Thoughts on Sin: Perspectives

Greetings my friend.


This is a follow up piece to what I recently wrote on Hebrews 12. Mulling over the subject of sin, I have concluded the following: Most Christians and churches exist as if either there is no such thing as sin, or, sin exists, but we needn’t concern ourselves with it. Seem shocking and completely false? Perhaps, but these conclusions are not simply my own. I have discussed this subject with many others who also recognize the same. Still, such a determination may come as a shock. Why do I have this perception? What causes would create such a condition in the church? Immediate replies might be “Because Christians don’t really believe the bible as they claim,” and “Because Christians are focused on other things.” Both statements deserve to be explored and unpacked some time, but for now let us just consider the following perspectives that a Christian may have about sin:


Sin doesn’t exist.


Sin exists, but I don’t have a sin issue.


Sin exists, I have a sin issue, but I’m not interested in dealing with it.


Sin exists, I have a sin issue, I’m not interested in dealing with it, and my eternal relationship with God through Christ has me secure from needing to deal with sin.


Sin exists, I have a sin issue (like all Christians), but none of my Christian relationships, including my pastoral leadership, ever talk about or put any emphasis on actually dealing with sin. They may make some passing comment regarding sin in general in a sermon or as touched on during a corporate congregational prayer Sunday mornings, but that’s it. Apparently sin isn’t important to others, so it’s not important to me. Everyone spends so little time actually dealing with the issue. No one ever talks about it. I’m just like the others. For us, it simply doesn’t exist.


Sin exists, I believe that, but I’m so busy with life in general and church activities that I just don’t have time to think about and deal with sin. I do all I can to just make it through my day. If I focus on Jesus and behold him, won’t that eventually somehow move sin out of my life: focus on the good?


Sin exists, and I believe I should understand it better, and believe God wants me to be someone less sinful, but I don’t know what to do. I know I’m saved. I go to church. Sometimes I read my bible. That’s about all I can realistically do. God is love, and I believe He understands how busy my life is. I guess I’d have to say that dealing with sin just isn’t important to me, but many other things I and my church spend a lot of time on are important to us. That’s why we do them.


A Contrary View:

 
“O Father, sanctify them in thy truth, because thy word is truth.” (Jn 17:17)


“For whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and he disciplines the son with whom he is pleased.” (Heb 12:6)


“Now, therefore, endure discipline, because God acts toward you as toward sons; for where is the son whom the father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, that very discipline by which every man is trained, then you are strangers and not sons.” (Heb 12:7-8)


“Furthermore if our fathers of the flesh corrected us and we respected them, how much more then should we willingly be under subjection to our Spiritual Father, and live? For they only for a short while disciplined us as seemed good to them; but God corrects us for our advantage, that we might become partakers of his holiness.” (Heb 12:9-10)


“No discipline, at the time, is expected to be a thing of joy, but of sorrow; but in the end it produces the fruits of peace and righteousness to those who are trained by it.” (Heb 12:11)


“I rebuke and chastise all those whom I love; be zealous, therefore, and repent.” (Rev 3:19) *


We are told that God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ are actively engaged with each Christian in particular and the body of Christ universal, motivated by love, to lead Christians from sin into the presence of God; that is, God is redeeming a people for Himself; a people who will be with the Father and with the Son. God is holy, separate, distinct, unique when compared to anything. Christians, through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, have been saved and brought into that inner-most seat of relational fellowship which the triune God experiences Himself. Christians have been grafted into the life of the Son of God. THAT relational positioning, the reality of it, is the holiness the author of Hebrews 12:10 is discussing. God is uniquely other than this world and all created things. His holiness, which Christians now participate in at a most foundational level to their lives, should express itself in and through their lives above any competing structure that originates from the created order.


These Hebrews 12 verses are set in the context of Christians being directed to deal with sin. Jesus’ declaration in Revelation 3 is made in the context of his actively governing his church, which entails judgment: dealing with their false notions of themselves, their not understanding his concurrent rule over them and consequences for disobedience and living a lie, and that their lives were not reflecting outwardly his rule over them inwardly. In both chapters, Hebrews 12 and Revelation 3, love is the revealed motive from which God engages those who are his, so that the truth of Jesus Christ’s atonement and lordship is lived and manifest to the world. It is from love that Jesus confronts. It is from love that the Father disciplines. The consequences for not hearing Jesus’ rebuke and instruction, and repenting, of not understanding the Father’s work in one’s life, should themselves cause us to fear and humble ourselves before God Almighty and move us quickly to ask for more of that divine instruction!


Much is made of God’s love in our contemporary Christian culture, and rightfully so. But the absence of any seriousness toward dealing with sin by individual Christians and by the church at large produces an erroneous view of that very love. Thankfully, John 17 tells us our Lord’s concern for those who trust him. Jesus Christ made a specific request to his Father concerning the purifying, or separating out, of those who are the Lord’s. He petitioned his very own Father to care for those He had given him. The Father loves the Son and fulfills his petition. The record of Hebrews 12 is a testimony or a glimpse of the Father’s answer to His Son’s prayer. It is revealed to us that the Father’s sanctifying work is directed toward each Christian. This is fact. Thus, discernment of the Father’s chastening and discipline should be pursued and sought by each Christian to the point that they know without any hesitation their sonship. The absence of this Fatherly work is disallowed for true children.


How then do I explain my observations and conclusions concerning the absence of Christians mindfully dealing with sin? How do I explain so many Christians having no clue of the Father’s or our Lord Jesus Christ’s disciplining work in their lives? Many of these people bank on the love of God to the apparent exclusion of His other qualities and ways. Lord, may we all who call on your name daily ask for the loving hand of discipline in our lives to prepare us here and now to be with you then and forever.


The writer of Hebrews knew very well there were Christians who did not understand God’s love and discipline, His work of shaking described later in Hebrews 12, or that the love of God the Father and of the Lord Jesus Christ moves them to care about the holiness of each Christian. That is why the author ended chapter 12 with a reminder of Who it is we are actually positioning ourselves before. Who it is that has actually done the saving, and the implications of that glorious salvation. He admonishes his readers to live reverent and godly lives because God is a consuming fire! It matters very much to God that you and I, and each Christian, participate in His holiness (v. 10). We do not manufacture a life condition referred to as “our own holiness.” We are called to participate in His holiness. The two are very different and this difference must be clear when daily dealing with sin.


Participating in God’s holiness is a condition or requirement for what we find Jesus petitioning the Father about in the later part of John 17: that we would be with him, that we would be one with Jesus and the Father, that we would see Christ’s glory that he had before the world was, and that the love that is shared between the Father and His Son would be our experience. Jesus’ passion was that all that the Father gave him would be with him. That is why we must undergo the Father’s discipline which leads to holiness: so we can be with him! As the Hebrews writer says elsewhere, without holiness, no one will see the Lord: see Him themselves in the end and along the way; and others seeing Him as those who set apart their lives by following Jesus Christ testify of Him to the world.


So why does dealing with sin not matter to us; matter to the point where we read God’s word, think, pray and talk with other Christians about it and deal with our lives? Matter such that my having been separated unto a life with God through Jesus Christ continually frames what I think, say and do? This is a totally different outlook than mindlessly venturing through the week that perhaps culminates in a momentary petition for forgiveness on Sunday morning for that week’s sins. Faithful pastors shepherd their flocks with a degree of intimacy and care to where they help parse out godliness from corruption for those they have charge for. They understand the responsibility to lead people along that pathway that ends in what Ephesians 1:4 and John 17 tell us is our divine destination. They warn of temptation and expose the tempter! These things are openly and frequently discussed, and people are guided along their ways.


Given the truth about our relationship with the God Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, should we Christians not have a different understanding of sin, what it is and what is to be done about it? It seems very important to both the Father and His Son. We know too the Holy Spirit shares the very same concern and passion for purifying the individual Christian heart and that of the bride. Holiness and sanctification are truths and realities which exist as the base fabric of the Christian life and experience. When I write again, I will labor to detail three key divisions which knowing about and understanding may help Christians have discernment for making it through their days following the Lord Jesus Christ and actually engaging all that would wage war against them to forsake him.


Additionally, the world lost and without Christ needs the witness available from Christians living lives separated from sin. Living from that degree of division produces a discernment and a voice different from one who is self-deceived by sin.


God’s best.


Carl


* Verses are from the bible translated by George M. Lamsa from the Aramaic of the Peshitta.