29Jun/100

A Good Q&A about the Bible and Sin

Someone recently asked me to answer some questions regarding the Bible, Sin, and judgment. I thought the questions were good ones, and I thought that others might benefit from the discussion. I'm not claiming to be the definitive word on this, of course, but this is where I'm at currently in my journey with Jesus. Enjoy!

Is God's word a rule book or a guide book?

Simple answer: it’s a guide book. It guides us into a dynamic relationship with the living God. True, it has lots of rules listed in the Old Testament. However, the Law of Moses was a specific document for a specific group of people in a specific time given by a loving God for the physical and spiritual protection of a very young, newly freed nation. The people took the law far beyond its purpose and worshipped it. Jesus came to deconstruct the distorted view of God and God’s law that the Jews had constructed through centuries of tradition, fear, and hatred and replace it with the indwelling Spirit that cannot be bound by rigid documents or doctrines. Additionally, the letters of the New Testament are not a new law for the church. They are the directives given by a pastor to a specific group of people in the context of a place and situation. We can learn a great deal from how the teacher handled the situation, but the letters were not meant to be law for all time.

What is your interpretation/understanding/commentary of the following passages:

Matthew 5:20-41

The Sermon on the Mount has a simple, overarching message. It was spoken to Jewish hearers who believed that God judged them based upon their external obedience to the laws of Moses. The message of Jesus was, “It doesn’t matter what your external behavior is, it is the condition of your heart that is the issue.” In other words, you can technically obey all the laws, and still have a rotten heart. That is the point of the specific passage highlighted here. Jesus says, “True, you haven’t murdered, but you still hate, so your heart is still sick.” Jesus wants to transform us from the inside out. If your heart is cleansed from self-loathing, shame, pride, envy, etc. and you have been set free to experience the love and grace of God, then your external behaviors will simply be the natural overflow of a clean heart.

Matthew 18:3-10

Children have clean minds. They look at the world with awe and wonder. They don’t have prejudice or doubt or fear or hatred. They are free to imagine and believe in the power of God to do anything. It is culture that beats them down and teaches them — both through instruction and experience — that people are scary and unreliable. Jesus calls us to become like children again and reach out to each other in openness.

Matthew 23:33-39

The only people that Jesus ever condemned were the religious leaders who made it their business to condemn everyone else. Think about this: Jesus was kinder to the legion of demons in the Gersene man than he was to the self-righteous Pharisees. Why? Because these men had taken the grace of God, the message of God’s kingdom, and turned it into a shame-based system that kept people in fear and exalted themselves into positions of power. They had completely misrepresented God and, in so doing, stolen the people’s rightful inheritance of freedom and love in the presence of God. Ironically, the only time Jesus talks about Hell (gehenna) is when he talks to the Pharisees. That’s because they used the idea of God’s eternal damnation as their power tool to drive people down and manipulate their behavior. That is not the way of God found in Jesus.

Matthew 25:14-46

I recently had this passage completely turned on its head for me. (Or more accurately, I was turned right side up to look at it differently). We’ve always been taught (and I have taught) that this is a stewardship passage where God punishes those who don’t use the gifts he’s given. That has always been difficult for me to completely accept in light of the rest of Jesus’ teaching. What if it is just the opposite? What if the only one who does the right thing in this parable is the one who hides the money? In the parable, the landowner represents the corrupted system of Israel and the Roman Empire. Jesus continually tells his disciples to not buy into that way of thinking, even if it means you will be punished by that system and thrown out in the trash heap (that is the inference in v. 30). By burying the money the servant defies the corrupt system and has the courage to face the consequences. As Jesus neared the end of his ministry he was preparing his disciples for a life of hardship and persecution. That is the nature of this parable.

What is the answer to Sin?

Don’t. How’s that? Seriously, I need to understand more clearly what the question implies. An “answer” implies a question. What is the question? Is it “Why is there sin?” or “What is sin?” or “How do we break the bonds of sin?”

The answer to all of it is Jesus. He taught us how to live the life of the Kingdom of God; a life of love and freedom. The key to all of it is forgiveness and self-sacrifice; looking to the needs of others before self. Jesus demonstrated this kind of love in laying down his own life. It is only when we are willing to lose our own life that we can ever truly find it.

What is God's standard for sin?

Once again, I need clarification on the question. “Standard” means “measurement.” Is it asking, “how does God measure sin?” The word “sin” literally means “miss the mark.” So, the question is, “what is the mark?” Is it perfection? Then we’re all doomed. This goes to the next question...

How can we live up to that standard?

You and I were raised as children of Modern Protestant Fundamentalism that, in reaction to a couple centuries worth of theological debate, got fixated on the idea of “sin management.” Ironically, it is very similar to the trap that the Pharisees had fallen into that got Jesus so upset. They — we — tend to see God as a great big judge that counts up all of our infractions — based upon a list of rules that the church has extrapolated through a particular set of lenses from the scripture — and condemns us for them. We all deserve to die and suffer forever in Hell because we blew it so badly. But, because of God’s love he tortures his son in our place.

Under this construct, no matter how you slice it, God is pretty vicious. Well, he’s either really mad and likes to condemn people (because, after all, he invented the law, right?). Or, he is actually powerless because he is bound to the law and is forced to torture us because the law demands it. Think about this... If God is bound to the law, then doesn’t that make the law greater than God? Wouldn’t that make the law God and the being we associate with the Father just a lesser being that succumbs to the same universal forces that we do?

I think there are serious problems with this system. It produces pain, fear, shame, and self-loathing within certain personality types, and self-righteous condemning power mongers in other personalities.

Jesus didn’t come to pay off Satan, or get tortured by God in our place. Jesus came to set us free from all the hatred and fear that we continually dish out to one another. He came to show us that it is possible to know God, to experience God’s love, and to live in peace with God and other humans. He taught that to us, He demonstrated that to us, and he showed us the ultimate example of loving others, even when they want to nail you to an execution stake.

The greatest Hell we live in is when we keep score in life and hold on to bitterness and grudges and don’t forgive others. Or, perhaps even more difficult, we don’t forgive ourselves.

God loves us. God wants us to be free to love Him back and to love others. Through experience we have learned that not everyone wants to play that way and we get hurt. So, we retreat, self-protect, and live in fear, bitterness, and hatred or self-loathing. God relentlessly pursues us, like a lover bent on knowing us, and brings opportunities into our life on a regular basis where we have to look to God for everything. When we release it all, then we can be free to receive what God wants to give and to love others the way God loves them.

Ok, I think I’m done preaching.

Week 10 Day 3 – A Tale of Two Cities

Joshua 5:13-7:26

Here’s the devotional thought for today, plain and simple: Sin messes things up! So don’t do it!

God could not have been any clearer to the people. He told them not to take any of the booty from Jericho. The spoils from this victory were to be the firstfruits of Israel’s income from the endeavor God had sent them on. Remember from Exodus that the Israelites were to bring the firstfruits of their harvests to the Lord as an act of sacrifice and faith in God’s provision (Exodus 23:16). For 40 years the people had not planted crops or had an income. The city of Jericho was very symbolic as it represented the firstfruits of the promised blessing that God was fulfilling to His people.

And yet, even with the clarity of instruction, Achan could not resist. When he saw the goods, he knew he had to have it. Perhaps he felt that he deserved it because he had been without for his entire life. Perhaps he thought that God and Joshua would never notice. After all, it was just a trinket in comparison to the vast riches they had just acquired. Whatever his thoughts and rationalizations, the fact remains that Achan blew it and the nation suffered.

As modern, individualistic people, we tend to see the sin of Achan and apply it to our own personal lives. It becomes clear to us that if we get greedy and disobey God, then we will suffer the consequences. While that is a valid application point from this story, there is another that is perhaps deeper and broader. The sin of Achan affected the entire nation, even to the point where 36 innocent men died in battle. As Christians we need to reconnect to the reality that we are parts of the body of Christ. We do not live in a vacuum where our sins affect only us. Just like in the human body, when one cell turns cancerous, it begins to destroy the cells around it.

God knew that sinful attitudes are like a cancer in the collective body of His people. The story of Achan demonstrates that a cancerous cell must be dealt with quickly and decisively for the sake of the health of the body.

The next time you are tempted to give in to your cherished sin again, stop and think about all the other people in your church community. Realize that by committing that sin you are disrupting the flow in your relationship with God. When your flow gets disrupted you will stop overflowing onto others and will become disconnected. This can lead to a cascade failure and destroy a community. If you are in the moment of temptation and feel yourself giving in, reach out to God and reach out to a trusted brother or sister in the church and ask them to give you the strength to turn away and get reconnected to the flow of God. If you have committed a sin that you know is eating at your heart and jeopardizing the collective health of the body, first confess it to God, then confess it to a member of the community. Repent from it. Turn away. The worst thing you can do in that situation is to hide from others because of shame. Bring it into the light, let the fire of God’s truth burn it out, and let the balm of God’s Spirit heal it up.

Don’t just do it for your own sake, do it for the sake of the community. You are not alone.

Week 5 Day 5 – Infection in the Camp

Leviticus 12:1-14:57

In the middle of this passage of Leviticus which deals with the very physical reality of infection in the camp of Israel, there is a spiritual lesson to be learned for the church of today. Infection has disastrous effects on the community. In the OldTestament, physical infection represented sin in the minds of the people. If a person, clothing, or a house, had become infected, it had to be isolated from the Tabernacle (worship of God) and the community (fellowship). If the infection never went away then the infected person essentially became the "living dead" and would have to stay outside the camp, in complete isolation, crying out "unclean, unclean." While this seems like cruel and unusual punishment, we must remember that the person was not necessarily being made to pay for their own personal sin. Rather, they were a living testimony to the reality of the infection of sin and its effects on worship and community.

Sin isolates. There are just no two ways around it. Today, when we allow sin to creep into our lives, we are infected. When this infection is detected by the priest (we are all priests...remember) it is the duty of the priest to take drastic action to isolate the infection and get rid of it. What would have happened if the priests in Moses’ camp had just let the infection slide out of "grace and compassion"? The tabernacle would have been defiled, God would have been dishonored, and the infection would have spread like wildfire throughout the camp, perhaps killing everyone. So it is with sin. Sin in the camp of God is serious business. It is a spiritual infection that goes way deeper than any skin disease, it worms its way into the soul of a person and kills him with eternal death. Sin must be identified and isolated.

Is that where it stops? Should we just take anyone who is a "sinner" and throw them out of the camp? Not at all. Yes, we must isolate the sin. We must not deal lightly with sin. We must isolate it, but then we must wait "seven days" and see if the infection is gone. In the Old Testament the number seven was a symbol of perfection. It was God’s number. It is during those "seven days" of isolation when the healing can take place. When there is sin in the camp, it is not God’s desire to punish the sinner. God loves the sinner. Yet, sin isolates. Sin cannot come into the presence of God. If it does it throws the whole worshipping community into chaos. God loves the sinner, but He hates the sin that isolates His child from Him. The purpose of the isolation is not punishment, the purpose is healing. If after seven days the person returns and is found to be without infection, if the sin is gone, then they can be reinstated into proper worship of God and fellowship with the community. They must make their sacrifices, shave their head, wash from head to foot, and then they are back.

When we sin, it takes some doing to get back into the swing of things. We need to sacrifice ourselves before God again. We need to ask God to forgive us for our sin. We need to humbly stand before the community and seek forgiveness and restitution. We must be cleansed with the Spirit of God. Then we will be renewed. Never again will that sin have effect on our worship and our fellowship. We are clean. God doesn’t hold it against us. The community doesn’t hold it against us.

Do you see the point here? It’s not that God delights in punishing us for sin and sits around waiting to zap anyone who steps out of line. The natural effects of sin are the punishment in themselves. When you sin you are hurting yourself and everyone else in your community. You are disrupting your relationship and open worship of God. You are dishonoring His name. You are jeopardizing the health of the community. That sin must be isolated or else everyone, starting with you, is going down. As a community we cannot allow sin to fester in our people. We must deal with it quickly, speak the truth about it, isolate it, repent of it, get healed from it, seek forgiveness, make restitution, and experience the cleansing power of God once again. Too many times, in our Christian perspective, in light of Grace, we think that sin is no big deal and that God will just forgive us automatically. That’s not how it works. Grace happened in the fact that God made the once-for-all atoning sacrifice for our sins and made it possible for all people to enter into His presence without a human mediator. That didn’t wipe out the effects of sin in our day-to-day lives. Sin is a nasty infection. It must be dealt with in truth and in love.

What infection do you have today? Is there cherished sin that you hold on to? Perhaps you struggle with lust and private fantasy in your thought life. Perhaps you harbor resentment or bitterness toward someone. Perhaps there is an act that you have done in secret that haunts you. Perhaps you have an addiction that seems "safe and harmless" but hangs around your neck like a 100 pound chain. That infection is destroying your fellowship with God and your fellowship with others. Oh, you may be able to go through the churchy motions, but deep down inside you know you are already standing outside the camp screaming "unclean, unclean". Remember that Jesus went outside the camp. He touched the unclean one and said, you, too, can be forgiven. God loves you. He does not want you to suffer from this infection. Your community loves you. If you want to be clean, here’s’ what you need to do.

Find at least one godly person who will sit down with you and listen.
Verbally name the sin and confess to that person that you have been committing that sin.
Pray, verbally, with that person and ask God to forgive you for the sin.
Commit to God that it is your desire to not go back to that sin in your life.
Verbally speak the name of Jesus and claim that it is through His blood sacrifice that you have been forgiven and through the power of the Holy Spirit that you can be set free from your sin.
Ask God, verbally, to give you the strength to move away from that sin.
Ask the person to hold you accountable through regular follow-up conversations to not repeating that sin.
Make any restitution to offended people that need to be made.
Publicly, in the context of your true spiritual community, confess (not necessarily in the same level of detail as with the individual) that you have sinned and would like to re-enter a healthy relationship with the community.

If we, as the church, would function in this way, we could begin cleansing our camp, and the Spirit of God could be unleashed to do His work in us and through us.