Apologies for the lack of posting the last couple weeks, the transition from May into June was a busy time for church and family. We are continuing our series of posts based on papers I wrote for my church’s elder class. This week’s prompt – What is the nature of sin, and how does it affect our abiltity to choose good over evil?
Sin is one of the most controversial concepts of the Christian faith. Everyone, Christian or not, struggles to wrestle with the nature of sin – the definition of it, the source of sin in our world and in ourselves, and perhaps most difficult of all, why a sovereign God would allow sin to exist in the world. Hamartiology – the study of sin – is a difficult field perhaps most of all because as humans, our own innate sinfulness taints our desire to reckon with the issue honestly.
The Bible describes sin as being a refusal to obey God’s will, rooted in a foolish and destructive idea that there is a better wisdom than God’s. The fall of man in Genesis 3 is tied to disobeying God’s command to Adam and Eve not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. To eat from this tree is not simply to be aware that good and evil exist, but to take the burden of declaring what is good or evil upon one’s own self. Adam and Eve were content to rest in God’s definition, until the enemy claimed that God was, in fact, holding some good back from them that they ought to desire. And in this claim, so much of the idea of sin and temptation rests.
I think about my own sins – for example, sexual immorality that defined me for many years, and the grace God has shown me in battling it. In understanding sin and what is required in putting it to death, I have to understand that the rebellion of desiring such a thing is rooted in that same lie that led Adam and Eve to take the forbidden fruit: that somehow, in calling for me to rest my sexual desires entirely in my marriage and with my wife, God is somehow denying me something I ought to have, something I would enjoy at least equally to my wife, if not more so.
Despite the fact that years of experience led to the inescapable conclusion that this is absolutely not the case, that lie still arises to haunt my thoughts from time to time. Of course, it drives every sinful desire in its own way – sinful anger grows out of a belief that I know better than God what I should have right now, what my comfort level should be, or what it is I deserve, as one example.
One of the most important truths about sin that the Bible reveals is that sin is not something that attacks us from outside, but rather, it wells up from within us. The Old Testament paints this picture very vividly. We see this in the rigid rules set up around holiness and cleanliness in worship and the sprinkling of blood to cleanse everything and everyone involved in the process of sacrifice. We also see a very striking picture of this in God striking down Uzzah for daring to touch the ark of the covenant, and in God’s furious rejection of Israelite worship in Amos. Sinful hearts pursuing their own lusts cannot give right sacrifices to God, because God is not interested in animal meat or blood, but in faithful love.
The fall of man to sin in Genesis 3 has infected us all with this twisted thinking, and God has committed Himself to redeeming humanity and righting the evils we have committed. Even though we deserve the curse of death God pronounced over sin, He has turned that curse back by taking it upon Himself, through the work of Jesus Christ, and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.
The idea of sin is controversial, but it is also undeniable. We all look at the people and world around us and know that something is wrong. We all recognize the effects of sin and we apply different titles to it – injustice, oppression, addiction, greed – but actually managing these varying symptoms of the deeper disease has been ineffective. It has been a part of our nature, even in our rebellion, to try to find some way to right what’s wrong, whether it’s been through law, violence, or a more noble and sacrificial form of service. Yet all of it suffers from the taint of sin, and the words of Proverbs 14:12 are proven true day after day: “There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way of death.”
Proverbs 8:35-36 contains a remarkable statement, spoken in this context by the personification of God’s wisdom: “For the one who finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord, but the one who misses me harms himself; all who hate me love death.” The way that seems right to us inevitably leads to our destruction, but God’s wisdom is calling to us, offering a way. Jesus revealed in John 14:6 that the only way to God, to know Him and rest in Him, is in Jesus Himself.
We must set aside our desires and rest fully in Him. We must reject the lie that Adam and Eve believed in the garden, that they knew better than God’s wisdom about what is right and wrong, and let our hearts and minds be refreshed by the work of the Holy Spirit. The world’s wisdom is that our desires will lead us to success if we pursue them with all our hearts, but this has never been proven to be true. Whether we find worldly success or not, it inevitably leads only to suffering with no real gain.
I know in my own life, the more I have learned to live in an open-handed way with what I have, the more my eyes have been opened to God’s true love and provision in my life. The more I turn away from tendencies to worry and doubt about my daily needs and instead bring them continually to the Lord, the more I find encouragement and peace in my own heart, and find that the Lord provides for me exactly the same as He did when I was wringing my hands. My joy in that comes in being able to glorify God in my heart and with my life as the One who is truly my Lord and my Father, and my desire is to see this grow more fruitful each day.
How have you seen sin manifest in your life, and how have you found the Lord leading you to do battle with it? Please share what you feel comfortable with in our comments below, or you can email us as well. We are available and willing to pray for strength and success for all our brothers and sisters as together and individually we are refined and transformed into the image of Christ more each day.
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