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Our suicidal love affair with sin
(A movie review on Spiderman 3)
Why do we love sin so much that we are willing to die for it? This, above all things, was the question etched in my mind while watching Spiderman 3. But before I dive too deeply in this thought, I wish to highlight a few other noble thoughts and worldviews portrayed in this movie.
First, I must point out as an overall series the Spiderman movies contained some of the highest possible grounds for teaching profound Christian truths that I have ever seen. Notice I did not say that these movies do teach profound Christians truths, but they have a huge possibility to do so if the writers had chosen differently. With this said, I will focus on some specific scenes as examples.
The power of forgiveness
Spiderman 3 tangibly portrays the power - the healing power - of forgiveness. In the first movie, Peter Parker's (Spiderman) beloved uncle was murdered by a robber. Later, Spiderman thought he had found the man responsible for this murder, and during an attempt to confront him, the murderer falls out a widow and dies. However, we learn in Spidy 3 that the real killer got away and is now on the run after having escaped from jail. In a series of events during the movie, this man becomes the Sandman who has the ability to change into sand. Spiderman discovers this and tries to take vengeance for his uncle by killing the Sandman, but the Sandman survives. At the end of the movie the Sandman approaches Spiderman to sincerely communicate that because his daughter was ill, he robbed Spidy's uncle for some money to help pay for his daughter's medical bills. He explains that when he was robbing Spidy's uncle for his car, The Sandman shot the uncle by accident. The Sandman appeared very sincere in his confession, and this event was seemingly eating away at his soul.
Now, Spiderman must respond. In an amazing statement, Spiderman compassionately says that he forgives the Sandman for murdering his uncle. With this statement, the Sandman's face immediately changes ever so slightly while fading way in the wind. I felt that he was obviously experiencing deep healing in his soul.
I bring this up to state the obvious truth, which is known to all people across the board. Sincere forgiveness brings deep healing to all persons involved, especially the one in the wrong. To have done a great wrong to a person and then experience authentic forgiveness from this person gives a tremendous, sweet, healing power to any soul. As I live my life, I see that people are so glad to receive forgiveness from others; they know the wonderful and pleasant gift that forgiveness is. Therefore, people place a huge value on the gift of forgiveness from others. However, a problem still remains with this!
Horrid pride and arrogance allows us to value the forgiveness of men and to benefit from the pleasantness of it but to reject the forgiveness of Jesus Christ, the Lord. Jesus Christ offers not temporary, but eternal forgiveness of all sins, but we are not willing to receive it or benefit from it. This devalues and insults the worth of Jesus Christ's blood. This blood belonged to the King of the world. Its value has no end; therefore, the benefits to the soul that accepts the forgiving and cleansing power in it are also infinite. Yet, we are not willing to live daily in the gospel of Jesus. We do not quickly confess our sin and treachery so that we might receive His forgiveness, which provided us acceptance before God Almighty.
Therefore, we have an opportunity to use this example from Spiderman to warn ourselves and others not to value the forgiveness of man over Christ. We should use this example to spur us to quick recognition of all our sin and swift confession of them before our merciful God, who so profoundly testified of His love and acceptance of us as His Children through the suffering of His Son, Jesus Christ. Let us together value His mercy and love. Since the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23), may we choose to partake with Christ and be crucified with Him knowing we have an eternal home with our Heavenly Father, embraced by the arms of His love.
Love your neighbor as yourself
In this movie, Peter seeks advice from his aunt because he wants to ask Mary Jane to marry him. His aunt's advice is simple; do not marry her until you are willing to place and to love her above yourself. This reminded me of the following famous statement of Jesus Christ: "And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.' This is the first commandment." And the second, like it, is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these", (Mark 12:30-13, NKV) This reveals that even the secular world has benefited and been influenced by the Gospel of Jesus Christ because Christ and His followers brought this type of thinking into the world.
First, I am pleased that this movie portrays such good and strong morality. I am reminded that Spiderman 2 also showed a fantastic marriage relationship in the portrayal of Doctor Octavious and his wife. Both of these movies demonstrate that sincere unselfish love will yield more pleasure than a self-centered narcissistic love. May this point us to the fountain and source of all love, Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father. God's love is untainted and without blemish. We can benefit from our God's love infinitely more than all others. Let us, therefore, submit our lives to our Good Father and His Son so that we might dine with Him in the Heavenly Jerusalem one day. Secondly, we should see that a marriage mirrored after and for Jesus Christ will yield more fruit of pleasure in our lives, which springs up to the Glory of His Blessed Name forever, than if we lived selfishly and not for Jesus Christ.
The power of sin's grasp on the souls of men
Now let us focus on my original question. Why do we love sin so much that we are willing to die for it? This question is easy to answer according to Scripture but no so in Spiderman 3; let me explain.
In Spidy 3, symbiotic alien goo attaches to Spiderman. It is ironic that this goo changes Spiderman's suit from red and blue to black. The black reflects the true color of its character. This goo gives Spiderman an increase in strength, speed, and other abilities. However, there is a price to pay because this goo also increases all sorts of bad, immoral character traits such as anger, lust, self-confidence [1], and revenge.
This suit profoundly reminds me of the sin nature, which has attached itself to all mankind since the original fall of Adam and Eve. When Adam sinned, God pronounced that as a result they spiritually died; therefore, their souls were enslaved and mastered by sin. Paul speaks much about this in the first half of Romans 7 where he states that because we spiritually died, sin now takes advantage of this and enslaves us to moral corruption. The enslavement happens in the following steps: Sin deceives us and makes evilness look common and pleasurable to our hearts and minds. Even if we realize that we have been deceived by this corruption and wish to stop, we do not have the will power to do so; the power of sin is too strong for both the human heart and willpower. Our only hope is come admit our sin and weakness to Jesus Christ and He will save us and restore in us a renewed heart that is freed from the grasp of sin.
After realizing how evil he has become, Spiderman gets rid of this black symbiote [2], which then finds a new host and attaches itself to a man named Eddie Brock. At this point, the villain named Venom is born. Together, Brock and the symbiote (Venom) hatch a plan to kill Spiderman.
At this final battle between Spiderman and Venom, a vivid picture of the power of sin is depicted. During this battle, Spiderman warns Brock that because he has worn the suit, he knows how it feels. He knows how the power and the evil character makes you feel so good, but it will ruin you at they same time. But in response to this, Brock says he enjoys the pleasure of feeling angry too much to give up the suit.
Spiderman realizes that the symbiote has a weakness, which is a loud noise. Therefore, Spiderman makes some loud sounds by hitting together metal pipes, which finally results in the removal of the symbiotic suit from Brock, its host. Next, Spiderman picks up a bomb to throw at the symbiotic suit so that it might be totally destroyed. When Brock sees that Spiderman is going to blow up the suit, Brock rushes to grasp the suit only to be exploded along with it. Brock must have known the potential result because Spiderman had already thrown the bomb, which made it impossible to grab the suit in time. However, Brock's longing to get the suit back, which will enslave him to the power and temporary pleasure of anger, overruled his commonsense. Therefore, this poor soul died in an attempt to be re-enslaved with the power of anger that he felt he could not live without!
This is a profound scene, which teaches us the true depravity of the human heart. We would rather die with our moral corruption than live without it. What has become of us? The power of sin over the heart is so great that we willingly kill ourselves over meaningless and empty pleasures such as fame and anger! Spiderman got rid of the symbiotic suit. But what do you supposed happened to him? Did his life have less pleasure without it? No, Spiderman now is living a more happy and pleasurable life without it, big surprise! Sin is so deceptive. It makes us think we cannot live without its fleeting pleasures when in reality we would have more pleasure without it.
Let this remind us to throw all reliance on self out the door and fully rest our salvation upon the achievement, suffering, and love of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Let us come to grips with the harsh reality that sin has made total fools of us and that we are helpless by ourselves to cleanse ourselves of this problem. In light of this, we need to see the worth and supremacy of Jesus Christ who provided us the Holy Spirit who is able to give us spiritual life, cleansing, and defeat of our enemy, sin. Our commandment from Jesus Christ is not to willpower our freedom from sin's grasp. But instead, our responsibility is to admit we do not have the strength to make godly choices and therefore, ask Christ to forgive us of this sin and ask Him to be our strength for us, by the power of His Holy Spirit.
[1] This statement might be new to some but it is clearly taught in scripture. Proverbs 14:16, "A wise man fears and departs from evil, But a fool is self-confident." Proverbs 3:26, "For the LORD will be your confidence, And will keep your foot from being caught." Philippians 3:3, "For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." We are commanded to have no confidence in ourselves but instead place our confidence in Jesus Christ, our God.
[2] This is the one aspect of the movie that ruins all potential Christian themes, which could have been profound in this movie. In this third movie, Spiderman removes the symbiotic suit by himself for the most part. Ironically, the scene takes place in a church's bell tower, which seemingly suggests that perhaps the Big Guy upstairs was looking out for Spidy and gave a little help. However, the end of the move preaches a different ideology.
At the end of the movie, we are told that when hard or evil choices come our way, we have the ability to make the right choice. This is a foolish statement to make. First, unlike Spiderman, we do not have super powers to remove this evil off our hearts. Second, the Bible denounces all such human logic as a mere fairytale invented by the hearts of people who hate God and His Son, Jesus Christ. If we have the power to rid ourselves of the evil in us, then why did Jesus die? Surly, we do not need to go through all the trouble of submitting ourselves to His rules and trust in His Name in order to receive forgiveness and a transformed heart if we could do it without Him, right? This represents the depravity of the heart of man that we would rather die in torment with our sin and pride than to trust, treasure, and follow Jesus Christ and receive infinite pleasure and happiness from Him. I bring this agnostic and humanistic philosophy, which is woven throughout the Spidy movies, to your attention so that you may not be deceived by it. Instead, be on guard against such foolish ideas that are set in motion to shake the faith of the church from the only sure Rock, Jesus Christ and His free grace.
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