Holiness and a "good" nature

Overhearing conversations dealing with heaven and God's judgment, I always cringe when I hear someone say, "You know, I really think if you are just a good person, then you will go to heaven." We as Christians should tremble at such words. This message is epidemic, propagating like a disease in our casual conversations over coffee, in the political spheres, and even in our churches. Our culture today has redefined the ideas of "good" and "right" to such an extent, that they are more abstract and subjective than ever before.

As Christians, we should be marked by the words we find in Scripture - we must acknowledge that there is a definitive, absolute truth declared by a supreme, sovereign, holy, just God. Furthermore, we must understand that we are sinners standing before this holy God, and his righteous anger burns at the very sight of our heinous, despicable, sin-saturated hearts. And what's even more important, we must wrap our feeble minds around the indicting reality that there's nothing we can do to make ourselves holy - what's even more stunning, we don't even care to be holy by God's standards. We would rather redefine this idea of  "holiness" and declare God unjust for judging based on his standards rather than ours! As Paul says in Romans 3,

As it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Romans 3:10-18). 

The graciousness of our God is that he stoops down in condescension with the undeserving mercy that liberates us - he declares those of us who are sinners to now be holy in his sight. Humans in our fallen state are defined by the fact that we continually suppress this truth. If there was something antithetical to the American idea of "there is good inside of us all", it is most certainly this gospel message.

Herman Bavinck sums this up quite nicely when he says, "Just as in nature only a good tree can produce good fruit, so also in ethical life a good nature precedes good works. To act one must first be. Scripture, accordingly, teaches that both in creation and re-creation holiness is a gift from God. One who has this gift can further develop it in word and deed; but one who lacks it can never acquire it."(1)

(1) Bavinck, In the Beginning, pg. 168.