As a police officer, you see the darkest corners of humanity more often than most people ever will. If you’ve walked the halls of homicide divisions or sat with old cold case files, the evidence stares back at you: killers don’t always look like killers. Some of them live quietly in neighborhoods, coach little league, smile politely, and pass themselves off as “good people” for years. The chilling truth is that evil may wear a respectable mask. That reality leads to a sobering realization: every one of us carries the potential to commit terrible acts. It isn’t just “them.” It’s us.
This is the uncomfortable conclusion that both history and Scripture affirm. We live in a fallen world where sin runs through the veins of humanity. Philosophers and psychologists for centuries have recognized this reality, often without arriving at a Christian solution. The philosopher Schopenhauer once described man as a dreadful beast tamed only by the restraints of civilization, yet when order collapses, the beast emerges. He saw cruelty and pitilessness as part of our shared nature. Psychologist Carl Jung went so far as to label this hidden darkness “the shadow,” warning that when people repress or deny it, it grows more potent. Doctors of psychiatry, political thinkers, and even everyday parents see the same truth— we don’t have to be taught selfishness, anger, or pride. They come naturally. You never have to sit your child down and explain how to throw a tantrum. That comes uninvited. We live in a fallen world where sin runs through the veins of humanity. Share on X
Across the world of social science, experiments have revealed this disturbing side of humanity. Stanley Milgram’s work in the 1960s showed how ordinary people could be persuaded to harm others simply by following orders. Strangers, without malice on their own, were willing to deliver electric shocks they believed were painful, even lethal, because someone in authority assured them it was required. A few years later, Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment exposed how quickly power could corrupt and weakness could debase. Within days, healthy, law-abiding college students fell into abusive patterns when asked to play roles of guard and prisoner. The frightening lesson wasn’t that the guards were sadists or the prisoners broken souls—it was that all of us are vulnerable when conditions tempt us to abandon decency.
For those of us in law enforcement, none of this is abstract. We see it at crime scenes, in interrogations, and in the crisis calls that fill our shifts. Stress, scarcity, and fear often push people to their worst. We’ve watched communities fracture in a panic, seen neighbors cheat one another, witnessed families ripped apart by betrayal. When we catch a cold-case suspect, for example, we sometimes hear them confess something similar to: “I didn’t know I was capable of doing something like that.” True crime doesn’t always come with glaring warning signs. More often than not, our cold case suspects seemed ordinary before the mask cracked.
Scripture makes sense of what the social sciences observe. The Bible does not flatter mankind. From Genesis forward, we read accounts of rebellion, selfishness, violence, and pride. The prophet Jeremiah declared, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” Jesus Himself pointed out that evil thoughts, murder, lust, and slander flow from within the human heart. What the psychologists call the “shadow,” Scripture calls sin. That nature isn’t just in a cold-blooded killer. It’s in every one of us.
Still, there is another side to this mystery. For every crime scene that reveals depravity, there are acts of courage, bravery, and sacrifice that shine like light in the darkness. We’ve seen the officer who takes a bullet to shield a stranger, the community that rallies in times of disaster, the countless daily acts of kindness that never make the news. This paradox—our capacity for evil coupled with our capacity for good—has puzzled thinkers for centuries. Literature paints it in stories like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Philosophy portrays it as two opposing horses pulling the same chariot. From a biblical lens, it is the clash between the flesh and the spirit.
So which side defines us? Are we basically good people with occasional bad lapses, or are we fatally flawed people who occasionally stumble into decency? The world argues both sides and often lands in confusion. But Scripture speaks with clarity: we are fallen by nature, enslaved to sin, and unable to climb our way back to God by sheer willpower. That explains why laws must exist, why governments assume selfishness and create rules to restrain it, and why even in our personal lives we fail to do what we know is right. It also explains why hypocrisy thrives—why we give ourselves excuses for wrongdoing while condemning others for the same actions. Left unchecked, our pride blinds us and our hearts deceive us.
But the gospel does not end in despair. The same Jesus who exposed the sin in our hearts also came to redeem them. On the cross, He dealt with the penalty of sin. Through His resurrection, He broke the power of sin. Through His Spirit, He transforms us from the inside out. While the world can only try to restrain evil through laws and programs, Christ promises to renew our very nature. The selfish heart can be replaced with a servant’s heart. The violent impulse can be subdued by the peace of God. The shadow within can be confronted and overcome, not by our own effort, but through the grace of God.
For officers of the law, this spiritual reality carries both comfort and warning. It comforts us because we know our labor to restrain evil reflects God’s own concern for justice and order. We act as His servants in a world that desperately needs law. It warns us because we know we, too, are not immune from temptation. The badge we wear does not make us righteous; only the blood of Christ does. If we forget that, pride can be our downfall.
Every crime scene whispers the same truth: mankind is broken. Yet every act of courage and service points toward another reality: God is still at work, and His image remains stamped on every human being. The struggle between light and darkness runs through every heart. The answer isn’t merely stronger laws or better education. It is redemption through the One who said, “You must be born again.” That is the hope that guards our souls, even as we guard the streets.
If you haven’t yet trusted the Savior who understands our sin nature, there is no better time than now. To learn more about “the enigma of man” and how it establishes the reliability of the Bible, please read The Truth in True Crime: What Investigating Death Teaches Us About the Meaning of Life.
Michael Williams
September 17, 2025 at 11:20 am
Well said brother. Shared.