Spiritual despair is a deadly disease. We fall into it so easily. We are accused on every side, Satan howling our guilt, "See what you have done!" The world looks down on us, "You are not worthy to be called a Christian!" Our own hearts rising up to indict us, "You are a spiritual failure. Why do you bother even to try?" Old Adam is poking his finger into our soul: "You are hopelessly fallen. Why should the perfect God look upon a soul so tainted by perversity?" These accusations are powerful because they are true, at least according to the perfect law of God, which admits of no mitigation. Its holiness reaches a divine standard and is not reducible to obedience in terms of niggling human pieties, attempts and "close, but no cigar" efforts characteristic of human acts. This fact alone makes susceptible to terminal despair.

Such despair would rightly be our lot absent the gospel of Jesus Christ, in which we learn that sinners like us are forgiven for His own sake through the merit of His substitutionary suffering and death. In the gospel we are made aware by God that Satan can howl however he will, but that we have a Lord who has taken on his assaults and defeated him (1Pt 3:19). In the gospel we know that we are able to turn our back on the world, which in comparison to Christ and His cross-purchased riches, has no value. The gospel gives us the priceless treasure: Christ Himself and all His benefits.

In the gospel we experience our hearts being comforted, calmed by God's stilling voice of compassion in Christ. Old Adam can poke us, but to no avail, because our hope is not in ourselves but in Him who loved us and gave Himself for us (Eph 5:2).

In the gospel despair becomes impossible, for in it God's gift of righteousness has been revealed to sinners. Our Father has embraced us as His children. He will not take us back into His house as slaves, only as sons together with His Son. Why worry? Why struggle with our own sin? Elisha the prophet of God declined to despair when confronted by the military might of Naaman, the Syrian general (2K 5:8). He trusted in God who promised to save. He believed that God has exalted us to the heavenly places.

No one has been more highly lifted up than us. Our sin has been drowned in the depth of the sea. The great deep has groaned to swallow it and crush it in the depths below. Our Father's heart has taken what our hearts could never bear and freed us of it. If we stand in the gospel, then there is nothing but freedom (Gal 5:1), good cheer is ours from God. Under the gospel anything else is a false memory. Do you remember the "false memory syndrome" that surfaced some years ago, when adult children accused good parents of horrible sexual abuse? After several highly publicized cases, it was recognized that this was only the result of therapeutic suggestion or auto-suggestion? Despair is merely a false memory suggested by the devil, the world, or our sinful flesh, because we have Christ, who is the real thing (Col 2:17). Don't despair. Our Father embraces us with open arms. The gospel promises. So let's celebrate. Our Father is.