Overcoming the Jekyll and Hyde in Us

A few weeks ago, I finally got around to reading Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I was quite familiar with the plot, and I’m sure you are. There are over 30 film versions, going back to 1913, including one with Abbott and Costello and another with Bugs Bunny. If you’re really curious (or bored) there is even The Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde Rock ‘n Roll Musical.

Me? I skipped the videos and classic comic book and went straight to the original novel. No spoiler alert: it’s the same story. However, Stevenson’s view of human nature stood out to me.

“All human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil.”

I will admit that all of us, regardless of our relationship to Christ, are capable of doing good things, but that doesn’t mean we are inherently good.

“There is certainly no one righteous on the earth who does good and never sins” (Eccl. 7:20).

“There is no one who does what is good, not even one” (Rom. 3:12).

Doing good things doesn’t make us good people. That’s not how the world sees it, but that is how God sees us. We are born in sin (Ps. 51:5), and even under the layer of any good things we may do, we have a sin nature that will always lead us into sin. Even as a mature follower of Christ, the apostle Paul recognized that there was a sin nature in him ever ready to pull him into sin.

“For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it” (Rom. 7:18).

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde reflect the viewpoint of the world that separates the good part of us from the bad part of us. Whereas I contend that we are bad people capable of good acts, the view of the world (and Robert Louis Stevenson) is that we are good people who are capable of occasionally doing bad things. That means by focusing on the good, we can negate or ignore any bad actions. As Dr. Jekyll said,

“Let me but escape into my laboratory door, give me but a second or two to mix and swallow the draught that I had always standing ready; and whatever he had done, Edward Hyde would pass away like the stain of breath upon a mirror.”

Humanly, we want to be like Dr, Jekyll and simply “turn off” the bad part of us and push it aside like it’s no big deal. Look at how Dr. Jekyll eased his conscience.

“Henry Jekyll stood at times aghast before the acts of Edward Hyde; but the situation was apart from ordinary laws, and insidiously relaxed the grasp of conscience. It was Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone, that was guilty. Jekyll was no worse; he woke again to his good qualities seemingly unimpaired; he would even make haste, where it was possible, to undo the evil done by Hyde. And thus his conscience slumbered.”

Nice idea, Jekyll, but it doesn’t work that way. Our sins don’t just go away. The sin must be addressed. Thankfully, it has been. We can’t fix our sin problem on our own. We need outside help. Let me correct that. We don’t need help as though we need someone to assist us in fixing our sin problem. We need someone to step in and do what we cannot do.

And that’s the very thing Jesus did. Jesus, the sinless Son of God took our sin upon Himself and paid the penalty that we could never pay. He removed our sin and gave us forgiveness and His righteousness. He gave us a new life.

We can try to fix our sin problem ourselves and just try to be better people, but without the intervention and radical new life Jesus offers, we will keep drifting back into sin. We may want to be free, but sin will always pull us back. That’s what Dr. Jekyll discovered. His sin nature, the Mr. Hyde lurking in him, kept coming out.

“I began to be tortured with throes and longings, as of Hyde struggling after freedom; and at last, in an hour of moral weakness, I once again compounded and swallowed the transforming draught.”

We will always—always!—give in to that moral weakness, but thankfully, Jesus is there to deliver us.