Sin

 Is sin simply a societal concept used to maintain a power differential? You know, like “rule” in “the golden rule”— “whoever has the gold makes the rules” (Hart, 1964). Maybe we could adapt it to say something like, “The Big Rule” as in, the Big Man makes the rule? Or just go straight to “might makes right?” 

I did not understand sin correctly for a long time. I always thought of it as a list of dos and don’ts. Do you understand sin?

Unfortunately, defining sin as a list from an all powerful God isn’t too far off of what has been taught in Sunday School. I’ve even heard someone, while teaching a Bible class, say, “at the end of the day we follow God’s rules because he’s big enough to make them stick.” Of course, all effective lies have a little truth in them to help them slide down. God is big enough to make the rules stick. But the lie is, “he has a list of rules.”

God doesn’t have a list, he has himself. The commandments are a short list about a few things that are true about God, and they help us tell the truth about God. But keeping that list is both impossible and in-adequate. Jesus says the entire law and all the prophets are summarized by the command to love God and love your neighbor. Does it still sound like a list? And Jesus says the law from Moses was pointing to himself and that he came to fulfill the law. It is also written about God, that he is Love.

Trying to bring clarity to sin by talking about love is challenging with all the misunderstanding of love in our culture. Let’s clarify something—eros is eros, and agape, agape, but only one fulfills the law. There is only one Christian love—Christ defined it in his death and embodied it in his life. It is forgiving, self sacrificing, life giving, enemy including, agape. While there is nothing admirable about eros, agape is rare, holy—divine.

Back to sin. Sin cannot be defined in a list anymore than God can be defined in a list. Sure, you can make a list of sins. But you won’t have defined sin. God cannot and does not change. That doesn’t mean he is static. It is referring to his character, his trustworthiness. And it means that, the way he is, must be taken into account. He calls himself the I Am. And there are things that are not compatible with him. In Hebrews he is called a consuming fire. In Genesis he says nobody can look at him and live. When people are confronted with his presence they are terrified. Sin is sometimes called ungodliness (that which is not like God). This definition helps us see the personal nature of sin. Sin is a personal offense against God because it is something we do that is not like him. You might think, “well opposites attract, nobody wants to marry themselves, right?” We will always be distinct people. God does not want to make us all the same. He loves variety, and he loves us. But that is not the problem I’m getting at. It has to do with being compatible. We must be made into something that will survive God’s presence if we are going to live with him for eternity. And if you think, well, then I’ll just be separated from him for eternity. Well that brings up another problem. He is life. And I hate to state the obvious, but you cannot live without life.

Think of sin like this. Sin is that which is incompatible with God. All people are incompatible with God because they all sin. But God loves people, and you, and he made a way for everyone to become compatible with him so that you could not only survive in his presence, but thrive beyond all imagination or thought. And doing this was very expensive for God. It cost him the very thing he loved the most.

He had to send his Son, Jesus, to enter into our story as a genuine man, live a very hard life, give himself up to death as a sacrifice in payment for our sin—meanwhile showing us what it means to do right and not sin. And if you look closely at Jesus' life, what you will see is that doing right means completely entrusting yourself to God, believing what he says, and submitting your life to him. Jesus said, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.”

(John 6:38 ESV)

The definition of being a true Christian is someone who trusts Christ and therefore follows him in submission to God. Scriptures are clear that this isn’t something we are perfect at and the condition for this salvation is not for us to act perfectly without sin. The condition is this, that you believe Jesus, that you trust him. And if you actually trust him, you will follow him. And he will change you into a new creation that can and will be with God, alive for eternity. 

Understanding sin as incompatibility with God is very helpful in some ways. But this all gets a little sterile without actually talking about the ugliness of sin. If you look into examples of sin, almost all of them have to do with hurting other people or not helping them—lying, murder, cheating, abuse, etc. And the others have to do with not showing others what God is truly like. For example, God says not to worship another god besides Him. He says that for multiple reasons. He doesn’t need our worship. He desires our good and the good of others. We are made in his image. If we bow down to another god we are saying that God is not God, and that is a lie that could harm other people and ourselves. Our identity and purpose is wrapped up in God. If we deny him we deny our purpose and that is bad for us and for others. When you spend more time looking at examples of sins, it becomes very clear very quickly that God is good and we are not. The fact that God is good, is very good news.

—reh

“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

(1 John 4:8 NIV11-GK)

“But you are the same, and your years will have no end.””

(Hebrews 1:12 ESV)

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

(Hebrews 13:8 ESV)

““For I the LORD do not change;”

(Malachi 3:6 ESV)

““Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?

 Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

 Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.”

(Isaiah 58:6–9 NIV11-GK)

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

(2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV)

“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”

(1 John 3:2 ESV)

“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

(1 Corinthians 1:18 ESV)

“Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!”

(Psalm 107:1 ESV)

“And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living…”

(Mark 12:26–27 ESV)