Guilty by Association

Passage: Romans 5:12-21

So there we were, bailing him out of the drunk tank…
It started as a normal Labor Day weekend. I was a high school senior. I tagged along on the annual trip to drop my older sister off at college. I stayed with my cousin, who attended the same college. And of course we stayed up late on Saturday night engaging in the usual on-campus back-to-school rituals. At about 1 in the morning we were hanging out in the hallway of my cousin’s dorm when a few of his friends burst in. “We have to bail Pete out,” one of them said, breathlessly. “Cops busted the party he was at. He’s in jail.” My cousin and his friends quickly went around the floor collecting money for bail. We piled into a Volkswagen Golf and drove downtown to the municipal court building housing the local overnight accommodations for underage drinkers and other disturbers of the peace. My cousin approached the overnight clerk, explaining that he was there to pick up a friend who’d gotten busted at a party. The clerk looked at him. “Don’t you mean two friends?” “Uh, sure,” said my cousin. The aforementioned Pete was walked through the bullet-proof glass door that had separated him from freedom. He was followed by another clean-cut, college-aged guy none of us had ever seen. The clerk said, “He came in the same cruiser. He was at the same party. I assume he’s with you.” My cousin said, “Of course. Let’s go.” (Interestingly, we didn’t have to pay any money. The “bail money” was repurposed later that weekend as “pizza money.”)

Well we couldn’t wait to find out who this other guy was. Turns out he was a freshman from Canada. He’d gone to the party with his newfound buddy, Pete, and some other guys he’d met on campus. When the police showed up and collared Pete, his new friend had sauntered up, beer in hand, and asked, “What seems to the be the problem, officers?” He had forgotten that the legal drinking age in Michigan was two years older than it was on his home turf. He was I.D.’d, and hauled off with the other delinquents. He was, in fact, in no position to intervene on his fellow lawbreakers’ behalf because he was as guilty as they were.

In its treatment of the theme of human deliverance, the Heidelberg Catechism brings to light a unique dilemma. Leading up to Lord’s Day 6 we’ve been told repeatedly that God demands an accounting for every human sin. We’re also told that none of us can withstand the punishment our sins deserve. Lord’s Day 5 states that we need a substitute – someone to stand in and take our punishment. But this stand-in can’t be just anyone. Why? Because every person is to some degree guilty. None of us is in a position to intervene on a fellow sinner’s behalf because we’re all equally deserving of God’s punishment. I could try to take the full weight of God’s punishment, but it would only be what I myself deserved. I couldn’t take yours, too. So how does God deal with this dilemma? With a person who isn’t guilty. Where would God find such a person? And what such person would stand in and take this undeserved punishment for someone else? Only one who loved humanity perfectly and wholeheartedly. Who is innocent of sin; who loves perfectly and wholeheartedly but God himself?