The final verse in the book of Judges in the Old Testament states, “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25 – ESV). Regardless of any given form of governance, the concluding sentence of this book written so long ago still describes much of human existence ever since, i.e. everyone does what is right in his or her own eyes. On one hand, this sentiment is often portrayed as the exercise of individual rights in a free society, and some judges today seem to support this. On the other, such sentiments simply express narcissism. Either way, what should happen if two or more individuals hold opposite positions regarding what is right in their own eyes? Who, then, is right? Does “might make right”? The potential for violent conflict is probably why humanity still has so many judges.
Within the multitude of varying perspectives, each human being is aware to some degree, despite “doing what is right in one’s own eyes,” that one has “blind spots.” Sometimes those blind spots are larger, and sometimes they are smaller. Blind spots can be particularly insidious because they may often be patently blatant to others, perhaps particularly so when we paradoxically try to conceal our blind spots. Theologically, such blinds spots both conceal and reveal the nature of human sin. Sin hides us from sinful ourselves and yet exposes us for our sinful nature. This dynamic is further complicated and exacerbated by the vast individuality of our communal sinfulness where millions are doing chiefly what they think is right in their own eyes.
The inclination of each sinful person continuing to do “what is right in his own eyes,” stems from our innate inability to do what is right in God’s sight, namely to trust him in every aspect of life. As the history of the Old Testament portrays, even the kings could not stop people from doing what was right from their own sinful perspective because the kings themselves were no better. So, if the nation’s leaders were blind to their own sinning, or worse, were willing to cover their sin up and punish or kill those who would expose it, who could truly be judged to be right?
Human beings spending their days doing only what they see to be right, aware or unaware of their personal blind spots, not to mention their blinding sinfulness, is what Jesus came to confront with his life, death, and resurrection. Fully aware of humanity’s sinfulness, Jesus came to enlighten the world regarding the blinding darkness of its sin and death. Humanity’s willingness to blot Jesus out of its sinful reality is the ultimate revelation of sin’s rebelliousness against God’s law and God’s love.
The false gospel that sinners are right in their own eyes and that God is wrong has ominously taken on new vigour and virulence in western societies because this disposition has become the mantra of the media. Rather than being censored by an oppressive regime of one sort or another, the modern media has declared for itself the right to censor through personal attack and vilification, i.e. crucifixion by media mob rule, anyone who does not adhere to its public proclamation of rebellion against God and God’s believers. The media’s false gospel is founded upon a modernized expression of a pantheon of paganistic powers which promises the exoneration of sinners and of all their sins by declaring there to be no sin, except for the “sin” of faith in the one true God revealed to humanity in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In contrast to the media’s false gospel, the church is nonetheless called to proclaim the one true gospel. As St. Paul wrote so long ago, “For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:22-26).
Whose eyes would we prefer to behold us, those of the paganistic, lynch mob media or those of the one Mediator between God and humanity, Jesus Christ?
