I just concluded an interesting short story by Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It is one of those classic Faustus stories that portray the fall of man as he sells his soul to the Devil. For those of you not familiar with this short story, I will give a brief summary (Spoiler Alert!):  The story is told from the eye of Mr. Utterson, who is a close friend of Dr. Jekyll. Mr. Utterson notices a sudden change in Dr. Jekyll’s behavior and tries to uncover the truth behind his strange will in which Dr. Jekyll gives all he has to a most hideous and foul man, Mr. Hyde. After a series of suspenseful events in which Mr. Hyde commits one foul deed after another and Dr. Jekyll slowly fades away in a self-imposed seclusion and inexplicable despair, Mr. Utterson finally barges into Dr. Jekyll’s lab and there finds the dead body of Mr. Hyde and letters that explain the fantastical and superstitious truth of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The letter written by Dr. Jekyll himself explains how Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were one and the same, and that Dr. Jekyll’s transcendental science had led him to a potion which could separate his evil self -engendering Mr. Hyde, and his moral self- Dr. Jekyll. Initially, Dr. Jekyll revels in his freedom from moral restraint, from the limits of his social respectability, and from his own conscience. Under the guise of Mr.Hyde, he had sought pleasure and horror the extent of which sometimes surprised Dr. Jekyll himself. However, in the end Dr. Jekyll realizes that this amazing power is out of his control, and that his evil self is starting to cast inextricable shadows into his moral existence. The dead Mr.Hyde was Dr.Jekyll himself, at last free but lost forever.

However mysterious and suspenseful this journey of reading this story was, I could not help but linger on the notion of depravity, sin, guilt, and escape which has plagued mankind since the Fall of Man. This was to me a tragedy that rang through the deepest chambers of my soul, where sin’s darkness and guilt’s voracious appetite pillaged through and through, consuming dignity and self-respect until all but tattered pride remained. Like Adam and Eve, the moment I awakened to a notion of sin, I had sought refuge and covered myself in piteous scraps (before, it was just despair over my duplicity and deceit). Then, God’s overwhelming grace and love humbled me and replaced this pathetic scrap of faux respect and pride with nothing and everything. Nothing that I can brag of, but everything for which to be overjoyed.

But there are still moments when we fall, even after having known God and His forgiveness. We relapse into the old sins after the ebullience of humility and gratefulness diminishes. Our hearts numbed more than hardened by the lure of habit, of seeking temporal satisfaction, and of forgetting His face. May I add here with the most fervent shout that I wish to curse man’s forgetfulness! In the same way that Dr. Jekyll sought to separate his conscience from himself and lay all the blame on his evil consciousness, I admit that there are many moments when after committing sin consciously, I anger at my stupidity, my forgetfulness, and my hard-necked selfishness.  The danger lies in this. We lay the blame on our evilness, as if that gross and foul side of ourselves is not ours. We are consciously or sub-consciously trying to separate our sin from ourselves, in what I see as a last attempt to preserve our pride, our self-respect, and our righteousness.

To our great dismay, we are indeed deeply broken sinners. And I found this hard to swallow when I was coming to Christ, and harder still when even ten plus years into my relationship with Christ, I try to bind my glory and self-righteousness to God’s grace. Knowing Him is MY righteousness, not the humility that arises from knowing Him. I realize that this is one of the greatest obstacles to men and women of faith, especially the devoted ones who in Christ are transformed- and then fall for the mirage of self-righteousness and superiority over those who do not know Christ or those who are new to faith. And to this, I confess openly, without shame of duplicity or the darkness of my soul which is unfortunately for many of us reading this, shared universally, that I am guilty of this very sin.

Upon finishing the story, my instant reaction was to chide Dr. Jekyll for his pride and foolishness in thinking that he could get away with himself, from himself. But seconds later, I wept bitterly in my heart, for I knew that this Dr. Jekyll was none other than me.

However, I have hope in a different ending than the tragic fate which Dr. Jekyll –still in Mr. Hyde’s form- met. As long as the Holy Spirit resides in me, I implore with Him for forgiveness and continual renewing of the heart and soul. I simply ask for forgiveness knowing well that His capacity to love and forgive is beyond any man’s concoction or imagination.