Fallen humanity is wired to think that we are the good guys. Though I might do wrong, my actions are justifiable “because they…”, or “she doesn’t…” or “that’s just how I’m made”. That’s fallen nature. But something strangely wonderful happens for the Christian once we come to saving faith in Christ. We realize that we are not the good guys, we are the bad guy. We see this truth plainly in Romans 1-3. We were once godless and unrighteous men who loved evil. Paul says men are filled with all kinds of evil and we even applaud those who partake in it.

²⁸ And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. ²⁹ They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, ³¹ foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. ³² Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Romans 1:28-32 – ESV

By the grace of God, we understand that we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23), but by His grace, we affirm the truth of 1 Corinthians 6:9-11:

⁹ Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, ¹⁰ nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 – ESV

We now know that we were once evil, but we have been washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by God’s Holy Spirit. As an old pastor friend of mine said, that’s enough to make a Baptist shout.

Who’s The Villain?

There is a term on the internet called “main character syndrome”, and our culture is full of it. There is even a Reddit page called r/IAmTheMainCharacter where people post screenshots of posts and videos of people acting selfishly with no regard for others as if they are the only person that matters, even when they are blatantly in the wrong. We especially felt this way before faith in Christ changed us. Thank the Lord for his grace to pull us out of this way of thinking.

If not us, then who is the main character in the world? From Scripture, we see that God is. The whole Bible makes it clear that life is about his redemptive story. It is in the name of Christ that we have been washed, sanctified, and justified through the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:11). This is not a work of ourselves so none of us can boast as if we were the main character. We must only boast in the Lord, the God of our salvation (1 Cor. 1:31, Jer. 9:24). God is the main character. Period. He sent his one and only Son so that all who believe in Him will have eternal life (John 3:16). But if God is the main character, that begs the question, who is the main villain?

As I was reading Confessions by Augustine this week, I noticed something interesting. From the start of book 1 Augustine clearly expressed that he is a sinner saved by grace. He recounted his life story in detail, exposing his own depravity and the goodness of our God. Through it all, he credited his sin, his lustful desires, and the false teachings he was led to believe to his fallen nature and the fallenness of those around him. Though he never shifts the blame off of himself, he did not write as if he was some mastermind or schemer behind everything. He wrote as if he was just a fallen man in a fallen world, doing fallen things with the fallen people around him. He was simply just fallen and sinful, nothing more. I made the following observation about halfway through book 4: Augustine seems to write about his sinful actions with “otherworldly” knowledge. He tells his own story not as if he was the bad guy, but as if he was simply one of the bad guys living in and loving evil. Where did he get this knowledge? He received it from the main character himself, The Lord God Almighty.

Main Villain Syndrome

In my free evenings this week, I have been watching The Lord of the Rings. The extended edition, of course, I’m not some uncivilized orc! After I finished reading for the evening, I turned Return of the King back on to finish the series, and the subtle truth that Augustine realized long ago sank in. Not only am I not the main character… I’m not even the main villain. I’m not even one of the “big” villains. That would be giving myself too much credit. I looked and saw the orcs on the screen, filthy, terrible creatures with no regard for the life of others or the lives of their own kind. They hate, pillage, gnaw, hack, and burn to get what they want. They then consume what they have and move on to whatever they can destroy next… sounds a lot like the fallen man that we find in scripture (Romans 3:11-18).

Growing up in church, I have often heard people’s testimonies about what their life was like before Christ. In many ways, it reminds me a lot of Augustine’s writing. What the story normally boils down to is, I was the bad guy, but I didn’t know it, I rejected God, I did all sorts of evil, I stood in the way of salvation, but God saved me. This is a fine way to present our testimony, but I think it can suffer from one issue if we are not careful, main villain syndrome. As we have already established, any Christian should understand that we are not the main character in our story, God is. But I think we also give ourselves too much credit if we frame ourselves as the villain in our own story. To stay with the Lord of the Rings imagery, we don’t often see ourselves as Sauron, whom we root for his destruction. But many people can sympathize with the once good wizard Saruman the White: we see the enemy’s plans, we know what we can gain by joining in, and we devise plots and schemes to make that happen. But have you ever considered that this way of thinking gives us too much credit? We are not choosing evil; we are born into it. We are not building a sinful empire; we are already living in it. And we enjoy every minute of it! In Confessions, Augustine expressed over and over again how much he loved his sin just for the sake of being sinful. There might be times when we look around thinking something isn’t right, but we satiate those thoughts by taking more pleasure in evil. Maybe I actually am an uncivilized orc!

From Slaves of Evil to Servants of God

Ephesians 2 lays out this truth plainly. Verses 1-6 say,

¹And you were dead in the trespasses and sins ² in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— ³ among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.⁴ But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— ⁶ and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

Ephesians 2:1-6

Paul continues this passage writing those famous words, “But God”, saying that He is rich in mercy and loves us so much that while we were still citizens in the kingdom of transgressions, he sent His Son to die for us to that we could be seated with Christ and be made citizens of His kingdom (2:7-10). We all were once part of the Gentile nation and far from God, but now we are brought into God’s kingdom to live as one of his own (Ephesians 2:11- 14). What a wonderful hope he has given us!

Romans 6:17-18 further backs up this point by telling us that we were once slaves to sin, but we are now slaves to God and have received the gift of eternal life. I never was the main villain who was redeemed, I was a slave to sin who is now a servant of God. That thought hurts my ego though. I don’t want to be just one of the orcs or just another citizen in the evil one’s empire, convinced that what I am doing is good while all along being a slave to the evil that lords over me. Somehow, this is a truth that even as a regenerated man is hard to swallow. I must humble myself to understand that I am not the main character or the main villain. I was just another one of the citizens of the kingdom of darkness, following orders from the powers over me and delighting in all the evil deeds around me. I needed a savior from the evil I was captive of.

So how should we respond to this? What does our position as citizens of heaven who once lived under the rule of an evil prince teach us about our life today? First, it confirms for us that there is no neutrality in life. You are either in the camp of the enemy or you are a son of God. You are either walking in lockstep with the world, being influenced by the spirit of this age on your way to eternal destruction, or you are on the straight and narrow road to heaven, placed there by God’s grace through faith in the work of Christ, to be made more and more sanctified.

Second, we know that neither you nor anyone in the world is beyond salvation because we are not the main villain. We are not the enemy of God; we were enemies of God. But now we have been reconciled to God by faith in the death and resurrection of His Son. While we were enemies of God, Christ died for us (Rom 5:10). As His creation, you are made in his image, and His desire is to lead you into salvation and sanctification in his kingdom.

Lastly, we can rejoice in the happy ending to come. One day all who are called back to Him will be saved and the evil one will be destroyed forever in the lake of fire. We should worship and thank him that we are not the main villain in His story because the evil one’s end is eternal death. Meanwhile, those of us who were once slaves to sin will be rulers and heirs with Him in glory forever.