Podcast: Are You Ashamed of Yourself? Jesus Isn't (Erik Raymond)

June 27, 2022 by: Crossway

This article is part of the The Crossway Podcast series.

Unashamed Lord

In today's episode, Erik Raymond talks about why nothing in our lives is a surprise to our Savior because Jesus’s heart is bent toward those who have an embarrassing history, feel far from God, or struggle with sin.

He Is Not Ashamed

He Is Not Ashamed

Erik Raymond

In He Is Not Ashamed, Erik Raymond takes a close look at the “family portrait” of God—filled with imperfect people throughout Scripture—and shows that God is not repelled by their shameful past, but delights to redeem and receive those who believe in him.

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Check out other Crossway Podcasts including the new podcast Blessed: Conversations on the Book of Revelation with Nancy Guthrie.

Topics Addressed in This Interview:

00:47 - Jesus’s Family Photo

Matt Tully
Erik, thank you so much for joining me again on The Crossway Podcast.

Erik Raymond
It’s great to be with you.

Matt Tully
You open this new book of yours with a quote from John Newton. I wonder if you could start us off by reading that quote and explaining why you started your book with it.

Erik Raymond
Sure. Newton writes, "If I ever reach heaven, I expect to find three wonders there. First, to meet some I had not thought to see there. Second, to miss some I had expected to see there. Third, the greatest wonder of all, to find myself there." I wanted to start the book off with that quote just because of the nature of grace and that we really don’t deserve, in so many ways, to go to heaven. It’s a gift. Every single day I think through and am grateful for just another day. Just keep me another day. Get me to the finish line. I want to finish. I want to get home. To get there and then see people that Jesus has brought that we know and that we can rejoice in and see that happen, and then maybe even people throughout history that we might be surprised about with life conversions or dramatic conversions. But then at the same time, the sobering reality of people that were converted under pretense and that weren’t really Jesus’s people, and they’re not there. So, I think it’s very sobering, both from the standpoint of God’s grace to save us, and then also the reality that some people that say they’re Christians are not there. That’s why started with the book both with the surprise of grace to bring these types of people to himself—people like you and me—and also the reality that there are people that he rejects, and those are the ones that are ultimately ashamed of Jesus and his word.

Matt Tully
That’s a core idea in this book—this idea of almost surprise at being loved by Jesus. That’s something that I think so many of us struggle with. We struggle to believe that Jesus really does love us. One of the metaphors, and maybe the dominant metaphor that you draw on in this book that I thought was so helpful and interesting, was this idea of Jesus’s family photo—whether or not we would be included in his family photo. Where did you get that idea? What did you like about that metaphor?

Erik Raymond
It was interesting because I’ve been thinking about this concept for a while—the he-is-not-ashamed concept—but probably about six years ago I was at my mom and dad’s house and was going through some pictures that he had.

Matt Tully
Are your parents still living?

Erik Raymond
Yes. They were just going through some old pictures of his grandfather, and I’m looking at these pictures—grandfather and great-grandfather—and I’m saying, Dad, he kinda looks like you. I see a resemblance in there. He said, Yeah, I see that too. It just stuck with me. I took a couple of pictures and they would show up on my phone periodically like a memory or whatever. I was just thinking about this family photo—these people that go before you, and then you resemble them—and then coming to look at the genealogies of Jesus and see the types of people that are in his family photo, so to speak. The people that come behind him—the generations before the incarnation all way back. It’s just striking to see the resemblance of these types of people in the story. They have all kinds of baggage and backgrounds. I’m looking at my great-great-great grandfather’s picture and some of these people and I’m like, I got a little of that in me. I favor that guy. I read his story and I see some of me in that guy. I see a little bit there as well. I’m not the only one. The whole family history for the church is like the Island of Misfit Toys. We have so much baggage and so many issues. It just strikes me that this is the family history, so to speak, that Jesus identifies with—people that have a lot of problems.

Matt Tully
That’s the amazing thing about family. Obviously, it’s maybe more acute the closer you are going back, looking at your own parents or grandparents, but nevertheless, there’s this legacy of a family that can sometimes persist and have huge implications and huge influences on us as people. We can even carry a certain family shame and the weight of the burden of certain things that have happened in our family’s history. It just continues on. It’s interesting to think about that dynamic that we’ve all experienced in our own lives in light of Jesus. He willingly stepped into this human family—a particular family, but more broadly, all of us and our legacy and history, and he embraced that burden on himself.

Erik Raymond
Absolutely. In our own families we have stories in our lives, if we’re honest, that we want to airbrush or photoshop out. Maybe if we’re being perfectly honest, it would even be family members. If you didn’t want to photoshop them out, you’re probably not standing next to them in the family photo.

Matt Tully
Put them on the other side.

Erik Raymond
Maybe you need to cool off a little and stay on the other side of the picture. But that’s what is so amazing about Jesus. The people in his family story—whether it’s the genealogy and those believers who are part of that genealogy, or the church itself—you have him coming and identifying. It’s not like he’s in the background in the last row.

Matt Tully
Standing far off from us.

Erik Raymond
It’s like he’s center stage, wedged shoulder to shoulder with sinners.

Matt Tully
He’s got his arms around us.

Erik Raymond
In my mind’s eye, I picture him smiling, arms around his people, saying, This is my family. That’s just remarkable. To think that Jesus is not ashamed of his family photo. That’s a game-changer.

07:30 - A Shameful Family History

Matt Tully
Let’s talk about that. Throughout the New Testament the biblical writers take pains in different ways to emphasize Jesus’s solidarity with the outcasts of society. We see that in so many different ways, that Jesus is identifying himself with those that, culturally speaking, were viewed as shameful, as "the other." As you’ve said, in the Gospels in particular we see the genealogies—and Matthew’s Gospel is the big example of this—where we see these interesting figures included there. Who are some of those people in the genealogies that stand out to you as maybe intentionally trying to help us think through Jesus’s associations with the outcast?

Erik Raymond
One big one would be just the relationship from Genesis 38 with Judah and Tamar. You see those names and if you double-click on that verse in Matthew, you don’t know what’s going on.

Matt Tully
Most of us read through those genealogies like, Why is this here? Let’s get to the story here.

Erik Raymond
Judah and Tamar are in the same family, but that’s not his wife. Immediately, we’re seeing we need to go read the story and look at it. Judah is the one through whom the Messiah comes, as Genesis 49 tells us, but prior to that time he’s a son, he has a wife, and he has two sons. One of the sons marries Tamar and brings her into the family. But this is a wicked guy. The Lord judges him and he dies. Then, the next brother comes in and he marries her, but he’s selfish and the Lord takes him out too. Judah makes a promise that he’s going to take care of Tamar, but he doesn’t, and she knows it. He sends her off in the wilderness to go, which is basically like someone burying the curse—Get out of here! So, she goes.

Matt Tully
Which is explicitly not what he was called to do. That rejection of her—sending her out into the wilderness—was him not taking responsibility for the person under his care.

Erik Raymond
Right. Not caring for her, sending her back to the pagan land (the Canaanites). You have this thin promise of, When my son gets older, you can marry him, which isn’t going to happen. Tamar takes it into her own hands. She dresses like a prostitute while he’s up at this sheep-shearing festival. Judah’s wife has died at this point. He thinks she’s a prostitute, and he propositions her, has sex with her, impregnates her. And now, Tamar—the one who wants a family and wants a place—has sons in her womb through her father-in-law. There’s a big public scene where it all comes clear and Judah finally repents and says, She’s more righteous than I. But that’s the line that the Messiah comes through.

Matt Tully
Jesus chose that to be a part of his story.

Erik Raymond
He could have picked Joseph and taken that line, but that’s not the path. The focus is on Judah, Tamar, Ruth—you can look at the story of the Moabitess and track down the origin of that family and the way the Jews viewed the Moabites at the time. It’s like, this is the line where David and Christ came through. Double-clicking instead of speeding through the genealogies—looking at them and pausing and reading the stories—you can learn about the heart of Christ for his people, and the types of people he identifies with.

Matt Tully
I think that’s the question that we all just wonder at that point when we learn about those stories: Why would Jesus choose that? What’s behind that decision?

Erik Raymond
Ultimately, I don’t know why particular ones and not other ones, but I know it does make a point that these are the types of people that Jesus comes for. As he said, he didn’t come to call the righteous, but the unrighteous. He’s the physician that doesn’t see the healthy, but the sick. He seems most at home with people who seem to be the furthest away from God. So, whether you’re looking at the genealogy or you just track the narratives in the New Testament in particular of the types of people that Jesus is drawn to and the type of mercy that he shows them, it’s really astounding.

11:57 - Nobody Has a Story That Can Make Jesus Blush

Matt Tully
You write in the book, "Nobody has a story that can make Jesus blush." I think that’s easy for us to say, but it can be a lot harder for us to actually believe that day in and day out when we look at our own lives, when we look at our own family’s story. We can really have a hard time embracing that for real. Have you wrestled with believing that truth in your own life?

Erik Raymond
Yeah. Absolutely. By that, I don’t mean that Jesus is desensitized to sin. He is holy, and his perception of evil and sin is far more acute than any blushing sinner would ever understand or realize.

Matt Tully
So, it’s not that he doesn’t see it.

Erik Raymond
Right. He has literally seen everything. He knows everything and has seen everything, so he knows the darkest day. And he knows how dark our best days are. Nothing we could do could surprise him, and nothing could make him blush in the sense that he could say, Oh, well there was that one day or that one month or that six-year period. No, he knows. We all wrestle through our own sins and shortcomings. We feel the repercussions of relationships where we sin against people and we have arguments or issues, and we hurt them. We say things that are unkind, and we feel that. We think of the impact of our sins, not only on the individual but on our relationship with God. That’s why it’s so encouraging to think that Jesus accounted for all of that. He knew who he was purchasing. He didn’t save the receipt when he died on the cross for our sins, like he’s going to return us to the store sometime. That’s not how it works. He knows exactly who he came for—to seek and save those who are sinners.

Matt Tully
It seems to be part of the story as to why we can sometimes have a hard time really believing that Jesus isn’t ashamed of us is because of our own complicated struggle with shame. We’re ashamed of ourselves, and so it’s hard to believe that Jesus wouldn’t be ashamed of us as well. Do you think that is part of our struggle to believe Jesus?

Erik Raymond
I think you’re right on the issue there. From our conscience’s standpoint, we sin, and we feel guilt and shame like Adam and Eve in the garden. We know we did something we shouldn’t do, and then we’re informed—not only by conscience, but also by the Scripture—of who God is and how holy he is and how he’s too pure to look upon evil. We know that that’s who God is. We’re informed by that, so our reflex is to get the fig leaves and hide and separate. But the problem is that we just stay in the guilt and the shame, and we project that back onto God. We forget the way that he—specifically, Christ, our sympathetic high priest—looks at us. We’re not looking through his eyes and seeing that while we were sinners, Christ died for sinners. He’s proven himself. You could think about the covenant before the foundation of the world, that the Father, Son, and Spirit—the Trinity—would save sinners. He knows what he’s doing. And then with the incarnation, to become a man. I love the quote by Thomas Watson when he says, "It’s more humbling for Christ to become a man than to die upon the cross." It’s natural for a man to die, but it’s not natural for God to become a man. So, he’s proven that he’s okay welcoming us because he put on human flesh.

Matt Tully
That’s one of those things where we can be so focused on the cross—and rightly so because of the atoning death and resurrection—but sometimes I feel like we pay a short shrift to the incarnation and what that in and of itself tells us about God’s heart.

Erik Raymond
Absolutely. Like in Hebrews 2 where I get the source for the book He Is Not Ashamed—"he is not ashamed to call us brothers." We have one source—it’s the solidarity that Jesus has with us, that he becomes a man to come and save us. It’s not only the death upon the cross, which is shameful in the sense that there is no more shameful way for somebody to die, but it’s also the fact that he put on skin and became a man to identify with us, that he might die for us.

Matt Tully
It seems like while many of us know what it feels like to be ashamed of ourselves, some of us also know what it feels like to be ashamed of others. We can feel either shame on behalf of someone else, or we actually feel ashamed of them. Do you think that affects how we view God as well at times?

Erik Raymond
Yes, I think how we view God and how we view the church at the same time, and maybe society as well. We tend to cast ourselves in maybe a good light. The stories like at the end of Luke 7 where Jesus is talking with the Pharisees and sitting down and having this meal, and that sinful woman wanders in off the street. She’s crying and wiping Jesus’s feet and anointing him. The religious leaders are like, What are you doing? She’s actually the model of how you understand Jesus, because of the great forgiveness that we have.

Matt Tully
You can come to him in your shame.

Erik Raymond
It does seem like throughout the Gospels there’s this constant impulse to push people away that might not be honorable people. It seems like Jesus is like swimming through the resistance to go and get them. Actually, these are the ones that I want. I want the children, the lame, the blind, the lepers, the humbled people. I want them for myself.

Matt Tully
What does that say about the opposite of that, the proud—those who don’t sense quite that need? That’s maybe another experience that some of us would have. We pay lip service; we know that we need Jesus and we need cleansing. We know that we are sinful. But maybe we don’t always feel that awe at what God has done for us. We don’t feel that lowliness. Is that a problem?

Erik Raymond
Yeah, I think so. You have the two sides where the gospel is good news because it means that nobody is too sinful that Jesus can’t save them. But it’s also good news in the sense that nobody is good enough that they don’t need saving. I don’t know where we might fall on the spectrum, where we think we’re so good that we actually become bad. What could be more offensive than to say, I’m actually so good that Jesus Christ is beneath me. I don’t need him?

Matt Tully
None of us would say that—

Erik Raymond
But that’s kind of what we’re saying.

Matt Tully
But the way that we think about him can sometimes betray that.

19:04 - Experiencing the Comfort of Christ in Weakness

Matt Tully
You spend a lot of time in the book reflecting on our experience of weakness as humans and also as Christians. It’s in all kinds of areas that we experience weakness, and one of the biggest facets of weakness that we experience is physical weakness—physical limitations and, ultimately, our own mortality. Our bodies will break down to such an extent that we will die, unless Jesus comes back before then. Obviously, we’re all coming out of this COVID pandemic where I think our culture in maybe an unprecedented way, at least in our lifetimes, has been so focused on mortality. We’ve literally seen numbers recording the number of people who have died everyday for months, and even years at this point. I do think it feels like our culture is more aware of the reality of death than maybe we have been in the past. We want to push it away. You mention that during the pandemic a good friend of yours died, and that affected how you thought about death and this issue of our physical weakness. I wonder if you could share a little bit about the story of what happened there and how God taught you things through that.

Erik Raymond
That individual that you’re referring to, he died in May of 2020. He didn’t die of COVID, but he had been suffering with cancer prior to that. It got really, really bad there, obviously, at the end. Just pastorally, you want to be with your people. You want to spend time with them and pray with them, but at that time nobody really knew what was going on with the pandemic and what you can and can’t do. Everyone was isolated. We couldn’t get to him to visit and go see him—

Matt Tully
All the things that you would normally have done in that situation.

Erik Raymond
The personal interaction and the closeness. You’re doing Zoom calls and people are calling, but it’s just not the same. He ends up having to go to the hospital and he’s going in for treatment regularly and it’s getting bad. He’s in the hospital, but nobody is allowed in the room with him. To think that your wife, kids, and family are not allowed in the room at the time—the whole thing just makes you sad just thinking about it. I’m reflecting on that after his death and just thinking this is just unusual. We take for granted all the access we have to people in their death. The psalmist says, "Precious in his sight is the death of his people" (Ps. 116:15). In thinking about the reality of not only theologically God’s omnipresence and omniscience—he sees and knows everything at all times—but in a particular, special, sympathizing, close way that Christ is with his people. Nobody else can be in there, but in my mind’s eye I saw Jesus rushing to the bedside to comfort through the Spirit, to console, and to escort this dear brother to glory. Weakness in that moment, and in general, does not repel him because he’s strong. In fact, it draws him because he’s strong. He comes alongside of the weak as a close, caring, sympathizing, compassionate, tender, loving Savior, escorting them to glory. I was greatly consoled by the reality that what me, as a shepherd in the church because of providence at this time, can’t do, the Good Shepherd does. He takes care of him. That’s the case in reality even if there wasn’t a pandemic. He’s there with his people. Whether you’re on the death bed in a literal sense, or you’re feeling the effects of physical weakness or even spiritual weakness, know that that doesn’t repel Christ, but it draws him to us. Paul would even boast in his weakness because he knows it shows the power and strength of Jesus.

Matt Tully
You write, "Weakness has a purpose." That’s one of those things that I think those who have experienced weakness in profound and prolonged ways, that could be really good news, but maybe hard news to embrace and accept. What do you mean by that?

Erik Raymond
Backing up one step, we might contrast weakness with strength, and we say, This person over here is weak because they struggle with these physical infirmities—whatever they might be. But to say, on the other hand, This person is strong, it’s a relative strength because we’re humans. We’re finite. We’re dying. We are all terminal. To say, I’m strong, and this person is weak because this person has chronic pain, and I don’t have chronic pain or This one has a terminal illness, and I don’t—that’s not being honest about what’s really going on. Thinking biblically, we’re all weak. We’re all in that category.

Matt Tully
Does that apply to things beyond physical weakness, like spiritual weakness and our constant struggle with our own sin nature?

Erik Raymond
Everything from the standpoint of people that might struggle with being a little more melancholy or dealing with depression. Some people’s consciences might accuse them in a certain way or might have more restrictions on them in that way. It could be just a particular season of dealing with temptation and sin. Broadly speaking, we’re all weak. It’s just different times, different ways, different people. We have different expressions of these weaknesses. When I say it has a purpose, one thing it does is it points to us and it reminds us that this life is not the end. It has an expiration date on it, and we’re moving quickly to the time period that ultimately matters. It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t matter now, but it’s moving us. It’s like we’re waiting in an airport terminal, waiting to board the flight. That’s our momentary life. The purpose is to remind us that this isn’t heaven. This is the place of thorns and thistles. We’re going to Immanuel’s land, where these things are gone. In the meantime, Immanuel comes to us. He welcomes us in our weakness and makes us strong in him, so that we don’t boast in ourselves, but we boast in Christ.

Matt Tully
That’s one of those tensions that I sometimes feel like I wrestle with a little bit. The idea that we long for this future life with God in the new heavens and the new earth. We look forward to that, and that helps us to endure in the here and now. And yet, it seems like one of the things you want to emphasize is that in the here and now, we shouldn’t miss the fact that Jesus is with us and that he is close to us and he wants to comfort us now. It’s not just all about looking ahead.

Erik Raymond
Take somebody that is struggling with chronic pain—fatigue in various ways as a result of that. I’ve talked to a number of people that feel like Jesus might be ashamed of them because they’re not as useful as this person over here, or as useful as they were ten or fifteen years ago. Or, somebody who is older and they look back and they’re saying, I’m not useful anymore like I was before. They have this physical weakness—whatever goes in that bucket—and they struggle with some degree of shame and guilt and discouragement, almost in the same way that we might over spiritual weakness with regard to temptation and sin. We can begin to grow distant from God and begin to feel like, Maybe he doesn’t love me. Maybe he’s ashamed of me. Look at these people over here serving and having people in their house. I can’t even lift my arms. I’m so weak and hurting. He knows. He’s our Creator. He remembers that we are dust. He knows who we are. He knows us intimately. He knows everything about us. He’s able to sympathize with us in our weakness. He became a man like us. Obviously, he didn’t experience all of the different aspects of physical weakness or spiritual weakness that we endure, but in becoming a man, he’s able to sympathize with us. Because he became a man, he’s able to help us in that.

Matt Tully
That’s one of those things that I think we don’t always think about—at least I don’t—that he not only experienced humanity generally, but he experienced the reality of death itself. How does that impact how you think about him?

Erik Raymond
Brimming to the top of love because it wasn’t obligatory on him in his essence to die. Why did Jesus become a man? He did it because of love, because of us. God didn’t lack anything. By dying he doesn’t become a better God. The whole death of Christ is just enveloped in weakness, but yet it’s an exclamation point of divine strength and love. Looking at the cross, you’re reminded of the reality of your own mortality and what sin cost, but you’re also reminded of eternity and the love of God in Jesus Christ for sinners like us.

28:57 - When Did God Start Loving Me?

Matt Tully
The broader world often portrays biblical Christianity and biblical Christians as constantly focused on sin, constantly focused on shame and our unworthiness. Sometimes Christians contribute to that. We make that our primary message. We pick at people and yell at them and tell them they’re going to hell. And yet, other times it seems like that’s just the genuine perception that the secular world has of what Christians are focused on. What does it look like for Christians to, on the one hand, uphold the seriousness of sin and the brokenness of our world, but also at the same time embrace and herald this truth that God is not ashamed of his people?

Erik Raymond
That’s a really good question. I guess I would back out of that question a little bit—I’m not avoiding it, but like a parking spot I would back out of it a little bit—and just go back and ask, Does Jesus love his people? Or maybe to say it another way, Does God the Father love you, as a Christian, because Jesus died for you? In other words, Did the death of Christ pull the lever that initiated divine love? I think some Christians think like that. They think, God hates everybody, but those who believe in Jesus, now he loves you because you’ve made this deal with God based on conversion, and now he loves you. But I don’t think that’s true. Timewise, the apostle Paul is telling us that before the foundation of the world, he set his love on us (1 Pet. 1:20). The cross wasn’t the triggering event that initiates divine love; the cross is the event that demonstrates God’s eternal love for his people. I think I would back up and think about how God has this massive plan—before time even existed—not only to save people from sin, but to shower his love upon them and bring them in to be part of his family, and to restore the world that’s broken by sin. I think we, as Christians, have a big message to tell people, but it’s not this reductionistic sales-gospel presentation, which is just conversion and go. We’ve got to see who God is before Calvary, and what his promises say to people like you and me, and what he’s doing through the gospel all the way to the end when he’s going to restore all things. I think we have a big picture that kind of gets narrowed down to very important things—to the gospel—but the gospel doesn’t start in the reality of Calvary. It’s in the mind of God before the foundation of the world.

31:59 - The Eternal Oath of the Trinity

Matt Tully
I want to go back and dwell on that a little bit more as a last question, but at a couple of points in the book you reference the "eternal oath" between the persons of the trinity that helps you to remember God’s love for you in the midst of feeling the weight of your sin and shame. What are you referring to by that eternal oath, and why does it give you hope?

Erik Raymond
The covenant of redemption—theologians call it where you have this divine oath between the members of the trinity. In short, what you have, if you break that up by persons in the trinity, that the Father has a people—and elect and chosen people, the church, the bride of Christ. Even before we’re created, God sets his love on his church, his people. In order to deal with the problem of sin, the Son must accept the responsibility to become a man and to live a perfect life of obedience in our place, and to die a death of sufficient atonement—substitutionary atonement. And then the Father promises, based upon the Son’s obedience to the Father in this covenant, that he will raise him from the dead, give him a people, and that the Spirit will be sent to apply the work of Christ to these people that are in the Father’s heart before way, way before creation. You have this covenant of redemption—this oath between the members of the trinity—to carry out the eternal plan of God, to save helpless, wrecked, ruined sinners and make them his own. To see all the members of the trinity working in perfect unity for our good and God’s glory and our eternal happiness is just—we forget that. I think just the reminder that he loved us before time, he loved us at the cross, and he’s going to love us all the way into eternity. When you have that framework that his love doesn’t begin just at Calvary, it began before the foundation of the world.

Matt Tully
Or even at our own birth.

Erik Raymond
Yeah, at our birth or at our conversion. It’s all the way to the end. It’s this big, infinite spectrum of divine love. Then, we don’t think of God the Father primarily as judge, Jesus as Savior, and the Spirit as this kind of impersonal force. We think of the trinity as this loving, initiating, blessing, sacrificing, serving, sealing, sustaining God who has this whole plan where he saves people for himself. Suddenly, all we can do is worship and give him praise and glory for all he deserves.

Matt Tully
What a beautiful vision that we confess as true and hope giving. Thank you so much, Erik, for taking the time to talk with us today. We appreciate it.

Erik Raymond
It’s my pleasure.

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