When I think of sin, I think of what my pastor has been telling us for years now. Sin is rebellion. Rebellion against God, plain and simple. And, while I agree with that wholeheartedly, it would benefit us or at least it has benefitted me to look further at what sin is.
We know that it’s disobedience. We know that sin is hurtful to everyone it touches, both directly and those on the periphery. We know that its consequences reach far beyond the time of the act(s). It can penetrate future generations. We know that sin always results in death, in one form or another, both in the short term and the long.
Sin is the cause of every weed in your garden and lawn. Sin is the cause of every conflict that happens between people, from some of the simplest, to wars between nations. Sin is the cause of every conflict between man and beast. Man spends trillions of dollars and an immeasurable amount of other resources seeking solutions to all the ills of mankind. Every two and four years we elect new people in positions from the least elective office to the president, thinking that this will solve the pressing problems of the day. To say the least, sin has altered life as God intended it to be back in the Garden. We cannot over state how devastating sin has been to all of life.
That said, “sin” can be damaging in more subtle ways.
In the Garden, God told Adam and Eve that they could eat of any of the trees of the garden. That is, except for the one. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And, while I think we can all agree that the act of eating the fruit from that tree was an act of sin, it was far more than the act.
In most cases, it is a good thing to gain knowledge. We tell our kids to study hard in school. We further our own education, whether formally or informally, to gain an advantage and advance in our jobs. The secular world worships knowledge. It puts knowledge above God. In fact, it points to knowledge in their arguments against God.
Why didn’t God want us to know about Good and Evil? I’m not going to delve into that right now, rather just to say it’s a really good question to ask and it goes to the root of why sin is evil, beyond the obvious, that it is an act of rebellion.
Clearly, the Bible gives us a list of things that are sin for everyone. Starting with the 10 commandments and expanding the list through the rest of Scripture. But, it gets less clear as we exhaust that list. Individual sin, varies from person to person. We know this from Paul’s instructions in Romans 14. What is sin for one is not necessarily sin for another. So then, are we left to fend for ourselves, hoping not to transgress in some way which is not clearly stated? Is it a simple matter of conscience? Can we trust our feelings? Do we simply trust our “hearts”? Seek counsel from a brother or sister? What is it that makes it possible to know the broader “list” of sin that applies to us as individuals?
Going back to the Garden, what was the first thing that Adam and Eve did immediately after their sin? They hid from God. It’s difficult to communicate with someone you’re hiding from. In fact, hiding from someone is a pretty good indicator that you don’t want to communicate with them.
It is not possible to sin and be in fellowship with God, in right relation with God, in a place of communication with God, have the ability to hear and know the wisdom of God, be used of God (in the most effective way). I’m not suggesting that to sin means we can no longer be in relationship with God. I’m saying that at that moment when we decide or choose to honor and glorify our felt needs or our desires, we break fellowship with God. As in human relationships, your parent will always be your parent even if you are in conflict with them. The tenor of the relationship, however, is changed. It is not the relationship that could be, nor the relationship that should be.
Scripture tells us that it is necessary to fight against sin, to resist sin, both in action and in attitude. One of the evidences of maturing in the faith is our change in perspective regarding sin. When that changes, our attitude toward pretty much everything changes. Our motivations change. Consider the A.B. Simpson song. His words are quite appropriate to this subject.
“Once it was the blessing, now it is the Lord; Once it was the feeling, now it is His Word. Once His gifts I wanted, Now the Giver own; Once I sought for healing, Now Himself alone.”
In his book, True Spirituality, Francis Schaeffer puts it like this:
“The true Christian life is not merely a negative not-doing of any small list of things. Even if this list began as a very excellent list of things to beware of in that particular historic setting, we still must emphasize that the Christian life is more than refraining from a certain external list of taboos in a mechanical way. We do not come to the true Christian life merely by keeping a list, but neither do we come to it merely by rejecting the list and then shrugging our shoulders and living a looser life.
As a matter of fact, when we are done with our honest wrestling before God, very often we will find that we will be observing at least some of the taboos on these lists. But, having gone deeper, we find that we will be observing them for a completely different reason. The end of the whole thing is that we arrive at an inward situation and not merely an outward one.”
My final point about sin is to suggest that sin is Satan’s most effective way of distracting us from knowing God, hearing God, obeying God in the way God intended for us. We see this in the story of Jesus walking on the water. When Peter was distracted by his surrounding, he began to sink. When a child lets go of its parent’s hand, they become vulnerable to outside dangers. It is the same with us and our relationship with God. We are more vulnerable to the influences of Satan and the desires of our sinful nature when we step away from God, even for a moment.
We are told that the chief end of man is to “glorify God and enjoy Him forever”. Of course, the primary way to glorify God is to obey Him. In order to obey Him, we have to know what he wants of us. In order to know what He wants of us, there must be communication. That seems easy enough. I’m sure that, since we are created in His image, we can simply trust our rational thoughts and feelings. Sarcasm intended. Then again, He tells us that His thoughts are not our thoughts and our ways are not His ways. If that’s the case, then it is only through much serious searching that we will find what His thoughts and ways are.
If it is true that the chief end of man is to “glorify God and enjoy Him forever” then sin is the ultimate distraction. The act of sin takes our focus from what we were created to do. It’s a malfunction, albeit a voluntary one. That thing, that action, becomes our focus of glorification. It replaces God, even if only for a short time. This is why sin is evil.
This is the inheritance of our flesh from the first parents, Adam and Eve. Eve, then Adam allowed Satan to distract them. Once distracted, they ignored what they knew to be God and chose their own way. The reason sin is evil is not just because God randomly calls specific things to be sin. Rather, knowing our nature, He sees that it denies us our purpose and denies Him glory.
In Christ, we have a completely different inheritance.
It virtually impossible to not find ourselves in the place Simpson and Schaefer describes, if we work at not being distracted from our focus on God, who He is, what He wants, and how we can be who he wants us to be.
The being is much more important than the doing.
To be continued…