Before emergency responders had finished pulling bodies out of the icy Potomac, politicians had already begun passing around blame for the tragic plane crash that took 67 lives near Washington, D.C.’s Reagan National Airport. The instinct to blame others is natural to each of us, but as Christians, we are called to fight against it.

“It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane. This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented,” President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social. There are good — even obvious — questions here that must be answered in any satisfactory investigation.

This statement also implies the possibility of human error by the helicopter pilots or air traffic controllers — a real possibility, but one we can’t establish with certainty until an investigation is completed. In further comments, Trump leaned into this tendency to blame others in comments to the press, “I put safety first. Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first. And they put politics at a level that nobody’s ever seen because this was the lowest level.” Trump condemned “a big push to put diversity into the FAA’s [Federal Aviation Administration] program.”

For their part, some Democratic politicians were quick to reflect the blame back onto the president. “President Trump now oversees the military and the FAA. One of his first acts was to fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe,” insisted Pete Buttigieg, Secretary of Transportation during the Biden administration.

Members of Congress also chimed in. “On his first day in office, Donald Trump froze the hiring of federal employees — including air traffic controllers,” insisted Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas). Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.), who holds the seat vacated by Karen Bass, now Mayor of Los Angeles, assigned blame even more explicitly. “I blame Donald Trump and his entire administration for this horrific crash and the deaths of all involved,” she said in a now-deleted tweet.

There will be time enough to sort out truth, falsehood, and blame once the facts of the tragedy are fully known. For now, my purpose is simply to recognize the natural, even instinctual, urge to pass around blame, which these public officials modeled — even if they bear no responsibility for the disaster.

This urge has been around since the Garden of Eden. After eating the forbidden fruit, Adam and Even experienced shame, which caused them to first hide their nakedness (Genesis 3:7) and then hide themselves from God (Genesis 3:8). God asked Adam directly, “Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” (Genesis 3:11). But Adam responds by passing the blame, both to his wife and to God, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate” (Genesis 3:12). Eve in turn passes the blame to the serpent, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” (Genesis 3:13).

Notice how, before confessing their own guilt, both Adam and Eve attempted to mitigate it by pointing the blame at somebody else. They showed themselves more eager for God to judge the sins of others than for God to judge their own sins. As their descendants, we cannot presume that we have a better nature that will respond any better than they did — unless God has given us a new nature.

The reality is, God will judge every sin, from the first transgression in Eden to sins committed today. And what pleases God is not blame-shifting but honesty. “Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart,” King David confessed after he committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband Uriah killed to cover it up (Psalm 51:6).

In keeping with this knowledge of God, David put the spotlight on his sins, “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:3-5).

Such brutal honesty about our sin pleases God more than attempts to minimize our sins. This is because God cares most about the status of our hearts. The greatest commandment, according to the Lord Jesus, is not outward acts we perform. Rather, it is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39). Even David recognized this, confessing the insufficiency of animal sacrifices because “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:17).

What does this mean for us? First, it strips away any justification for a victimhood mentality: “Oh, I did this bad thing because of what so-and-so did to me.” That doesn’t cut it with God. He knows both our deeds and our hearts — even those parts of it we hide even from ourselves. The standard by which he judges is his own absolute righteousness, and he does not grade on a curve.

Second, those who claim to love and follow God must “walk in the light” by confessing their sins. “If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. … If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us,” wrote John (1 John 1:6). Then the apostle offered this encouragement, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

There is no way to find forgiveness with God but through confessing our sins and turning away from them with our hearts. It may be difficult to say, as David did, “I have sinned against the Lord.” But only those who do can claim the lifegiving promise of the Lord’s prophet, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die” (2 Samuel 12:13) — the opposite echo of Eden’s judgment, “you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17).

Passing the blame may be a natural human response, but openly acknowledging our own blameworthiness is the supernatural way to find forgiveness.