There’s a passage in Romans which I’m intrigued to examine through a very particular lens. It’s the one that says sin entered the world through the actions of one man, and that through the actions of another, righteousness became available again to all. The first part I can understand, and the second part I can loosely grasp by faith that “the Bible tells me so”; the power and goodness of God are mysterious. However, since my free will and my intelligence are involved in the belief and acceptance of what Jesus did, and I’m a deeply curious person, I’d like to poke around the space where psychology and spirituality work together. Firstly, here is the passage:

“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all mankind, because all sinned—

Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the violation committed by Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. But the gracious gift is not like the offense. For if by the offense of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many. The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one offense, resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the gracious gift arose from many offenses, resulting in justification. For if by the offense of the one, death reigned through the one, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. So then, as through one offense the result was condemnation to all mankind, so also through one act of righteousness the result was justification of life to all mankind.”

Romans 5:12,14-18

As a sin-soaked human, it’s not hard for me to imagine how the first sin perpetuated more sins. I can’t fathom what it was like to have committed the very first sin after having lived the first part of my life in a dynamic of perfectly-loving relationships and in the presence of God. That had to be utterly gut-wrenching. But, wow! How rapidly shame set in! And fear! And then a cascade of blame tore through the garden. Sins multiplied like bacteria.

From a psychological perspective, I don’t know how they would’ve gotten past that experience and returned to life-as-usual with each other and with God. I remember an experience I had one time where a miscommunication led my actions to be experienced by someone else as quite distressing, and when I found out, I was mortified. I couldn’t stop worrying for months that it may have impaired our friendship. I couldn’t stop beating myself up for how I “caused” such concern and how I could’ve done things differently if I’d thought through things a little more. Never mind if I’d completely and permanently changed the ability to live in harmony for me and everyone around me. Even if they had said they forgive me, it would always weigh on my mind. There would always be a fear of repeated broken trust among us. A memory of that time we turned on each other to save ourselves.

That sort of thing becomes a part of us. It shapes our DNA. We pass it to our children in body and in mind. Next thing you know a whole world has suffered wars and infidelity and hunger. “Death reigned from Adam” makes sense.

But how does one righteous Man reverse this? A lot of us can get in sight of someone who seems a wildly better person than we and often we are at least tempted to feel ashamed, or resentful, or even hateful. It was feelings similar to those that drove Jesus contemporaries to kill Him. Yet, by Jesus, the only truly righteous Man, we are justified. How does my psychological experience with sin change just because He personally conquered sin and death?? Now, remember, I’m using a psychology lens, which accounts for only a piece of the puzzle. I can’t, by changing my psychological experience, become a righteous woman. But a modified psychological experience is certainly a part of experiencing Jesus. How?

Well, looking all the way back to the beginning, God chose a 3-factor task, as far as I see it. First, he had to deal with the character assassination campaign and hostile take-over of earth that Satan had launched: “God can’t be trusted. God is holding back on you. God is manipulating you. God’s ways can’t be done.” And, “See, God, they believe me. They choose me — that means they’re mine now.” Secondly, He would deal with the Sin problem that ruptured a chasm between us and Him, and broke our ability to consistently love each other well. Thirdly, He would need to convince us He’s actually doing the first two parts. What we’re talking about in this post is the convincing us part.

If all this time we’ve carried such bone-deep guilt, how on earth could God convince us to believe He’s not secretly mad at us? That he’s not waiting for the next mistake to finally be His last straw with us? Or how would he get around that our own devastating guilt awareness, when drawn too close to His utter righteous glory, would cause us to self-destruct in tormented despair? For, “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews 10:31) And, “They said to the mountains and the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the sight of Him who sits on the throne.'” (Revelation 6:16) If this is the natural reaction of humanity to the sight of God, what can be done?

The Bible shows us examples, though, of people, like Moses, who sought and delighted in God’s (shielded) presence where others were terrified. So, it seems it has a lot to do with the psychological state — the perception — of the person experiencing God. We’ve already thought about that a bit. When we’re feeling guilty, or afraid of someone, we avoid them. When we’re not feeling guilty, we come comfortably into their company. God devised a most brilliant way to lower our defenses and build our trust.

He, in Jesus, became one of us. He was born a baby, in humble circumstances. He lived with righteousness and compassion. He won the hearts of the oppressed and vulnerable and challenged the powers that held them down. He bore temptation and offense with grace and mercy. Maybe our hearts were thinking, “Ok, maybe you tolerate and forgive what we do. Adam didn’t know what he didn’t know. People are scared and we do stupid things to defend ourselves. But what about this other thing? Could you forgive that? Surely there’s something we’ve done that you can’t forgive. I don’t know, God. I feel like there’s things I’m capable of that kind of scare me. There’s bad things I don’t yet want to let go of. How can I be sure you’ll forgive?”

What’s the ultimate “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad” thing humanity could do to possibly not be forgiven of? What if we killed God, Himself? But God is too big for us to kill. That’s impossible. So, is it not absolutely wild that the creator of all the universe chose to lay down his power and make himself as small as we are? That he was able to be abused, mocked, humiliated, tortured, and killed? And he let us?! That does a weird thing in my mind. First, it makes me feel as guilty as possible. I didn’t personally do it, but I know that given the right circumstances, I, a human, have been proven capable. I’m not in those circumstances, but my sins are steps on the same path that leads to the same place. But on the other side, I have to see that Jesus chose to do this in order for me to understand something about God.

“Looking only at Jesus, the originator and perfecter of the faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2)

Jesus looked past the suffering to a joy he and we would experience on the other side of it. He knew that there was something in the cross that would tell us what we needed to know in order to trust Him. And trusting Him means we get to be together again one day. The cross shows — not simply says — to me that there is truly, literally nothing that can come between God and his love for and acceptance of me. He let us do the very worst thing to Him, and never lost the compassion from His eyes. He never resented. Never hated. Never “got back at.” The cross made a mockery of Satan’s lies about an enemy God, and exposed the true enemy behind our suffering.

Carl Rogers, a father of humanistic psychology, says we need to experience three things in a relationship to make it most likely that our psychological experience will shift for the better. I will apply them to God. First, God needs to be experienced by us as authentic, congruent within Himself. Jesus walked among us for an entire lifetime, and we always knew who he was, and how He felt. He never wore a mask or engaged in deception.

Secondly, He has to truly empathize with what our lived experience is like for us.

“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let’s hold firmly to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things just as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:14-15)

Jesus entered directly into the human struggle. Not into the rich and powerful comfortable part — the lowly, dusty, sweaty part. He was tempted. He was hurt. He felt abandoned at times. He has not asked of us a thing He did not willingly do himself. When we talk to him, he truly, experientially, understands.

Lastly, we need to feel unconditionally accepted. This is the part we’ve spent the most time on. Is there a better way to prove that God accepts us than the fact that he lived and died with us, and did it with love and joy?

The reason these three qualities work towards growth in a therapeutic relationship is that a person experiences that there’s nothing inside them or their experience that will lead to their rejection or judgment, they hold no suspicion that the person they’re speaking to is putting on an act, and they believe that the person listening truly gets them and wants to understand more deeply. This creates and internal shift away from self-protective thoughts and behaviors and towards exploring needs and goals. Almost everyone wants to, and will, move in that positive direction toward greater wholeness under these conditions.

This means that as we experience congruence, empathy, and acceptance from God, through Jesus, we are already shifting in the direction of growth when His Spirit enters our lives with resurrection power. There is much more to say about the righteousness of Christ, our forgiveness and adoption, and all the incredible aspects of the cross that we will study for eternity, but I love how God has designed our minds to align our wills with His to live out his kingdom realities among us now.