Self-Inflicted Wounds

“knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned” (Titus 3:11)

My biggest enemy is the dude in the mirror. Oh sure, the devil and his demonic toadies are doing their satanic thing. The fallen world always seems to be tapping my shoulder and inviting to forget this “Jesus thing” and come out to play. But my toughest opponent stares back at me every morning when I shave. That’s why it’s so frustrating to know that my sin and rebellion is nobody’s fault but my own. I do it to myself. Sin is a self-inflicted wound. Here in his instructions to Titus, the Apostle Paul says that false teachers are actually their own worst enemy. The Big T shouldn’t blame himself when he gives them the boot from the church. These troublemakers have been warned, not once, but twice (Titus 3:10). They knew the consequences. They threw themselves out. Getting kicked tossed for stirring up trouble is a self-inflicted wound.

One of the front burner issues on the island of Crete is a posse of pesky false teachers (Titus 1:10-11). They are causing a ton of trouble for all the new believers. They’re spiritual con artists that use all sorts of smoke and mirrors to twist Jesus’ message and stir up trouble. After warning the followers of Christ to not get drawn into ridiculous theological fights over things that just don’t matter (Titus 3:9), Paul tells Titus that it’s “three strikes and you’re out.” He’s to make it absolutely clear to these knuckleheads that they need to shut it down and shut it down NOW. He’ll warn them once. He’ll warn them twice. But if they do it a third time, they are gone, goodbye. Once they know it’s wrong, they’re making their own choice. See what I mean about a self-inflicted wound?

We see that these troublemakers are “warped” (v11). The man from Tarsus uses the Greek verb ekstrepho, which means to be turned inside out, perverted, corrupted, turned and twisted. They’ve flipped and then flopped. And they’re “sinful” (v11). Let’s do a quick refresher course on the definition of sin. It’s our deliberate disobedience of God. We don’t just sin by commission. We sin by omission. We don’t do what we know is right. And we even sin when we do the right thing for the wrong reasons. 

We’re all sinners from the very beginning (Rom 3:10-11, 23). That’s not who Paul is talking about. He’s warning Titus about folks who have seemingly repented from their sin and then spun back around putting Jesus in their rearview mirror. They haven’t done a 180 but a 360. They are back where they started from. So the question is: Did they lose their salvation? I thought “once saved, always saved.” A better way of understanding the situation is that they never really repented in the first place. Think “IF saved, always saved.” This rebel has spun all the back around. Now THAT’S twisted! THAT’S warped! The big dance number in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is “The Time Warp.” It’s just a jump to the left and a step to the right. To do the Sin Warp, you spin all the way around. You’re headed the same way you always were. Toward self. Toward sin. Away from Jesus. That’s the dance these troublemaking false teachers are doing.

As a result doing the Sin Warp, these spiritual con artists are “self-condemned” (v11). Paul digs deep into his bag of vocabulary tricks and pulls out autokatakritos. This is a triple compound word that only shows up in the New Testament. The apostle combines not one, not two, but three words. A sort of Triple Lindy of Koine Greek. It means to pass judgment (-krino-) against (kata-) yourself (auto-). It paints a picture of a person who demonstrates by his own actions that he is wrong or guilty. They are self-doomed. They are self-damned. They have nobody to blame but themselves. When we know what to do, have been given a clear warning and correction, and still do it, we’re autokatakritos. We’ve made our own bed and now have to sleep in it. We’ve done it to ourselves. And in the case of the false teachers, they’ve done it to themselves. They’ve gotten themselves kicked out.

This is a self-inflicted wound.