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I think we can agree it’s common for many Christians to look down on other Christians (and other people) for their sins. But about this I simply want to say: WHY DO YOU DO THAT? I cannot imagine a more precarious situation for you than the times when you ignore your own flaws while highlighting them in others.
Aside from reading Luke 18:9-14 (which has everything to do with this problem)
check out Luke 15:1-7
“The Parable of the Lost Sheep”
Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear [Jesus]. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
Sadly, for us, we’ve misunderstood something closest to the heart of God: the immense value of a sinner who repents. We, as Christians, tend to put the highest premium on purity. In which case, those who’ve never “sinned” are given the more prominent reputations, and those who struggle, along with those who struggled in the past, are more like the family embarrassments we hardly tolerate. And we should honor purity. Yes, we should teach it, advise it, coach people to it; however, we should also begin to look at sinners and repentant sinners in the same way God does.
I’ve commonly heard this tragic phrase: “Only Christians shoot their wounded.”
Entirely unlike the shepherd who leaves the fold, enters the wilderness, and climbs through the mountains in pursuit of the lost sheep, many of us kick back, relax, stare down with our proud look, get all warm in our smug feelings of self-righteousness, and then we spread some reassuring gossip amongst ourselves because WE aren’t like THAT. (Please go back and read Luke 18:9-14 and answer whether or not that is one of the most dangerous things you can do as a “Christian”).
As a side to this problem, here is what I’d like to say to the sinner who avoids the church out of fear of condemnation. It’s incredibly scary to walk into a sanctuary that feels like a museum of stain-glassed saints, where everyone is perfect and you stick out a sore thumb, but no matter what your sin, no matter how far you’ve strayed, please know that should you come back to Christ heaven will more rejoice more loudly over your repentance than over those you see who need not repent.
So think about it, in this whole situation which characters do you most resemble: the Pharisees, the lost sheep, the shepherd?
Though we need to put a high premium on purity, we need to put an even higher one on repentance. We need to do this foremost because this is what God does; secondly, because this is the reality – we’re all the lost sheep, just some of us recognize it more readily while others deny it.
I’m having a Jane Austen moment from some old proverbs:
Gossip is like shredding a eider pillow on a windy day. After letting all the fine duck feathers blow off, it’s impossible to retrieve them all.
Defaming another’s character and then spreading that defamation is nearly irreparable. Will you go to each person (who went to each person) and retract the words that ruined a reputation?
Those few words, whether malicious or not, go down like tasty morsels, spread further than we intend, wound deeper than we mean.
Yet gossip seems so fun and harmless!
Proverbs 22:6 “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.”
Who is best to train your kid in godliness? Weirdly, our Christian American culture seems to respond with a resounding NOT ME.
And why not? If we ourselves live in spiritual lethargy, outsourcing even our personal time in the word to someone else (to the preacher who studies daily for us, feeding us our weekly doses from the pulpit), why not do this with our Christian parenting as well?
Think of the influence we abdicate when we leave the spiritual rearing of our children to a weekly youth minister, a man who is probably overextended, a man who, though he teaches, does not have the same daily opportunities a parent has to coach a child in biblical behaviors, decisions, and most importantly, biblical thinking. Youth Ministry is a necessary blessing, but don’t forget, it’s no replacement for the “presence” of a godly parent – just as a Sunday sermon is no replacement for one’s own private encounters with God. So are we really so surprised that 70-80% of kids leave the church after highschool or that only a small fraction of those who remain attempt to have a biblical view of life? Haven’t we indoctrinated them from infancy for this spiritual apathy by means of our own unspiritual parenting?
I wonder if our reluctance to parent simply comes down to the fact that the titles of “father,” “wife,” “mother,” “husband” just lack the prestige of all the other titles we seek (Manager, Doctor, Lawyer, First-String). I remember, and am ashamed to remember, that I once thought it a weak ambition that some girls just want to become moms and raise kids. Hmm, right now I realize the most important person in my life will be the woman who calls me husband, and second to her, the kids who will call me father. Whatever job titles I seek, whatever economic bracket I think I need, these must be treated as secondary to those two preeminent positions that I am now preparing myself to fill.
As a final thought, check out Paul’s comment on Timothy’s faith:
“from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim 3:15)
Do you believe there are some things you can change to ensure that God’s word is made known to your kids from infancy? Do you think it’s ever too late to start?
[Check out the book 'Family Driven Faith' for a much more extensive and better thought discussion of these issues]
“What would you do if you could be invisible for a day?”
Every time I hear this question it’s usually asked with the kinds intentions you find in a game like “truth or dare.” And the answers are fitting, right? When asked what you would do if invisible, who thought of robbing a bank? Who thought of taking out revenge? Who thought of ways to satisfy some unfulfilled fantasies? If you’d never be seen, and you’d never be caught, what would you do?
How we answer this question gives an acute insight into the condition of man:
“When given the chance to be invisible, is mankind more inclined to morality or immorality?” Like, really, how many of us would practice morality in secret? How many of us, given the chance to be invisible, would sneak around dropping money in beggars’ hands?
Even if our culture denies the idea of absolute morality, or disbelieves the existence of evil, I believe our “invisible desires” reveal what we’ve become too sophisticated to admit: we’re a sinful people.
Now, the purpose of even writing this is to talk to you about Christianity. Whether your interested for your own benefit, or simply because you’d like to be informed as to what the are the central ideas of Christianity, you need to know that scriptures teach the existence of sin.
having said that, I think we can agree that sin has caused a whole morass of social ills; I do believe that sin is clearly unfortunate due to its adverse affects in our lives – such as anger, hatred, disunity, rape, incest, greed, exploitation, apathy, injustice. These are terrible, yes, but the worst of man’s problems is not simply that he sins and that sin gives rise to social and interpersonal dysfunction; what is worse is that man, in his sinful state, is separated from God.
Several verses elaborate upon this problem; I’ll give you two:
Colossians 1:21 – Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.
Romans 5:10 – For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
Sin doesn’t simply cause the many troubles that beset our families, relationships, and societies – sin separates us from God. You can be poor, exploited, traumatized, or lonely, but I cannot imagine anything worse than living and dying as an enemy of God.
Christianity offers the answer to this problem – but I’ll get to that in a future blog.
In Summary:
- Let’s be honest, at the core of us we’re rather sinful
- The outcome of this is not only specific acts of sin in our lives, but worse, enmity and separation from God.
- In response, (and I’ll get into this later) Christianity is the plan for reconciliation between God and sinful man.
I’m going to begin a small serious on “Vicarious Atonement” and in order to explain why this doctrine is a theological necessity, and a conversation worth having, I’m going to begin with a question now popular in current theological conversations.
“If we as humans are finite beings who can commit only a finite amount of sin, how is it fair that God would then punish us with an infinite amount of wrath in hell?”
Such a juicy question huh? And although it’s not a new question, such questions have established a new epistemology that begins from the assumption: “God does not punish us for sin – at least not in the way Christians have understood punishment for the past 2,000 years.”
I wish I could say to you that I’m no longer a fan of current theological “discoveries” because I’m offended that their theology offends God. That sounds like such a respectable, puritan thing to say – but I can’t. As they emerged, I really liked most of the new trends in Christianity. I was drawn into their conversations; I enjoyed the fresh look.
The reason I’ve retreated to “old theology” has much more to do with my own personal, inner experience, which resulted from “new ideas.” The wash of insecurity and skepticism left me confused, sad, angry with the church, hating systematized theology, excusing more and more sin, and then, to top it off, feeling self-righteous. I’m not saying everyone has had that experience, but I have; and for me, the experience rose from questions like the one quoted above.
I don’t actually have a direct answer to the question; however, I’d like to consider some of the assumptions that inform it.
Do we commit a finite amount of sin?
I do know this: sin hardens hearts by way of deceitfulness (Hebrews 3:13). Elsewhere, we also learn that indulgence, false ideas, and hardened hearts perpetuate themselves; a conscience can be seared, cauterized as if with a hot iron, and sensitivity can be lost, giving way to more and more indulgence (Eph 4:18-19, 1 Tim 4:2). So if sin is deceitful, teaching us whatever it can to perpetuate its own “excusable” existence, can we find that brand of deception hidden within this question? How can a mind ensnared by sin even begin to imagine the extent to which sin is evil, or the extent to which sin must be brought to justice?
Our question: “How can God infinitely punish people for their finite amount of sin?”
At the heart of this question I see a recurrence of the prelapsarian Garden of Eden scene : “Sin isn’t really so bad, is it? Surely God won’t punish you eternally? What could be so bad about a finite amount of sin?”
To repeat myself, I believe the very question itself is informed by a deceived understanding of sin; the asker sadly assumes that sin is not what sin is; consequently, the asker no longer agrees with God’s view of sin and thus outcomes the question quoted above (as well as a probable downshift in lifestyle).
When we learn that God punishes sin for an infinite amount of time, we can come to one of two conclusions:
1) Sin must be far more horrific than I find it to be if it can incur an eternal amount of punishment, though it may be only a limited amount of sin.
2) God is unjust if he would punish infinitely a few small acts of sin that really do not deserve that kind of disproportionate injustice.
If it is true that God punishes sin for eternity, the cruelest lie you can tell a person is that He does not.
This last Thursday, at college group I spoke with the students about the gospel, but tried to do so from a “fresh,” more candid and, at sometimes, more academic perspective. We spoke not in terms of “Jesus loves you and has a plan for you,” or of a watered-down gospel of “pray a prayer”; we spoke instead in terms of sin, punishment, and “vicarious atonement,” considering these issues to be the very heart and soul of the gospel.
I think in a few days I’ll try to put up some condensed notes on “vicarious atonement” for anyone who’s interested in that resource.
For now, however, I’d like to address some of the interesting questions raised during the conversation on Thursday night.
Question One:
I had made a comment that when Jesus died on the Cross, it was not the Romans who killed him, it was not the Jews who killed him, it was not US who killed him, in fact, it was not even our sin that killed him. Rather, Jesus himself gave up his own life of his own volition.; no one could take it from him. The question asked was where I got this idea because it sounds a little strange.
This theology comes from one passage in particular; John 10:17-18
“The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”
This verse stands alone very well as an answer to the question of “Who killed Jesus?” No one killed Jesus, Jesus voluntarily gave up his own life – and of course, later took it up again.
It’s important that we understand and believe this about Jesus’ death. If we accept that it wasn’t Jesus who gave up his own life, but it was the Romans who killed him, then we believe that the created killed the creator, that humans killed God. Only God has authority over his own life, if anyone else was able to exert their own authority over God, then he would cease to be the all-powerful God and would then be “lower” in this extent to the human beings who killed him.
Jesus’ death also had to be entirely voluntary because he, being sinless, never incurred the punishment of death. For us, who are humans, who have sinned, our automatic punishment is physical death. We have no choice, we MUST die, whether at the hands of others, from disease, or by whatever means, we have no choice, we die. Since Jesus never sinned he could never receive this automatic punishment of physical death. In fact, the whole purpose of his sacrifice was that he chose to voluntarily stand in the position of sinful human beings to die in their place; therefore, the giving up of his life could not be inflicted upon him, he had to voluntarily give it up. Christ’s act of “vicarious atonement” was and had to be completely voluntary, never forced upon him by another force. (I personally find that to be one of the most encouraging things I’ve ever learned).
Shedd, a theologian I’ve been studying lately, helps explain some of this when he writes, “the vicarious sufferings of Christ were not due from him as a guilty person. He was innocent, and retributive justice had no claims upon him. What he voluntarily suffered could, therefore, inure to the benefit of another than himself.”
Shedd ends the discussion quite well, in my opinion, with this passage:
“And, last, the God-man, not being a mere creature, but also the Creator and Lord of all things, could rightfully dispose of himself and his agency as he pleased. He asserted his sovereign lordship over himself: ‘No man takes my life from me, but I lay it down of myself; I have power and authority (exousian) to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again’ (John 10:18).”
Question Two:
1 John 2:1
“My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin.”
What could John possibly mean here? (Especially if he has written this in the immediate context that speaks of confessing sins and receiving forgiveness through Christ). I think John is communicating one of the most unpopular truths we can hear today in the church. Contrary to the Apostle, often when we’re talking about sin and our struggle of sin, we quickly retreat to comments like, “Well, everyone sins, you’ll never be perfect. Grace, grace, grace” Though these statement are true, and comforting, and absolutely necessary, I think we sometimes use these to too easily excuse our sin.
Instead of speaking of sin the way God speaks of it (which is what is meant by the word “confess” in 1 John 1:9), we speak of it lightly. John is speaking with much greater severity – he says, I am writing this to you that you may STOP sinning entirely. It’s over. “Now that you’ve received and read my letter, please understand that my intention is that your sin life is DONE.”
Do you think you could live like that? Perhaps now that you’ve read this blog, and have seen what John has written, can you live meaning to never sin again? Yes, of course we are attached to the flesh, yes it wars against us, yes we are weak and easily fall, but can we live meaning to never sin again? This is John’s very intention in writing.
PS – I don’t claim to be an expert in these things, so if anyone has some corrections to make, please share them!
