LET’S TALK ABOUT
SIN
“Sin” is a word that we use very carefully. We cannot
talk about sin, or that which we designate as “sin,” as openly as we once used
to. Calling something “sin” suggests condemnation or judgment on our part, and
we paint ourselves negatively to others if we throw the “sin” word around too
loosely.
If you
want to know what Western society thinks of “sin,” television provides a very
accurate gauge of public opinion. Consider the last time you have heard “sin”
mentioned on your favorite show and in what context. No one talks about “sin”
on prime time. If a commercial advertises a chocolate treat of some sort it
might be described as “sinfully delicious.” In this way, “sin” becomes an
adjective for “good stuff that you shouldn’t have.”
“Sin”
suggests guilt. And no one wants to feel guilty. Yet even with the removal the
word “sin” people still feel guilty. A recent US survey revealed that 87
percent of American adults believe in the existence of sin – something that is
always considered wrong. But some sins, like gambling, pre-marital sex, and
drinking, no longer draw condemnation. So the list gets modified by popular
culture.
And
popular culture influences the church. The drift of Western preaching today veers
away from talking about sin. The result is that people know what sin is, they
just don’t believe in it anymore. Pastors preach happiness instead of holiness;
believers seek personal fulfillment instead of moral purity.
But I
believe that we need to talk about sin as a church. I believe that having a
biblical view of sin leads us to a greater understanding of salvation through
Jesus Christ. Acknowledging sin and the sinful nature accentuates the Good News
of Christ in a way that ignoring it can never do.
So let’s
talk about sin…
How do we define sin?
Our first biblical encounter with sin comes to us in
Genesis 3. Until this moment there was a perfect world. For a reason we are not
told about, a crafty serpent enters the garden where the man and the woman live
and work.
Ray Stedman
said that it was unfortunate that translators identified the word here as
“serpent” when it is actually a shining creature. This is apt since the NT
calls the devil a deceiver masquerading as an angel of light. And here the
devil deceives the woman concerning God. The deception comes in stages:
First, the
serpent says “Did God actually say…”
creating doubt in the mind concerning the Word of the Lord.
Second, the
woman responds concerning the forbidden tree but adds that they should not even
touch the tree. She adjusts the Word of the Lord to her own liking.
Third, the
serpent refutes God’s command that they will die if they touch the tree saying “You will not surely die…” and then
casts doubt on God’s love by inferring that God just doesn’t want the man and
the woman to be as wise as him.
Fourth, the
act of rebellion. The woman considers that the food on the tree is good and
delightful to look at, so she takes and eats the fruit. She gives some to the
man and he eats.
As James
later writes (1:14-15), this is the pattern leading to sin: desire, temptation,
sin, followed by death. That’s the pattern, but what is sin itself?
Sin is
the transgression of the law of God. God said, “…of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat”
(2:17). They had one law and they broke it. Why is this bad?
Karl
Menninger wrote, “The wrongness of the sinful act lies not merely in its
nonconformity, its departure from the accepted, appropriate way of behavior,
but in an implicitly aggressive quality – a ruthlessness, a hurting, a breaking
away from God and from the rest of humanity, a partial alienation, or act of
rebellion.”[i]
Sin is
the usurping of God’s rightful place as God by the rebellious human who thinks
he knows better than God what is good. And the essence of this aggressive
departure from God as Lord of your life is a violent “NO” to God. Sin puts “my
self” first before God and others.
When did “sin” begin to vanish?
In truth, humankind has been trying to make sin vanish
from the beginning. Adam blamed God for making the woman; Eve blamed the
serpent. The guilt of sin is too heavy a burden and so we try to shift it onto
someone or something else.
No one
described this better than the prophet Isaiah when he wrote, “Woe to those who call evil good and good
evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness…” (5:20). In his
own time, Isaiah saw how the people toyed with sin and morality, but he could
have been describing our time as well (i.e. Abortion is called “a woman’s
choice”).
So the
human effort to make “sin” vanish is ancient. But in the last few decades we
have seen a ramped-up effort to annihilate sin. In the 1950s, the US Congress
voted to require the President to proclaim each year a national day of prayer,
beginning in 1952. The next year, President Eisenhower made his first
proclamation and in it he made a reference to sin. He never did again. The word
was not compatible with the President’s vision of a proud and confident people.
No president since has ever mentioned the word.[ii]
Do you
see the stumbling block that is sin? It stands in the way of the ability of
humankind to triumph and succeed. As of 1953, quipped Menninger, the US stopped
sinning.
Around
this same time, the positive-thinking sermons of Norman Vincent Peale rose to
popularity. Church-goers craved these “you-can-do-it” messages and groaned
inwardly at the mention of sin (“here we go again”). Out of this arose Robert
Schuler, and today we have Joel Osteen, who, in an interview with Larry King, was
asked if Jews, Moslems and non-Christians were wrong. Osteen replied, “Well, I
don’t know if I believe they’re wrong…But I just think that only God will judge
a person’s heart.” If we are judged by our hearts, I think I’m in trouble.
What has “sin” become?
Sin may not have vanished exactly, but in the West we
call it by different names. And by those different names come different
solutions.
In the
world at large, sin is sometimes called “crime.” We address crime, not with
theology, but with courts and a justice system and with fines and sentences.
Sometimes sin is called a symptom. Bad behavior may be the product of an
illness. And if one can be treated with medical science it would be absurd to
punish the person.[iii]
But if
we remove sin from the human dilemma, what results? If no one is supposed to
feel guilty, how could anyone be a sinner? Modern culture responds: people are
victims. Victims are not responsible for what they do – they are casualties of
what happens to them. Victimization covers over the idea of sin.[iv]
Society does not see sin as the human problem, but illness, syndromes, and
disorders which can be treated.
What has
sin become in the church? The fundamentalists of recent decades had their “sin
lists” for which you could be condemned. Many of these major sins were never
mentioned in Scripture. Sin was reduced to “sins.” Sins can be managed to some
extent. When I wanted to go to the movies my mother would often ask, “Would Jesus
go to the movies?” I can stop going to the movies; I can say no to alcohol. We
feel better if we can manage our sins. But the Bible mentions actual sins that
are not easily managed: gossip, envy, strife, coveting.
The
church has also helped to trivialize sin by reducing it to actions rather than
a condition. If it were possible for me to stop doing ____ then it is logically
possible that I can stop doing other sins. The truth is, sin is first of all a
condition and only then, actions. So no matter what sins I conquer, I’m still
sinful. No matter how well I do at managing my sin before God, one truth
remains, “None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands; no one seeks God” (Rom 3:10-11). “All our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” (Is. 64:6).[v]
Can we
get away with renaming sin? “If we say we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8).
Why does “sin” still matter?
Sin matters if we can put aside for a moment the “sins”
we all have on our lists. Put aside “sins” and think of the real problem with
humanity, with you, with me – the sin condition.
In
Romans 5, Paul takes us back to the Garden, to Adam’s act of disobedience, and
breaks down the problem for us. “Therefore,
just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so
death spread to all men because all sinned” (12).
First, we see
that sin entered the world through one man. We know that man as Adam (note that
Eve is not mentioned). In the light of this context it is best to say, “When
Adam sinned, we all sinned.” God appointed Adam as the federal head of the
human race. His sin involved all of us and was imputed to us when we were born.
We call this “original sin.” We were born sinners.
Second, death
entered the world through sin. The Lord God warned the man and the woman “the day you eat of (the tree) you shall
surely die” (Gen. 2:17). They did not die immediately after taking a bite
of that Macintosh, but they did die spiritually that day. But death came
eventually.
Third, in this
way death came to all men, because all sinned. The question people sometimes
ask is, do we sin because we imitate our parents, or do we sin because we are
of Adam’s race? As I said before, we all sinned when Adam sinned and were
included in his sinning because he was the federal head.
But
that’s not fair, is it? Where else do we pay for the sins of a representative
head? Well, when the leader of a country declares war we go to war and some
soldiers die; when the CEO changes to an OS that no one understands and the
company falters…their decision is by virtue of our association with them our
decision because they represent us.
Is it
fair that Adam’s lust for an apple got us all messed up in this sinful
condition? If it’s not fair that Adam represented you when he sinned, neither
is it fair that Christ represented you when he died on the cross. Christ became
the federal head that represented us because he was innocent and untainted by
the Adamic curse (he was born of a woman and the Holy Spirit). “For if, because of one man’s trespass,
death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the
abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the
one man Jesus Christ” (5:17).
This is
a bad news/good news issue concerning the matter of sin. The bad news is that
we don’t have a disorder or an illness and sin cannot be managed by mere human
effort. This is bad news, not just for unbelievers and backsliders, but for the
most pious believers who believe they have any righteous deeds to present God.
The good
news is that God in Christ has conquered the sin condition on the cross and
offered to us a free gift of life. Before you can begin to enter into a program
to deal with your sexual sins, you have to come before the cross of Christ and
admit your sinful human condition. There is such freedom and deliverance in
this. Only then can you begin to conquer your sins.
Let’s talk about sin. Let us not be afraid to utter that
horrible condition that afflicts us all. When we have brought sin into the
light, only then can we nail our sinful flesh to the cross where all sin has
been dealt with in finality.
The
church must take sin seriously. If we do not talk about sin and its universal
effect on all of us, we run the risk of numbing all kinds of people to the
transforming truth of Jesus Christ and His Word. If there is no such thing as
sin, there is no need for a Savior!
But you
and I see the evidence of our own actions and the secret thoughts in our minds.
We know the truth about ourselves. And we know the One who has set us free from
the power of sin.
So let’s
talk about sin and about Jesus who forgives our sinful natures.
AMEN
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