Sin

Luke 11:13

There is a powerful, almost off the cuff reference here by Jesus that is easy to miss. Within Luke 11:13 there is an assumption by Jesus that some of the 'best' human beings (he had picked his disciples) are so corrupt that they can be referred to as "evil." But nevertheless, in spite of seeing his disciples as evil, he loved with unconditional tenderness and delight and was willing to pay an ultimate price for their sake (John 13, 17:20-26).

I think Jesus's view of sin and humanity can be moving for us if we feel the weight of it.

What is Jesus' view of sin?

Well, according to Romans 1:21–25 at least, sin is a dislocation of the heart from its original center in God. This distortion is expressed as a desire from every person to be his or her own savior and lord (the serpent’s original temptation in Genesis 3:5 was “you will be like God”).

Soren Kierkegaard used very modern terms to define sin. I think his definition of sin as 'building your identity on anything besides God' is understandable to the modern ear. I use it as my working definition, which is just another way to convey the biblical themes of idolatry and self-justification.

Sin is something that everyone is doing all the time as we see from Romans 1:18–3:20. People who openly oppose God's moral law are doing this obviously, but it also says that moral, religious people are just as guilty. They are trying to be their own 'gods' by earning justification and trying to prove that they are not as bad as 'sinners' outside the church are. It is just as possible to avoid Jesus as Savior by keeping God’s law as by breaking it. According to the Bible, everyone is separated from God equally, regardless of the external form of behavior.

I think Flannery O’Connor's quick description of one of her characters in Wise Blood: A Novel explains it very well, “The boy didn’t need to hear it. There was already a deep black wordless conviction in him that the way to avoid Jesus was to avoid sin.” If Christians are able to live right, they will eventually not need to bother coming to Jesus at all. Sure they will acknowledge Jesus, but are they really holding on to him dearly as the one way to be saved? Acts 4:12: "There is salvation in no one else" [including yourself].

The fundamental motives to justify ourselves (I wrote about that on Monday) move our hearts away from God, where we can get ultimate and lasting justification. Even our greatest acts of altruism are done to the degree of what WE get out of them. I think the Bible says that our most true, self-sacrificing love is only just a shoot out of God's love. What is God's love? Although He was perfectly transcendent and full of love and completeness, He chose to come down to earth and be identified with us as a man. In order to reconcile us back to Him He sacrificed His life to pay OUR debt... This is the only act that can justify our pervasive sinfulness. Even our silly attempts to justify our actions come only out of the grace given to us by God, or to say it in other words, there is nothing we can give Him that is not already His!

And so, unless a person has faith in this God's power to justify our lives (Romans 4), they will never find rest from their sin. Romans 1:19-22 says, in one sense, that every man feels that they need to be reconciled to God, but may not fully ever realize the need with clarity. They know they cannot justify their actions by themselves, they just do not know where to turn.

And so, in an ultimate sense, everyone is equally a sinner in need of Jesus’ salvation by grace alone. No one is able to justify their actions to God by their own merit.

Once this radical view of sin is grasped, it revolutionizes a believer’s attitude toward others who do not share his or her beliefs. Here are two ways it can change you in this regard:

First, it means you sense more than ever a common humanity with others. It is normal for human beings to divide the world into the good and the bad (again, I wrote more about that on Monday). A human's heart is always seeking to justify itself and trying to make the case that it is one of the “good guys." This biblical view significantly changes Christians. If everyone is naturally alienated from God and therefore “evil,” then that goes for absolutely everyone - from murderers to ministers. We are ALL evil. We have no right to look down on anybody.

The biblical teaching on sin shows us the complete pervasiveness of sin and the radical error of dividing the world neatly into sinful people and good people. It eliminates our attitudes of superiority toward others and our practices of being excluded from those with whom we differ.

Second, it means you should expect to be constantly misunderstood - especially about sin. The gospel message is that we are saved by Christ’s work, not by our work. But everyone else (even most people in church) believes that Christianity operates on the principle that you are saved if you live a good life and avoid sin. But this is not the case! Therefore, when others hear a Christian call something “sin,” they believe you are saying, “These are bad people (and I am good). These are people who should be excluded (and I should be welcomed). These are people whom God condemns because of this behavior (but I am accepted by God because I don’t do that).” You may not mean that by the term “sin” at all, but you must realize and expect that others will hear that you are saying it that way. They have to. Until they grasp the profound difference between religion and the Christian faith, they will probably understand your invoking of the word “sin” as self-righteous condemnation, no matter what your disclaimers are.

For example, if most people hear you saying, “People who have sex outside of marriage are sinning,” they will immediately believe you look down on them, that you think they are lost because of that behavior, that you are one of the “good people” who don’t do things like that, and so on. If people hear a Christian say, “Well, these people are sinning, but I don’t think of myself as any better than they are - we are all sinners needing grace,” they will think you have spoken nonsense. They have a completely different paradigm in their minds about how anyone can approach and relate to God, and they are hearing the word “sin” through that worldview.

I think it is wise for Christians, in general, to avoid publicly saying particular behaviors are sinful. Rather, it might be best to help people first hear the radical message of the Bible about the true inward nature of sin, its wide-spread nature, and salvation by grace. And it is also good to try and explain to those in the church that don't get this that we are all ultimately lost and if they are too proud to see that then they are lost and in need of a Savior who saves by sheer grace, just as a drowning person offered a life preserver will only die if he won’t admit he needs it (Luke 5:30-32).

When Christians talk to their friends about sin, I think we must do so in a way that quickly puts the term in context — the context of the full message of Jesus’ salvation.