#STRask - Is the Belief That We’re All Broken and Need a Savior a Sad Way to View Life?

Episode Date: September 21, 2026

Questions about how to respond to an unbeliever who says the belief that we’re all broken is a sad way to view life, how to reconcile Zechariah and Elizabeth being blameless with Jesus being the only sinless man, and whether the psalms about delighting in God’s Law are outdated and legalistic.   What’s the best way to respond to an unbeliever who says the belief that we’re all broken and need a Savior is a very sad way to view life? If Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous and observed all the the Lord’s commands blamelessly (per Luke 1), how can we say Jesus was the only sinless man? Is all the talk in the Psalms about delighting in God’s Law and meditating on it and doing things to help you follow it better outdated and legalistic?

And we're back. Did you miss us? We are indeed. All right. Here's a question from Christine. When sharing my faith with an unbeliever, I once mentioned that we are all broken and we all need a healer slash savior. The person made a comment that it's a very sad way to view life. Was I wrong in making that claim about reality?

What's the best way to respond to these type of comments? Well, I think, Christine, I think, your comment was absolutely perfect. It's the language that I chose for the story of reality because I think it's so apt. I mean, we could say everybody's a sinner, and for outsiders nowadays, it just sounds like religious noise. And but I do not know, who was it? Was it Chesterton who said that the doctrine of original sin or something like that was the one doctrine that could be empirically proven, something to that effect. And the point is, how could anybody look around the world at humanity and say that human beings aren't broken? And this

would be the appeal I'd make, Christine, to whoever you're talking. That's such a sad way of looking at things. Well, yeah, it's not a sad way of looking. It is a realistic way of looking at a sad condition. It's unfortunate because humans are both beautiful and broken. That's the language I use in story of reality, but the concepts, I mean, finding it a little different way of putting it, I got from Francis Schaefer, and he said, he used the words dignity and cruelty. Human beings are dignified, made the image of God, but they're cruel.

And so I just traded on the notion damaged beautiful and broken. so I have an illiteration there. But it's the same thing. I do not understand how anyone can say if the sad thing was a dismissal. I said, well, you have a sad way of viewing. I don't view the world that way. I think everybody's wonderful and I'm wonderful. You know, really?

How could you, have you ever complained about the problem of evil? And most of the time when people complain about the problem of evil, they're not talking about tsunamis. They're not talking about forest fires. They're not talking about volcanoes. They're talking about the evil that human beings do to other human beings. That's not broken? If it's not broken, then it's right. It's the way it's supposed to be. It's what those people do by their own nature. And what Francis Schaefer had pointed out, and I was a student of Schaefer early on, I read him voraciously, particularly his trilogy, the God who is there, he is there and he is not silent and escape from reason. And he said, look, if this is the way human beings have always been, well, what hope is there for restoration?

Because you restore to something that used to be the case, so you can't restore because it's never been other than what we're facing now. what he said in the story, the Christian story, the account of reality, is that human beings were not always like this, and something happened, and we became broken, which means we're capable of being repaired. There's hope. I thought that was really insightful. So, yeah, a broken is perfect. You could say, you know, cruel, if you want, that's Schaefer's language, but that's even to be

more troublesome to your friend. And everybody's broken. I just don't understand how someone, if what they're saying is that sad, they're saying you have a sad and inaccurate outlook on life. I think it is sad. And you can affirm, well, it is sad. But it's not less accurate because it's sad. And I think what the person was offering was, oh, you have such a gloomy look.

I have a better look. What is it? People are good. Really? Of course, there are a lot of people who have that view. Human beings are basically good. This is why they have so much confidence, even after, you know, a century of failures, more than a century now, in communism. Because communism does not take into account the reality of the fallenness of man.

We can make a utopian society. We can all get along together on our own. And, of course, our founders understood that's not going to work because they had a different worldview. This is why you have checks and balances. And, of course, when you see communism working, it doesn't work because the fallenness of man. You still have stratification. You don't have everybody being equal, sharing sweetly in this utopia. It just doesn't work.

It doesn't work ever. And it's because it's rotten at the core. I thought of a couple ways that you could begin to address this. And the first one is to say, well, the question isn't whether or not it's sad. the question is whether or not it's true. Yeah, there you go. Now, what if you were to go to the doctor and the doctor was to say,

well, I'm so sorry, but you have cancer? Now, would you say to the doctor, wow, that's a sad way to view life? Why would you tell me that? I want to have a happy life. You could see right away that you would never want the doctor to lie about that just so you can have a happy view of your life. You want to know what the sad view is.

You want to know what the sad view is so that you can fix it. But if you don't know the truth, you can't solve the problem. So the only way to solve the problem is to know the truth. Now, here's where we get to the reason why I think people avoid this problem. And I think people will avoid this because it's a hopeless problem for them. They don't see a way out. So, for example, when I've had conversations with Mormons and you say to them, we are not the same kind of being as God, what they will say is, wow, that's so depressing. And for a second, it took, you know, it took me a second. Why is that depressing? And then I realized it's because their view is that they have to work their way up to become like God. But if we are different from God completely,

their system will not succeed. And so now it's hopeless. So in the same way, you've got a non-believer and you tell them, you're all broken. Then what they're going to hear is, now it's hopeless. And that's it. That is a sad view. So this is a perfect gateway into saying, well, this is a realistic view. But the reason why it's not hopeless is because we have a Savior. And he died on the cross to pay for your sins so that God could uphold justice and should. show you grace, and he'll give you your spirit so you can kill your sin and you can be conformed into his image. So ultimately, you will be like Christ. This is the most hopeful view you can have. But if you deny the reality, you will never see this hope. And you will go to your grave

feeling happy about yourself, although you have to do a lot of denial in order to do that. You will go to your grave feeling happy about yourself and denying that you're sinful. And then you really are hopeless. So we need to know what is true, not just what makes us feel good about ourselves. Yeah. It's interesting. There's a apparently a very well-known woman actress who died mysteriously. She's 35 years old. I just saw it recently. And I saw a clip where she's on People magazine or something. She's in the front. And the line, the headline said something like, now I'm finally feeling good about myself. And I see this line a lot where people go through all this terminal oil, they come out, and now I'm, I find myself, I'm feeling good about myself or whatever. And well, it's great

that they're feeling better, but it's not because they found a real solution. Maybe they found, notice that there's this struggle. They're underlying all of that is this struggle. You know, what is it? What is it? Now, unfortunately, a lot of times it's, they found their authentic self or They're just doing what they want, and they don't feel bad about it. They've worked that out. The fact is, she's gone now, just like that. And, you know, I don't think anybody knows it publicly. I didn't follow it, the circumstances of her death, but this is it.

You know, it just, we're like, our lives are like a, you know, a breath, and they're here and gone. And you never know. guilt is very hard to face without the gospel it's very hard to face if you have no solution for it so when you present the idea and it sounds like christine did that because she says we all need a healer a savior uh if you if you present the guilt without the gospel nobody can bear that that's that's too much uh now it could also be that your friend is young and hasn't realized her own failure years yet. I mean, there's a reason why in the story of the woman caught in adultery that the oldest people walked away first from stoning her because they knew their own sins. So sometimes

it takes people a while to figure that out. But she will figure that out. So if you can prepare her ahead of time with the gospel, then that's what you want to do. I just wrote the line down because I think it's so good, short, crisp to the point with a nice little alliteration in it, guilt is very hard to face without the gospel. That's great. So let's go to a question from Jeff. In Luke 1, it says Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous, blameless, and observed all the Lord's commands and decrees blamelessly. How does that purport with Jesus being the only sinless man? That's a fair question, and I've been asked it before, and I think the answer is that, well, if they're performing all of the things that they're

supposed to do. That means they're having sacrifices made for their sins. So I think what that's meant to describe is an Old Testament saint who is faithful in the things that they're supposed to be faithful in. It doesn't mean that they were morally perfect. And I think there are a number of examples of people like that in the New Testament and in the Old Testament, that these are not the arrogant. This is in contrast. Notice the humility that we see in the people, the behavior and stuff, and the kindness and goodness in people who are characterized this way, as in contrast to those who are the spiritual leadership there, who are rife with hypocrisy and arrogance and pride. Jesus is constantly addressing that. So I think this is just a, it is not,

speaking about moral perfection. It is talking about faithful, observant Jews, and one of the things they're faithful to observe is a sacrificial system that covers the sin that they're guilty of. I mean, just think about Isaiah when he has the vision of God and he falls down before God and says, I am a sinful man, oh, Lord. So when you're around people and you're following the laws for human beings and you're following God's plan for having your sins covered, which, of course, is based ultimately in Jesus' work on the cross, although that was representing it at the time. It's different from standing before God and seeing his moral perfection.

Yeah. Or Jesus, for that matter. I mean, people were awed by Jesus, you know. Yeah. Who convicts me of sin, he said? Let's go to a question from James. In the Psalms, there is a lot of talk about delighting in God's law and learning the law better and meditating on it and essentially doing things that help you follow it better. In light of the New Testament, is this an outdated mindset?

It almost sounds like what we would call modern day legalism. I think there's a couple of things that are going on here. Is it Psalm 19 or thereabouts where it says, during the Jesus movement, we had a really sweet song that followed these verses. is the law of the Lord is perfect, whatever, you know, renewing the soul, the testimony of the Lord is making wise the simple, more to be desired are they than gold, more than much fine gold. So what we are, what is saying there is that these are qualities of the law that and righteous living. Now, keep in mind that the law portrays in a legal construct, a constitution, of sorts. Maybe that's, that would be too, not quite the right word, but we see it provides the

legal structure and the, for the nation of Israel, of the legal, all the statutes. Here's how you operate as a country. And of course, in that law, there are going to be all kinds of universals that are expressed that are things that every person should do everywhere when it's against rape and homosexuality and murder and child sacrifice and all these grotesque things. It's in the mosaic law because it ought to be in every law. But then there's other laws that are there that are peculiar to the nation of Israel for that period of time. And it's meant so that the Jews do not become syncretistic with the other religious views, which they did, unfortunately, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. But that dividing wall, Paul mentions in Ephesians,

too, it was meant to protect them and protect their piety. So the things that are like that no longer apply. The law as a contract doesn't apply to us as Gentiles never did. It doesn't apply to Jews anymore at all either because they broke it, Jeremiah 31, 31, when he's introduced in the new covenant, not like the one that you broke. So there are lots of things that we can gain from looking at the law. law, and one of it is the beauty of the law and the beauty of its moral structure and the kind of individual is meant to build, create, and that's why that passage, do you have it?

Yes. That's why that passage is Psalm 19. It is Psalm 19. Okay. Do you want to read it? The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.

The commandment of the Lord is pure. enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true. They are righteous altogether. They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold. Sweater also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. Yeah, yeah. That's great. It's really sweet in this musical version of it. I mean, it takes me back 50 years. But I think what that's talking about is the wisdom and the moral quality of the law, and in these precepts that many of which are just for Israel and others that are for Israel because they're universals. But what we get is we see a beautiful thing. And the way, there's so much wisdom in it. Now, I don't go deep in this,

but I know that the Mosaic covenant, in some issues like the way it treats women, the way it treats indentured servants and slaves and things like that. You have that kind of thing in there, but it turns out that this is the only place where people in those circumstances have union protection, you know. They have union representation. I'm using the word loosely here because it's the law. It lifts them up out of a culture that had a whole different perspective on them. And that's why you look at it. This is elegant and beautiful, though people now in a 20, century, 20th century, looking back almost 4,000 years, we don't, or 3,500 years, we don't see it that way.

You know, we see, they don't see it, I should say. But in fact, these are actual precepts that meant to protect people that were not being protected and to help them and to lift up the standard compared to the rest of the ancient near eastern laws. And that's the kind of thing that we're talking about there. but the code itself, the entirety of the Mosaic law was a covenant that God made with Israel, not with any Gentiles. And so it's not incumbent upon us.

Yet even one of the prophets said, maybe it was Moses, that when other nations look upon our law, they're going to say, wow, what a wise God you have that would give you a law like this. So I would say delighting in is appreciation. It's not legalism. There's a reason why my favorite book of the Old Testament is Deuteronomy. And it's because the law is beautiful. And the reason why it's beautiful is because it's a reflection of God's character. It's a reflection of his justice and his love and his care. And it's beautiful. Now, this isn't legalism. In fact, it's because of the gospel that we can see it as beautiful, because, as you said, we're not condemned by it anymore. Condemnation has been taken away, and now we can actually fully enjoy it. And when we follow God's moral precept, we flourish.

So not only do we enjoy fulfilling those things, but we also see God and we want to be like him. And God uses our under, when we look at the law and we delight in the law in God's moral precepts, he uses this to shape us. Because remember, as we look at Jesus, we are being conformed to his image. The Holy Spirit is conforming us to his image. And we see Jesus' character in the law. And we can look at that and see who God is, who Jesus is, and God will shape us from that. Remember, Romans 8 says that God's goal is to conform us to the image of Christ. That's his whole goal.

Now, just because the law no longer is condemning us, that doesn't make it legalism, that God is conforming us to Jesus' character. It's just that we can fully enjoy it without worrying about the condemnation. Yeah. I'm still trying to get over the Deuteronomy part here. I love problems, but partly because I can read little pieces of it, and I don't have to worry about context for most of it. And there are precepts for sound living, you know.

But fear of the Lord, of course, in Proverbs, it says, is the beginning of wisdom. So even there, you have this theocentric element even to genuine wisdom. All right. Thank you so much, James and Jeff and Christine. We love hearing from you. So send us your question. If you've been sitting on a question for a while, just send that in. We'd love to hear from you.

This is Amy Hall and Greg Cookell for Stand to Reason.