Continuing from a previous post, Religion and the Gospel—teachings of Timothy Keller with insights from the writings of Robert Louis Stevenson’s, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde “I resolved in my future conduct to redeem the past; and I can say with honesty that my resolve was fruitful and of some good. You know how earnestly, in the last months of the last year, I labored to relieve suffering; you know that much was done for others. . . . [But as] I smiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing my acts of goodwill with the lazy cruelty of their neglect . . . at the very moment of that vain, glorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most dreadful shuddering. . . . I looked down. . . . I was once more Edward Hyde. (Now continuing. . .)
This was a deadly turn of events. For the first time Jekyll becomes Hyde involuntarily, without the potion. . . . and this is the beginning of the end. Unable to control his transformations any longer, Jekyll kills himself. Stevenson’s insight here is, I think, profound. Why would Jekyll become Hyde without the potion? Like so many people, Jekyll knows he is a sinner, so he tries desperately to cover his sin with great piles of good works. Yet his efforts do not actually shrivel his pride and self-centeredness, they only aggravate it. They lead him to superiority, self-righteousness, pride and suddenly—look! Jekyll becomes Hyde, not in spite of his goodness, but because of his goodness.
Sin and evil are self-centeredness and pride that lead to oppression against others, but there are two forms of this. One form is very bad and breaking all the rules and the other form is being very good and keeping all the rules and becoming self-righteousness. There are two ways to be your own Savior and Lord. The first is by saying, “I’m going to live my life the way I want.” The second is described by Flannery O’Connor, who wrote about one of her characters, Hazel Motes, that “he knew that the best way to avoid Jesus was to avoid sin.”2 If you are avoiding sin and living morally so that God will have to bless and save you, then ironically, you may be looking to Jesus as a teacher, model, and helper but you are avoiding him as a Savior. You are trusting in your own goodness rather than in Jesus for your standing before God. You are trying to save yourself by following Jesus.
That, ironically, is a rejection of the gospel of Jesus. It is a Christianized form of religion. It is possible to avoid Jesus as Savior as much by keeping all the Biblical rules as by breaking them. Both religion (in which you build your identity on your moral achievements) and irreligion (in which you build your identity on some other secular pursuit or relationship) are, ultimately, spiritually identical courses to take. Both are “sin.” Self-salvation through good works may produce a great deal of moral behavior in your life, but inside you are filled with self-righteousness, cruelty, and bigotry, and you are miserable. You are always comparing yourself to other people and you are never sure you are being good enough. You cannot, therefore, deal with your hideousness and self-absorption through moral law, by trying to be a good person through an act of the will. You need a complete transformation of the very motives of your heart.
The devil, if anything, prefers Pharisees—men and women who try to save themselves. They are more unhappy than either Christians or irreligious people, and they do a lot more spiritual damage.~Timothy Keller, The Reason for God (New York, N.Y.: Penguin Books, 2016, 2018), 182-84
(Posts with a preamble asterisk * are for a more general audience and not specific to teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)
