On Sin

Greetings Friend.

Much time has passed since I last wrote. I hope things are well with you. This life is difficult.

Our days are so filled with temporary requirements which occupy us. It is as if we are driven by them. We live as servants to things that pass. So shall our days be. But, for the Christian, remember, life is not to be limited to, nor defined by, these things that pass. Life, instead, is found primarily in one’s relationship with God, Who is eternal and everlasting, and more specifically one’s “conscious” relationship with Him. Contrary to the many things which pass, one’s relationship with God endures beyond this earthly experience.

Yet, for many who profess Christ, and thereby union with Christ, this fact is most difficult both to understand and also live by. Because of union, it should be that elements of our God relationship become manifest in and through our relationships with people and in our life events. If we live this way, God is honored and God is manifest through us to others. We, as God’s creation, and His re-creation in Christ, then live as he created us to be.

Adam initially lived from a God-centered understanding of life. He lived out of his relationship to the Creator as the primary or fundamental interpretation for everything. He was part of the creation, yet he looked not to the creation as his end. Adam depended upon God for everything: his internal guidance and understanding, and the outward manifestation of who, before the Creator, he knew himself to be. Adam, thus, initially honored God and revealed God’s glory by living from the basic Creator—created relationship that marked his existence.

Then things changed. Adam became distracted by that which was ungodly and earthly. He heard and listened to a voice that wasn’t God’s. He beheld the same tree as before but contemplated it and his relation to it in new and different ways. Something new stirred motions and desires in his heart that were not known until he, in that moment, lived as if unconscious of God. The distraction by that which was fallen and ungodly, and that which was created and earthly, opened to him a direction before unknown and attracted his eyes from what was heavenly, the Creator, and locked them onto the created. “Want” became known to him.

Adam made different decisions. These decisions, which originated from within his own heart, were now driven by what was of the creation, excluded God, and replaced Him. Adam’s decisions had results. Adam’s eyes, now lowered from beholding the Creator to beholding the creation, could not see the cloud of divine dishonor descending upon his life, his mind, his heart, his choices, their results, the world and his relations. The creation became his horizon, and he was at the center. Dishonor separated him from God, anchored him to the world, and what manifest from his life became that which lived within his now darkened soul.

Adam’s heart became a reservoir of want. His reaching for the creation to satisfy his “false wants” is called his living “from his own heart.” This heart orientation became normal for him. Sin secured this in him. He lived from his own heart as if from this origin life emerged and was determined. And I am afraid, dear friend that “from our own hearts” is too often our norm even as Christians. It is so close to our every breath and movement that we don’t see it. Like Adam, we hear and live toward and by ungodly voices. We behold the creation as if apart from God. Our horizon is too low. Our eyes have dropped. God is absent. We too live as if defined by the creation, of which we ourselves appear the center, because of want, like Adam—from our own hearts. For how frequent can we say we live from God’s heart and not ours to ourselves, in our relationships, and life events?

Sin entered. I imagine a simplified working definition of sin could be: That which proceeds from one’s own heart, reflecting and manifesting the creation and self as central, instead of that which proceeds from one’s life as reflecting and manifesting God as central. When considering sin, consider the starting point.

Reading recently in Thomas Goodwin’s work on “Christ the Mediator” I better understood basic effects of sin: Dishonor to God as God, and Obscuring God’s Glory. When we sin, we do both. We dishonor God as God. We do not manifest God’s glory. Consider your life, and I will consider mine. What do our lives tell us about ourselves and sin?

Christ, in contrast, both consistently honored God as God, and he never obscured God’s glory. In fact, Christ, as God and man, had to, and wanted to, humble himself, thereby willfully obscuring his own glory, so the Father would be glorified. As a result, you and I can now see the Father clearly, and we can identify with Christ who did what we consistently fail to do: Honor God and Manifest—Reflect—His Glory.

Adam was provided a different view to behold after the fall. He beheld God securing and providing a covering, after he, from hiding, heard a godly voice, toward which he moved, and then began to live with. This was the voice of the reconciling God, God as redeemer and savoir. As with Adam, hearing God’s call from earthly, created, coverings demands we forsake all that “want” has rooted so deeply within our hearts and necessitates we move out from dependence on the created to the Creator’s covering—Christ—and through relationship with we can now both honor God and manifest His glory.

You and I, if we are truly in Christ, have the freedom and capacity to now honor God as God and to manifest, not obscure, His glory. God has revealed to us that He has put His love in a Christian’s heart and the Spirit of His Son into the deepest and closest relationship and recesses with this one’s soul. The question seems to be, what do our lives produce? Does my life honor or dishonor God? Does my life manifest or obscure His glory? It is too simple for us to affirm the negative—“I acknowledge my life doesn’t.” Answering thus should be nothing to boast in but something to repent of. There are three things we can always do: confess sin, seek forgiveness, and repent. Each is essential if we are to live honoring God, instead of dishonoring Him, and manifesting, not obscuring, His glory. We must forsake ungodly voices. We must leave coverings of the creation. We must abandon the hunger of fallen want.

Dear friend, if you expect to live eternity with God, does your life now exhibit any passion for Him? Do you want to be with Him? What in your life serves as evidence to you that you love Him? What in your life shows undeniably that you don’t? Do you live from that which proceeds from your own heart as chief or from the heart of God? Now in Christ, and because of Christ, honor God as God and reveal Him to others. You will reassure yourself in your future with Him and declare Him along the way. You will also come to understand what it means to know Him as you walk through time toward eternality where you will be with Him fully.

May your heart be encouraged as you live each day among that which is temporary and passing, because of Him who is eternal and always with you.

Carl