Two
recent books have provided me with a topic I would like to explore a bit in
the short time we have together today. These books are (1) Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde, first published in 1886 by Robert Louis Stevenson, and (2)
The Contemporary Christian (Applying God's Word to Today's World) by
John Stott, known worldwide as a gifted scholar and Christian statesman.
As
future physicians you will perhaps agree with the statement of J.C. Ryle who
said "Wrong views of a disease will always bring with them wrong views of a
remedy." Ryle also said "Wrong views of the corruption of human nature will
always carry with them wrong views of the grand antidote and cure of that
corruption." My topic is the corruption of human nature and the cure of
that corruption. I hope that in these comments is a "pearl of wisdom" that
will be of value to you and to those you love.
Henry Jekyll, M.D. was an honest and wealthy man known for his
charitableness and distinguished for religion. At the age of fifty he
reflected on his life and took stock of his progress and position in the
world, realizing that he was already committed to a profound duplicity of
life. As he described it, a deep trench severed in him those spheres of
good and ill that divide and compound man's dual nature. After reflecting
deeply and persistently on this dual nature, Jekyll concluded that man is
not truly one, but truly two and that he was radically both; and from an
early date.
Jekyll began to daydream of separating out these two elements of his human
nature - the good and the evil. If each could but be housed in separate
identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjust
part of him might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of
his more upright twin; and the just part of him could walk steadfastly and
securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his
pleasure. These contemplations along with Jekyll's scientific interests
"being rather chemical than anatomical" led him to develop a drug by which
these elements of his human nature could be separated. When Jekyll drank
the potion that he developed, he was suddenly aware that he had lost in
stature. He was no longer Dr. Jekyll, a large, well-made, smooth-faced man
but had become Edward Hyde, a pale, dwarfish, and wicked-looking man with a
ghastly face that was said to have Satan's signature upon it. Dr. Jekyll
had transferred the evil side of his nature into Edward Hyde. "Hyde alone,
in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil."
Therefore, he had the perfect life, two identities to play with - Jekyll and
Hyde. The doctor bought a house in Soho for Hyde and furnished it. Hyde
roamed the streets of London doing harm. Jekyll thrilled at the new power
he had to become this new creature. Two incidents are worth noting which
took place during this double existence of Jekyll and Hyde. In one a girl
of eight or ten who was running as hard as she was able down a cross-street
ran into Hyde at a corner; and then came the horrible part; Hyde trampled
calmly over the child's body and left her screaming on the ground. The
second incident, at the hands of Hyde, was the shocking murder of a member
of parliament, Sir Danvers Carew. Mr. Hyde reportedly broke out in a great
flame of anger, carried on like a lunatic, and clubbed Carew to the earth
with his cane. With ape-like fury, he was trampling his victim underfoot,
hailing down a storm of blows, under which the bones
of Carew were audibly shattered. Moral insensibility and insensate
readiness to evil were the leading characteristics of Edward Hyde. As
Jekyll noted "that child of Hell had nothing human; nothing lived in him but
fear and hatred."
As
time went on Dr. Jekyll found himself "slowly losing hold of my original and
better self, and becoming slowly incorporated with my second and worse." He
could no longer control these transformations and Hyde begins to shove
Jekyll out of the way. He would go to sleep as Jekyll and wake as Hyde.
Before this scheme was uncovered, Dr. Jekyll committed suicide and thus
destroyed Hyde.
As
Stott notes, "The truth is every Jekyll has his Hyde, whom he cannot control
and who threatens to take him over. Because evil is so deeply entrenched
within us, self-salvation is impossible. So our most urgent need is
redemption, that is to say, a new beginning in life that offers us both a
cleansing from the pollution of sin and a new heart, even a new creation,
with new perspectives, new ambitions and new powers. In addition, because
we were made in God's image, such redemption is possible. No human being is
irredeemable."
Stott points out "we are capable of both the loftiest nobility and of the
basest cruelty. One moment we can behave like God in whose image we were
made and the next like the beasts over whom we were meant to rule. Human
beings are the inventors of hospitals for the care of the sick, universities
for the acquisition of wisdom, congresses and parliaments for the just rule
of its people and churches for the worship of God. But we are also the
inventors of torture chambers, concentration camps, nuclear arsenals,"
abortion clinics and assisted suicide devices! "This is indeed a strange,
bewildering paradox - noble and ignoble, rational and irrational, moral and
immoral, Godlike and bestial."
We
need not read the story of Jekyll and Hyde to gain a right view of the
corruption or depravity of our own human nature. It is a reality; both
experienced in life and taught in Scripture. A right view of the grand
antidote and cure of that depravity requires the direct intervention of
God. Man is unable to separate his two natures or save himself from the
evil that lies within. Rather such salvation is not from our good desires
or deeds, our good inclinations or actions, "not of him who wills, nor of
him who runs, but of God who shows mercy" (Rom 9:16).
My
prayer is that each of us will recognize these two elements of our own human
nature and that faced with the horror of that paradox not be foolish enough
to think that we can sort ourselves out, banishing the evil and liberating
the good within us. My prayer is that having obtained a right view of the
corruption of our own human nature we will each earnestly seek the
correct antidote and divine cure for that corruption. To understand
this divine cure is the greatest news a person can ever receive!
