The Disappearance of Sin
The Disappearance of Sin
A pastor invited the men in his church to join him in a prayer meeting. Rather than praying about the spiritual needs of the church as he expected, all of the men, without exception, prayed about the sins of the culture, primarily abortion and homosexuality. Finally, the pastor, dismayed over the apparent self-righteousness of the men, closed the prayer meeting with the well-known prayer of the tax collector: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Luke 18:13).
The attitude toward sin reflected in the prayers of those men seems all too prevalent within our conservative, evangelical circles. Of course, this is a broad-brush observation, and there are many happy exceptions. But on the whole, we appear to be more concerned about the sins of society than we are the sins of the saints. In fact, we often indulge in what I call the “respectable” or “acceptable” sins without any sense of sin. Our gossip or unkind words about a brother or sister in Christ roll easily off our tongues without any awareness of wrongdoing. We harbor hurts over wrongs long past without any effort to forgive as God has forgiven us. We look down our religious noses at “sinners” in society without any sense of a humble “there but for the grace of God go I” spirit.
We were incensed, and rightfully so, when a major denomination ordained a practicing homosexual as a bishop. Why do we not also mourn over our selfishness, our critical spirit, our impatience, and our anger? It’s easy to let ourselves off the hook by saying that these sins are not as bad as the flagrant ones of society. But God has not given us the authority to establish values for different sins. Instead He says through James, “Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for [is guilty of] all of it” (James 2:10). That Scripture is difficult for us to understand because we think in terms of individual laws and their respective penalties. But God’s Law is seamless. The Bible speaks not of God’s laws, as if many of them, but of God’s Law as a single whole. When a person commits murder, he breaks God’s Law. When a Christian lets speech that tends to tear down another person come out of his mouth, he breaks God’s Law.
Of course, we need to acknowledge that some sins are more serious than others. I would rather be guilty of a lustful look than of adultery. Yet Jesus said that with that lustful look, I have actually committed adultery in my heart. I would rather be angry at someone than murder that person. Yet Jesus said that whoever murders and whoever is angry with his brother are both liable to judgment (see Matthew 5:21-22). The truth is, all sin is serious because all sin is a breaking of God’s Law.
The apostle John wrote, “Sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4). All sin, even sin that seems so minor in our eyes, is lawlessness. It is not just the breaking of a single command; it is a complete disregard for the Law of God, a deliberate rejection of His moral will in favor of fulfilling one’s own desires. In our human values of civil laws, we draw a huge distinction between an otherwise “law-abiding citizen” who gets an occasional traffic ticket and a person who lives a “lawless” life in contempt and utter disregard for all laws. But the Bible does not seem to make that distinction. Rather, it simply says sin —all sin without distinction —is lawlessness.
In Greek culture, sin originally meant to “miss the mark” —to miss the center of the target. Therefore, sin was considered a miscalculation or failure to achieve. There is some truth in that idea even today, as when a person is genuinely repentant over some sinful behavior and is earnestly seeking to overcome it but still fails frequently. He wants to hit the bull’s-eye every time but can’t seem to pull it off. Usually, however, our sinful actions stem not from a failure to achieve but rather from an inner urge to fulfill our own desires. As James wrote, “Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire” (James 1:14). We gossip or lust because of the sinful pleasure we get out of it. At that time, the lure of that momentary pleasure is stronger than our desire to please God.
Sin is sin. Even those sins that I call “the acceptable sins of the saints” —those sins that we tolerate in our lives —are serious in God’s eyes. Our religious pride, our critical attitudes, our unkind speech about others, our impatience and anger, even our anxiety (see Philippians 4:6) —all of these are serious in the sight of God.
The apostle Paul, in stressing the need to seek justification by faith in Christ alone, quoted from the Old Testament, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them” (Galatians 3:10). That is a perfectly exacting standard of obedience. In academic terms, that means that a 99 on a final exam is a failing grade. It means that a misplaced comma in an otherwise fine term paper would garner an “F.” Now, happily, Paul goes on to assure us that Christ has “redeemed us [all who trust in Him as their redeemer] from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (verse 13). But the fact still remains that the seemingly minor sins we tolerate in our lives do indeed deserve the curse of God.
Yes, the whole idea of sin may have disappeared from our culture. It may have been softened in many of our churches so as not to make the audiences uncomfortable. And, sad to say, the concept of sin among many conservative Christians has been essentially redefined to cover only the obviously gross sins of our society. The result, then, is that for many morally upright believers, the awareness of personal sin has effectively disappeared from their consciences. But it has not disappeared from the sight of God. Rather, all sins —both the so-called respectable sins of the saints, which we too often tolerate, and the flagrant sins of society, which we are quick to condemn —are a disregard for the Law of God and are reprehensible in His sight. Both deserve the curse of God.
If this observation seems too harsh and too sweeping an indictment of believers, let me hasten to say that there are many godly, humble people who are happy exceptions. In fact, the paradox is that those whose lives most reflect the fruit of the Spirit are usually those who are most keenly aware of and groan inwardly over these so-called acceptable sins in their own lives. But there is also a vast multitude who are quite judgmental toward the grosser sins of society but who seem pridefully unaware of their own personal sins. And a lot of us live somewhere in between. But the point is that all of our sin —wherever we may be on the spectrum of personal awareness of it in our lives —is reprehensible in the sight of God and deserving of His judgment.
Sin is much more than wrong actions, unkind words, or even those evil thoughts we never express. Sin is a principle or moral force in our hearts, our inner being. Our sinful actions, words, and thoughts are simply expressions of the principle of sin residing within us, even in those of us whose hearts have been renewed. The apostle Paul calls this principle the flesh (or sinful nature in some Bible translations). The flesh is such a reality that Paul sometimes personifies it (see, for example, Romans 7:8-11; Galatians 5:17).
Now, here is the unvarnished truth that we need to lay to heart. Even though our hearts have been renewed, even though we have been freed from the absolute dominion of sin, even though God’s Holy Spirit dwells within our bodies, this principle of sin still lurks within us and wages war against our souls. It is the failure to recognize the awful reality of this truth that provides the fertile soil in which our “respectable” or “acceptable” sins grow and flourish.
We who are believers tend to evaluate our character and conduct relative to the moral culture in which we live. Because we usually live at a higher moral standard than society at large, it is easy for us to feel good about ourselves and assume that God feels that way also. We fail to reckon with the reality of sin still dwelling within us.
Another good descriptive term is subtle sins. The word subtle has a wide variety of meanings, some positive, as in the subtle shades of blue in a painting. But often it has a strong negative connotation to mean wily, crafty, insidious, or treacherous. That is the sense of the word in the expression subtle sins. The acceptable sins are subtle in the sense that they deceive us into thinking they are not so bad, or not thinking of them as sins, or, even worse, not even thinking about them at all! Yes, some of our refined sins are so subtle that we commit them without even thinking about them, either at the time or afterward. We often live in unconscious denial of our “acceptable” sins.
We present-day believers have, to some extent, been influenced by the “feel good about myself” philosophy of our times. By contrast, believers in the Puritan era of the seventeenth century had a different view of themselves. They feared the reality of sin still dwelling in them. I have in my library four books on sin by pastors of that era. Here are their titles:
These pastors all saw sin for what it actually is: a diabolical force within us. Ralph Venning, the author of The Sinfulness of Sin, uses especially colorful (in the negative sense) words to describe sin. Over the space of only a few pages, he says that sin is vile, ugly, odious, malignant, pestilent, pernicious, hideous, spiteful, poisonous, virulent, villainous, abominable, and deadly.
Take a few moments to ponder those words so as to get the full impact of them. Those words describe not just the scandalous sins of society but also the respectable sins we tolerate in our own lives. Think of such tolerated sins as impatience, pride, resentment, frustration, and self-pity. Do they seem odious and pernicious to you? They really are. To tolerate those sins in our spiritual lives is as dangerous as to tolerate cancer in our bodies. Seemingly small sins can lead to more serious ones. Lustful looks often lead to pornography addiction and perhaps even adultery. Murder often has its genesis in anger, which grows into bitterness, then hatred, and finally murder.
About this time, you may be tempted to throw this booklet across the room. You didn’t pick it up to be condemned or have your subtle sins exposed. So far everything in this book seems dark and dismal. You want to be encouraged, not condemned. If you feel that way, I appeal to you to stay with me. We are indeed going to get to some good news later on. But for now, we’ve got to continue to explore the bad news. In fact, it is going to get worse. When we see how really bad the bad news is, we’ll be in a better position to appreciate how really good the good news is.
So how does the already bad news get worse? So far we’ve looked at our sin as it affects us. We’ve seen its malignant tendency in our lives and the lives of others around us. The more important issue, however, is how our sin affects God. Someone has described sin as cosmic treason. If that seems like an overstatement, consider that the word transgressions in the Bible, as seen in Leviticus 16:21, actually means rebellion against authority —in this case, God’s authority. So when I gossip, I am rebelling against God. When I harbor resentful thoughts toward someone instead of forgiving him or her in my heart, I am rebelling against God.
In Isaiah 6:1-8, the prophet Isaiah sees a vision of God in His absolute majesty. He hears angelic beings calling out, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” (verse 3). Any Jew would have understood that the threefold repetition of the word holy is intended to convey the highest possible degree of holiness. In other words, God is said to be infinitely holy. But what does it mean to say that God is infinitely holy? Certainly it speaks of His absolute moral purity, but it means much more than that. Primarily, the word holy, when used of God, speaks of His infinite, transcendent majesty. It speaks of His sovereign reign over all His creation. Therefore, when we sin, when we violate the Law of God in any way, be it ever so small in our eyes, we rebel against the sovereign authority and transcendent majesty of God. To put it bluntly, our sin is an assault on the majesty and sovereign rule of God. It is indeed cosmic treason.
Let’s continue with the bad news. Remember the story of David’s sin of adultery with Bathsheba and then his arranging the death of her husband, Uriah, to try to cover up his adultery? God was displeased, to put it mildly, and sent Nathan the prophet to confront David about his sin. Here are Nathan’s words:
Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. (2 Samuel 12:9-10, emphasis added)
Note the use of the word despised in both verses 9 and 10. In the first instance, David despises the word (the Law) of the Lord. In the second instance, God, speaking through Nathan, says, “You have despised me.” We see from this that sin is a despising of the Law of God. But we also see that to despise God’s Law is to despise Him. It is easy for us to think that David’s sin truly was grievous and fail to grasp the application of Nathan’s words to ourselves. But as we have already seen, all sin, whether large or small in our eyes, is against God. Therefore, when I indulge in any of the so-called acceptable sins, I am despising not only God’s Law but also, at the same time, God Himself. Think about that the next time you’re tempted to speak critical or unkind words about someone.
We’re not through yet. There’s still more bad news. In the context of exposing sin in our relationships with one another (see Ephesians 4:25-32), Paul says, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (verse 30). When we think of our sin as rebellion against God’s sovereign authority and a despising of both His Law and His person, we are viewing God in His rightful role as our ruler and judge. But when we see our sin as grieving the Holy Spirit —that is, as grieving God —we are viewing God as our redeemer and Father. Our sin grieves our heavenly Father. Whether we are unkind to someone else or unforgiving when someone is unkind to us, we grieve our Father’s heart.
Not only do we grieve our heavenly Father with our sin, we also presume on His grace. Paul wrote that God has “[forgiven] our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:7). That is a blessed truth, but sin, in its subtle deceitfulness, will suggest to us that our unkind words and resentful thoughts don’t matter because God has forgiven them. Forgiveness, however, does not mean overlooking or tolerating our sin. God never does that. Instead, God always judges sin. But in our case (that is, the case of all who trust in Jesus as their Savior), God has judged our sin in the person of His Son. As the prophet Isaiah wrote, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned —every one —to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). Shall we presume on God’s grace by tolerating in ourselves the very sin that nailed Christ to the cross?
God knows our every thought; He hears our words before we even speak them and sees our every deed. He even searches our motives, for Paul wrote that when the Lord comes, He “will disclose the purposes [motives] of the heart” (1 Corinthians 4:5).
This means that all our rebellion, all our despising of God and His Law, all our grieving His Holy Spirit, all our presuming on His grace, all our sin, are done openly in the very presence of God. It’s as if we are acting out all of our sin before Him as He sits on His royal throne.