Editorial

The Blame Game

By Louis Rushmore, Editor

    Personal responsibility has often been and ever is a casualty of the human unwillingness to acknowledge accountability. Not willing to be saddled with the liability for our mistakes, from child through adult, we characteristically blame others for our shortcomings. While we eagerly accept accolades and praise, we adamantly refuse culpability for our actions (or inaction). Yet, often because we cannot or may not be able to convince peers and superiors that some failure was “no one’s fault,” we play the blame game. Siblings blame each other; spouses blame each other; employees and employers blame each other; litigants blame each other; etc.

    The blame game began in the Garden of Eden and was introduced by the first man. When God confronted Adam about his sin, the father of the human race blamed God (and Eve)! “And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat” (Genesis 3:12). Eve being blamed by Adam for sin blamed another as well. “And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat” (Genesis 3:13). Adam and Eve played the blame game, but it did not really work out in their favor. As a result of their sins, despite the complicity of Satan, Adam and Eve (1) died spiritually, (2) were exiled from the Garden of Eden, (3) began to die physically, (4) had to toil for their survival, and (5) experienced pain (Gen. 3). There are no winners in the blame game!

    A couple of thousand years later, King Saul played the blame game, too. Though Saul claimed, “I have performed the commandment of the LORD” (1 Samuel 15:13), God told the prophet Samuel that Saul “hath not performed my commandments” (1 Samuel 15:12). Consequently, Samuel said to Saul, “Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the LORD” (1 Samuel 15:19)? Instead of acknowledging his sin, twice King Saul blamed the people that were with him and who were under his command (1 Samuel 15:15, 21). For this sin, God removed the kingdom from Saul and gave it to David. Not only so, but the dynasty was removed from the family of Saul and from his tribe (Benjamin) and given to the family of David and his tribe (Judah). We might note that the blame game didn’t work well for King Saul either.

    Concluding life’s journey at the open gates of heaven requires that sinners and saints both make some objective evaluations of their lives, and make course corrections as needed. Every sinner must acknowledge his sinful and lost condition plus seek sin’s solution exclusively through Jesus Christ on his divine terms. The praying publican in the first century made the painful admission of being undone in sin (Luke 18:13). Jesus called upon humanity to repent of sin (Luke 13:3); the apostle Peter coupled repentance with baptism to receive the remission of sins (Acts 2:38). Likewise, the sinning saint must acknowledge his sin plus pray for forgiveness (Acts 8:22; 1 John 1:9). We need to examine ourselves and correct the deficiencies in our lives (2 Corinthians 13:5), lest at time’s end God inspect our lives and cast us into a devil’s hell for our unforgiven sins (Matthew 25:41).

    The blame game never works in the long run! Certainly, the blame game will not work in eternity before the Judgment Bar of God. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10).