The testimony of the Word assures us that God isn’t waiting for us at the top of the stairs, with arms folded and brows furrowed.
How would you put into words the experience of living simultaneously as a sinner and a saint? Martin Luther’s axiom simul iustus et peccator incisively describes the reality in which believers live this side of eternity. Although they are declared righteous by God’s word of promise outside of themselves, they themselves are given to unrighteousness. There’s a war inside each of us between the old and the new; between the old Adam and new Adam. We need not downplay this struggle, since it is part and parcel of the life of faith. It is the struggle that is so poignantly, albeit somewhat circuitously, articulated by the apostle Paul in Romans 7, where he talks about not doing what he wants to do, while doing the very thing he hates (Rom. 7:15). This war with oneself and grappling with one’s belief and residual unholiness is heart-rendingly put into words in the song “Downstairs” by Twenty One Pilots.
With the recent release of Breach, the alt-rock duo of Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun, known as Twenty One Pilots, crossed a milestone with their eighth studio album. The record received critical and commercial acclaim, debuting atop the Billboard 200, the second such time they’ve accomplished that feat. For many longtime listeners, though, Breach is a return to form, especially after 2021’s Scaled and Icy seemed to mark a shift in the duo’s musical stylings, from an emotional mixture of alternative rock and hip-hop to bouncy synth-infused pop. Breach, also happens to be one of their most vulnerable and, dare I say, spiritual records to date, with “Downstairs” being the best specimen of the band’s fragility and faith.
“Downstairs” is a conversation between Tyler Joseph and God, downstream of the Davidic psalms, wherein the psalmist vents his frustrations, doubts, and struggles heavenward.
The track begins with hauntingly reserved lyrics and subdued instrumentation, as Tyler dares to offer all of himself, all he has ever made and known, as well as both of his lungs, if whoever he is speaking to asks it of him. Actually, it might be better to understand this as a prayer, especially since, in the very next line, he yearns “to be the one after your own heart,” invoking the biblical description of another sinner-saint, King David (1 Sam. 13:14; Acts 13:22). This clues us in to the fact that “Downstairs” is a conversation between Tyler and God, downstream of the Davidic psalms, wherein the psalmist vents his frustrations, doubts, and struggles heavenward. Similarly, Tyler prefaces his prayer-like song with this confession and with pleas for mercy, which is a subtle gesture not only to his Christian upbringing in Ohio but also to the Christianity that still vies for his attention, even as he and his bandmate Josh garner worldwide acclaim.
What do you do when the faith with which you’ve been instilled pushes you one way, while your career trajectory pulls you in another? You beg for mercy as you divulge that it’s better to keep that part of yourself downstairs in the cellar, sheltered from judgment and shame. This push and pull seems to leave Tyler desperate for an ounce of compassion, as his cries for mercy become increasingly guttural as the song progresses. Whereas he was “afraid of nothing,” he later confesses he’s ashamed of how he hides his face from the one above. “Oh, what have I become?” he exclaims, as he wonders if how “dirty and wretched” he has become has forced God’s hand. Has God’s patience worn thin? Has his river of grace dried up? Can he forgive someone who has concealed what he believes? Does forgiveness even work that way? Tyler hopes it does.
The internal wrestling match with his true self reaches its apotheosis when the refrain and the prelude play over one another. While admitting the safety and security he has found downstairs, he also reiterates his prayer of surrender: “You can have all I’ve made and all I’ve ever known / You can have both my lungs if you ask me so.” As these lines are layered, one voice appears to cling to the shadows while the other begs for the renewal and recreation that can only be received. The voices seem to trade the microphone, bringing us further into the reality of the tension of living as a sinner-saint, ashamed and beloved at the same time. It’s a paradox that can only be traversed by faith and mercy.
The testimony of the Word assures us that God isn’t waiting for us at the top of the stairs, with arms folded and brows furrowed.
By the end, we’re left to wonder if Tyler ever leaves the cellar, with the song coming to a close without much in the way of clarity or finality, but with the same tremblingly honest prayer that marked its beginning. I think that’s the point, though. Rather than some climactic breakthrough or resolution, mercy meets us right where we are and sits with us in the cellar of our regret, doubt, and shame. The testimony of the Word assures us that God isn’t waiting for us at the top of the stairs, with arms folded and brows furrowed. He enters the basement with us, for us, listening as we sing and cry, unoffended by all the clutter and doubt. The good news tells us that God in Christ kneels beside us in the dimly lit gloom of sin and death to both show and tell us that he is for us. It’s the gracious reminder that he will always find us in all the places we try to hide from him. Mercy runs downstairs.
This is what it sounds like to live simultaneously as a sinner and a saint. It’s not some abstract formula or academic paradigm; it’s a lived dissonance that is sustained by nothing but mercy. Life as a sinner-saint doesn’t mean we have split personalities. Rather, it means that we live as sinners who’ve been reconciled by a Word that’s stronger than our sin. It means learning and re-learning that the righteousness that is given to us and spoken over us forever eclipses the unrighteousness within us. It’s the weary oscillation between concealment and confession, between the light upstairs that we long to live in and the darkness downstairs that we know all too well. “Downstairs” gives the tension we feel deep in our bones a soundtrack, that we who are both dirty and beloved, unholy yet held, are never beyond the reach of mercy. Even downstairs.
