to respond in a manner akin to “God” in the stage play of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where He shouts from off stage, “Oh, quit your grovelling!” Not that God actually thinks or responds this way, but I sometimes do.

Speaking of The Holy Grail, I suddenly realize that that is where I got the mental picture of Bible scholars whacking their foreheads: there is a scene where a procession of monks in single file are chanting in Latin while intermittently thumping their heads with a short plank. It’s a picture of the same kind of self-flagellation and -abasement: “Unworthy.” Whack! “Unworthy.”

In the same way that I am bothered by the Amplified Classic’s continual reference to unmerited favour, I am grieved (and I think maybe God is grieved as well) every time someone says, regarding His goodness to them, “I know I don’t deserve it.” Oswald Chambers once said, “If we have ever had a glimpse of what we are like in the sight of God, we shall never say—“Oh, I am so unworthy,” because we shall know we are, beyond the possibility of stating it” (My Utmost for His Highest, January 12 reading). 

But when it comes to our relationship with God, worthiness is not the currency we are dealing in. The currency is love. Then again, “currency” is too mercenary a term to be used in connection with love. “Currency is a medium of exchange for goods and services” (investopedia.com). It suggests a system of earning and payment: duty accomplished and reward disbursed. Love, on the other hand, is a relationship where unconditional value is place on the beloved. And we, amazingly, are the beloved. 

As a parent, can you imagine if your child (of any age) were always saying, “I don’t deserve the things you give me. I don’t deserve your love.” It would break your heart! Furthermore, you would be concerned about the mental health of your child.

But before we go further, let us recognize that it is nevertheless both helpful and healthful to grasp the true, negative potential of our depravity, our fallen nature. This most often can only come by revelation. It typically comes by way of a very deep failure, moral or otherwise, which shows us, to the depths of our being, our need of a saviour. It is in that place that we can really receive Jesus, because then we truly know, “beyond the possibility of stating it,” how much we need Him. But then we must determinedly receive what He has promised: “to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). When we have failed, we must choose—against all the weight of our shame—to accept His forgiveness and move forward in confidence that He means what He says: He forgives us, and He is continually cleansing us. 

It seems to me that the constant expression of being undeserving of God’s goodness exhibits a lack of understanding concerning the difference between the old and new covenants, more specifically, the difference between law and grace. And even then (although the Israelites of old could not understand this at the time), the law was only ever given to show us our need of Christ (Galatians 3:24) and to bring us to repentance: “For no person will be justified [freed of guilt and declared righteous] in His sight by [trying to do] the works of the Law. For through the Law we become conscious of sin [and the recognition of sin directs us toward repentance, but provides no remedy for sin]” (Romans 3:20, AMP). 

The law speaks of duty; grace speaks of a love relationship. 

The mention of duty versus love makes me think of something Greg shared with me from a book by C.S. Lewis, George MacDonald, a collection of thoughts from the writings of the Scottish poet and preacher. In #59, a short meditation called “Law and Spirit,” MacDonald explains that we cannot keep God’s Commandments by striving to do so in our own strength. We inevitably fail, and then, he says, “the man is overwhelmed in the weight of their broken pieces.” It requires a truly regenerate heart to produce pure actions: “a power of life, not of struggle; the strength of love, not the effort of duty.”

Perhaps the striving of duty stems from the old myth of earning God’s favour by good deeds and hoping that at the end of our lives when we are weighed in the scales of judgement, the good will outweigh the bad. But this a myth, a gross misunderstanding. God never had such a system in mind. 

It’s not that behaviour isn’t important, but first the heart must be settled on the matter of being completely accepted by God. Truly righteous behaviour grows out of the confidence of being rightly related to God.

Are we trying to earn our right-standing with God by proper behavior, or are we simply, by faith, receiving the gift of His love and imputed righteousness? In Romans Chapter 4, Paul clearly lays out two very different systems of receiving benefit: 1) being an employee who works to earn his wages and therefore deserves to receive them and 2) being the beneficiary of a gift. The first scenario is laid out here: “Now to a laborer, his wages are not counted as a favour or a gift, but as an obligation—something owed to him” (Romans 4:4, AMPC). The second is illustrated here: “But to the one who does not work [that is, the one who does not try to earn his salvation by doing good], but believes and completely trusts in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited to him as righteousness (right standing with God)” (Romans 4:5, AMP).

 If you consider yourself to be an “employee” of God, then you will work to try to earn what He gives you. You either work very hard to please God and then subconsciously feel you deserve to be rewarded, or you don’t work hard enough (in your estimation) and therefore don’t deserve anything. (You feel you have failed because you have done things you shouldn’t or not done things you should.) 

If, on the other hand, you are plainly (and generously) being given a gift, it has nothing to do with your performance. This is the Good News, or at least one way of expressing it.

Let us not think of God as an employer who will pay us what we have earned, withhold what we have not earned, or perhaps pay us anyway and leave us feeling vaguely and perpetually guilty for receiving a reward that shouldn’t be ours. Let us think of God clearly as the loving Father He is and of ourselves as His beloved children whom He delights to restore and bless.

Do you know what the monks were chanting in Monty Python’s story? “Pie Iesu Domine, dona eis requim”: “Holy Jesus, Lord, grant them rest.” So that is my prayer today for those still struggling with the idea of worthiness. You are not unworthy, and you are not worthy. You are simply loved.