Just a few comments on my views of how sin relates in the life of a believer. I think this has been much a source of confusion for a long time. First off, we have to define sin. Sin is what separates us from God. Easy definition. Ok, end of lesson. Whoa, come back here. Class is not dismissed yet!
I don’t understand the definition. What separates us from God? “Sin, ya dummy.” Ok. What is sin? “That which separates us from God. Get it?” Hmmm, still having some difficulty understanding what separates us from God. “Man, are you dense! You still don’t know what sin is, do you” Nope. Sorry. Guess I am dense after all.
I think that pretty much defines the teachings on sin within the modern church. Some will be a little more precise. They’ll answer by scenario. “Would you want Jesus to walk in the front door of your house and see you doing that?”
Well now that you put it that way, the next time my wife and I are having a time of intimacy, I’d better make sure my front door is locked as well as the bedroom door. Sure wouldn’t want Jesus to walk in and see me doing that.
I think in spite of confusion generated by man’s biases, sin has been very clearly defined in the Bible. And as I said in the second paragraph above, it is exactly that. Sin is that which separates us from God. I will, contrary to the majority, make some attempt to dissect what that really means. The simplistic view is that it must be a list of things we may do or say. If I cannot think well in abstract terms, I must define a list. Churches have done that for as long as the church as been in existence on earth. Actually, I retract that statement. Religions have been doing that from day one. Look at the state of religion when Christ came to the earth. The “church” of the time, the established state of Judaism was such that everything had been cataloged into “do’s” and “don’ts”.
Following Christ’s formation of His Church on earth, the church structure began to do the same thing. The desire was righteous but the implementation was all wrong. We could not understand the entire concept of sin for in many ways it was an abstract term and as Christ had not made an all inclusive list for us, we had to define some things which fit into that definition. Needless to say, the list has been added to, revised, subtracted from and otherwise modified over the course of the centuries of the church age.
Jesus did give us a list. There is nothing abstract about that list. Paul and the other writers of the New Testament clarified certain aspects of the list. Some think that these writers added to the list. I do not think so. We want to think so because we seem to want the list to be bigger than it really is. It is not necessary for me to repeat the list here. We know those things which are strictly forbidden by God. For the basis of the list, we can look directly at the Ten Commandments. To break any of those is to commit a sin. Of course. That’s so obvious that you might look at me funny for even bothering to bring it up. Adultery, murder, false witness, rejecting God, etc. Those are the exact things Jesus spoke against and which the Apostles preached against.
But, they had to go and muddy the water. Who had the nerve to say, “if he thinks it is a sin, to him it is a sin”? (a paraphrase on Romans 14:14) But if someone believes it is wrong, then he shouldn’t do it because for him it is wrong. (Rom 14:14-15 TLB) Paul was specifically talking about meat offered to idols and the potential offense to the weaker brother, but it applies exactly to all things, many of which have been labeled as sin by the church as a whole for the very reason Paul described.
Why was it necessary to cause me such confusion? If I think WHAT is a sin, or wrong for me to do? What is the thing I might think is a sin and because of that it really is? Now it has been established early on that I’m a little dense, so I am really confused right now. What is this thing that I might think is a sin? It would have been nice if he had left it nice and tidy by saying what a sin was and what was not. Now I am bound to go around constantly worried that something I might think about might be a sin and he hasn’t even told me what that might be. What if it really isn’t a sin, but I simply think it is a sin? In that case it really is a sin? Well, is it a sin or isn’t it? How am I ever going to know the difference? Maybe I just won’t do anything. Then I won’t risk sinning.
I think we miss the point when we look for a thing within that declaration. “If he thinks (insert the name of the thing) it is a sin, to him it is a sin.” That statement strongly suggests that the very thing named if he does not think it is a sin, than it is not a sin. So the thing itself cannot be a sin. Now before throwing stones at me for watering down sin, hear me out. Sin is sin is sin. If it is sin, whether I think it is or not, it is sin. Period. I may think that it is righteous, but if it really is sin, I am dead wrong in my thinking. A thing cannot be a sin right now and tomorrow not be a sin. Adultery is sin whether I think it is or not. The modern liberal culture we live in has done everything within its power to remove the stigma and the sin label for not only adultery but other perversions as well. An entire civilization can stand as one and make the claim that adultery and other such sexual misdeeds are not sin but rather are good things, but the facts cannot be changed. It is sin. So we cannot make something which is sin into something which is not sin. In the same way, we cannot make something which is not sin into something which is sin. As God does not change, neither does sin change. It remains always as it is.
So if the “thing” which I might be thinking is sin, is not sin, then how can the statement claiming it is be true? We have focused on the thing itself and failed to realize it is not the thing, but the effect of the thing in our life which is the sin. Remember the first definition of sin I wrote. “That which separates us from God”? At this point we must be very clear on something. If it is something which I think is sin and it really is sin, it is sin. Period. It is not my thinking it is sin that makes it sin. If I am believing that adultery is sin for me, it is because adultery is a sin. Adultery is a sin for all people.
Some things which I may believe to be a sin for me (or I may go as far as to believe that thing to be a sin for all people) are apparently not sins for all people. Now I can be legalistic and justify my bias by claiming that, well, these other people who do this are sinning and don’t know it, or else they’re simply immature. That is in my book, self justification. In truth though, if the thing is sin for me it should be a sin for all. Don’t get caught in the trap of saying, “well, yes it is.” I can turn that around and ask, if it is not a sin for anyone else, why is it a sin for you? I won’t do that though.
What is it about this thing which really separates me from God making the thing a sin in my life? It is not the thing itself, for if it were the thing, then the property of the thing would be sin and then it would be sin for all and there would be no need for the conditional statement to be made in the first place. “If he thinks it that it is a sin, if he does it, it is a sin.”
What happens to me if I become so distracted by my fear and worry about a particular action on my part that I believe by doing it, I am doing wrong? I become very much like Peter who took his eyes off of the Lord and when he did so, he began to sink. I have in my conscious a conviction that what I am doing is wrong and if I go ahead and do it, I feel the sense of guilt which causes me to doubt the purity of my relationship with God. I feel that I have done something which is displeasing to Him and as a result, I put in a sense a wall of separation between Him and me. I am the one who breaks fellowship for now I feel uncomfortable in His presence. When Adam fell, he no longer felt comfortable in the presence of God and thus he went and hid from God’s presence. In Adam’s case, what he did truly was sin. In our case though the thing which we have done is not a sin of itself, it is our reaction to our doing it that is the sin. Knowing that, the thing to do to keep us from separating ourselves from God, is to avoid doing it no matter how clean and innocent of wrong the thing might be. That is the exact definition of something which separates me from God. I am the one who pulls myself from His presence. He does not depart from me. My sin is the action on my part which broke the fellowship. I cannot blame it on the thing.
Dan W. Dooley
Dooley’s Treasure Chest
