Karma Kills

"No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish" (Luke 13:3).

Some in the crowd had spoken to Jesus about some "Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices" (Luke 13:1). The implications of their words were that these individuals must have been very wicked to be treated this way. However, Jesus questions their thinking. He states, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered this way?" (Luke 13:2).

Jesus stress the reality that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All, except for Jesus, are sinners who are by their fallen nature objects of wrath. Destruction will come upon anyone who continues in their sin without repentance toward and faith in Jesus Christ.

In this passage Jesus is really warning the crowds that their judgment against sin will not rescue them from God's judgment. He his compelling them to see their need for repentance with greater clarity than they see the supposed sin in others. The deemed these Galileans to be wicked because the manner of their death. Yet many of God's people, in both the Old and New Testaments, faced such persecution.

Their suffering and subsequent death was not a sure mark of God's displeasure. In the same way life and health in Jesus' audience was not a sure sign of God's pleasure with them. They had fell into the faulty theology of bad stuff happens to bad people; good stuff happens to good people. Our culture refers to this as "karma." Jesus says it isn't karma you have to worry about, it's your sin that makes you an object of God's wrath.

The cure is simple: repent. In the Scripture, repentance can be referenced without using in it in conjunction with the term faith, because the two are inseparably linked. It is impossible to repent of one's sin without faith. In order to repent one must believe at least two things, sin is as horrifically damning as God says it is, and that he is willing to receive us if we turn to him, through Jesus Christ. To put it another way, we must believe that our sin has left us under the righteous judgment of God which means death and hell and the Jesus bore the penalty of our sin upon the cross, was buried, rose again on the third day, and is now ascended to heaven where he sits at the Father's right hand as King of kings and Lord of lords. Jesus sums it all up with the little word "repent."

He warns that without repentance we will perish. That is, our corruption will consume us. He does not mean that we will somehow fade out of existence. He uses "perish" to describe the opposite of "eternal life." As eternal life represents an ongoing experience with blessing in the presence of God's grace, so perish represents an ongoing experience with the curse of being in the presence of God's wrath. Those who "perish" do not cease to exist, rather they abide in the wrath of the Lord forever.

It is easy to miscalculate our goodness when we think in terms of karma. It is easy to believe that good things happen to me because I am a good person who does (or tries to do) good things. However, the reality is that good things happen to us, because God is gracious. It is easy to believe that bad things happen to me because I am a bad person who does bad things. However, bad things happen because I live in a fallen world, I wrestle with a fallen nature, and I am surrounded by fallen people. God brings good out of the bad things for those who love him and who are called according to his purposes (Rom. 8:28). As we lean on him, and submit to his will we find life, just like Jesus said.