Jan 28, 2025
6 mins read
It’s important to start with the matter of theology as it pertains to the gospel. There are many factors beyond theology which cause and perpetuate scrupulosity, and it is very possible to have perfect theology and still have scrupulosity. That being said, it’s important to start here, as the gospel is the foundation of our faith, and the cornerstone we must align with in order to truly call ourselves christians. We should take this time to check, because if our foundation is bad, nothing of value can ever be built upon it, and anything else we can try is meaningless until the foundation is addressed.
Another point I want to clarify is that what we’re talking about here is basic facts - “Head Knowledge”, rather than “Heart Knowledge”. The heart knowledge is important, but it has to start with correct facts in the mind. You may know the right facts and not feel it applies to you at all (will be addressed in a later section), but let’s just make sure the facts we build on are right. There will almost certainly come a point in the list below where you will stop feeling the facts in your heart (probably after 4), but just focus on the facts you know in your mind for now.
This is foundational. If the Bible is untrustworthy, there is absolutely no further conversation which can be had. The Bible is God’s word and revealed will to us (2 Timothy 3:16). Using human hands as a writing instrument, the scriptures are written by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21). God cannot lie (Hebrews 6:18).
This probably won’t come as a shock to you, as most with scrupulosity are painfully, acutely, consumingly aware of this fact. But all men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). This sin is against a perfect and infinite God (Psalm 51:4) and is therefore infinite in magnitude.
For this infinite sin, we all deserve to die (Romans 6:23), not only physically, but spiritually. We are finite beings (Psalm 8:5, Common Sense), and for a finite being to pay an infinite debt requires an infinite amount of time (Eternity) in hell (Rev. 14:11, mathematical properties of infinity). Hell is a real place (Luke 12:5), it is terrible (Luke 16:3), it is eternal (Matthew 25:46), and it is inescapable for those with a sin debt (Matthew 25:46 again). Again, the scrupulous person is often painfully aware of this fact too.
As discussed in 2, as finite beings, we cannot pay an infinite debt against a holy God, in either life or death. We talked about it above, but I wanted to restate this fact.
Up to this point, most folks with scrupulosity embrace facts 1 through 4 mind, heart, and soul, and this is where the torment of scrupulosity originates. Indeed, if the story ended here, anguish and consuming dread would be the only logical and reasonable response. But praise God the story doesn’t end here.
God is love (1 John 4:8). Because of His great love, He chose to leave His holy throne and send His Son Jesus in human flesh in order to pay the sin debt for all who believe on Him (John 3:16).
Jesus was both fully God and fully man at the same time (Colossians 2:9), and this principle (called the Hypostatic Union for those who want to investigate further) is why Jesus was able to satisfy the requirements of our sin bearer.
I don’t want to brush works aside, as scripture affirms their importance, and we’ll look at the role of works much later, but for now understand that they have absolutely no place whatsoever in obtaining or earning your salvation. (Acts 16:31; Romans 3:28; Romans 4:4-5; Romans 5:1; Galatians 2:16; Galatians 3:24; Ephesians 1:13; Philippians 3:9). It’s also worth mentioning that salvation only comes through Christ (John 14:6). He is not one path to God among many, He is the only path (Matthew 7:13).
This pretty much sums up the Gospel. Bear in mind that the Gospel is not negotiable on any of these points. Any deviation, and the Jesus you know is not the Jesus of the Bible (Matthew 7:13), and salvific power is only found in the real, biblical Jesus. The greatest and most prolific cults in the modern era don’t try to sling completely wild claims, they present 99.9% biblical truth but with a subtle tweak which varies depending on the individual cult.
For the programmers out there, it’s a well known property of boolean algebra that a boolean AND statement is accomplished by multiplying zeros (falses) and ones (truths). What this means is that by basic math, a single false statement, ANDed with any number of truths, will always evaluate to 0 - false. In a similar fashion, cults love to tweak a core tenent of the gospel but bury it in other biblical truths to make it difficult to detect. But any such doctrine is pure poison. Believe it or not, there are plenty of things it’s OK to (civilly and lovingly) disagree on as christians. Worship music preferences, wine vs juice, etc. are all fine, but the identity of Jesus and the Gospel are absolutely not up for debate. Any falsehood with these core principles poisons the whole thing. As scary and critically important as this is, there is a beautiful upside. What all this boils down to is that according to the Gospel presented in the Bible, guaranteed by witness of the entire trinity and the sworn promises of God, and absolutely not up for debate:
This is typically the point of disconnect for those with scrupulosity. For a variety of reasons which will be explored later, your heart is almost certainly rejecting this fact. But that deep conviction of hopelessness is not the truth, and is most certainly not biblical. Jesus promises that “the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out” (John 6:37), and this promise applies to you as much as anyone else.
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