Preface: A Sanctification Story
1.1 Filled with the Holy Spirit (part 1)2.1 What is holiness? (part 1)
2.2 What's love got to do with it? (part 2)
2.3 What is perfect love? (part 3)
1. You hear many popular notions about sin among Christians that don't hold up to good exegesis of the Scriptures. Ironically, these "myths" about sin have infected a lot of Wesleyans as well. However, some of the exegetical strengths of the Wesleyan tradition lie in its interpretations of key passages relating to sin in the New Testament.
One common myth is that sin means "to miss the mark" in the sense of falling short of absolute perfection. Suffice it to say, the Bible never says this. In older Greek, the word hamartano could mean to wander or err -- to "go wrong" as it were. So you could talk about an arrow "erring" from its target as in Judges 20:16 in the Greek Old Testament. [1]
But the New Testament use of the word almost always involves a conscious moral choice. [2] In general, it doesn't think of sin as missing a target, nor does it treat sin for a believer as an unavoidable event. As 1 Corinthians 10:13 says, "No temptation has taken you except what is common to humanity. But God is faithful. He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able to resist. But with the temptation he will make also a way to escape so it is possible for you to bear it."
2. Occasionally, someone might point to Romans 3:23 as an instance of "missing the mark." For example, the New Living Translation (NLT) renders this verse, "Everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard." But this translation almost certainly misses the mark in what the verse means.
A more accurate translation is, "All have sinned and are lacking the glory of God." The glory of God is that which God created Adam and humanity to have in the creation (Ps. 8:5; Heb. 2:7). Then humanity lost this glory when Adam sinned (Rom. 3:23). But Christ makes it possible for us to regain this glory when Christ returns (Rom. 5:2, 8:18; Heb. 2:9-10). The more we understand Paul's theology of glory, the more we will see the depth of this verse's meaning.
What Romans 3:23 is saying is that, because of our sin, we have all lost the glory that God created humanity to have. But it is not formulating sin in terms of failing to keep some divine standard -- let alone an absolute one. The focus of sin in the New Testament is not the standard (legal) but the intentionality (moral).
2. There are two basic senses of sin -- in terms of sin acts -- in the New Testament: to do wrong and to wrong (someone). In the previous chapter, we argued that if love is the ultimate standard of doing what God requires, then the most basic definition of sin ultimately refers to any choice that is contrary to love.
Can we sin unintentionally? Yes, although this is not the focus of the New Testament. Unintentional wrongdoing was far more significant in the theology of the Old Testament. [3] The sin offerings of Leviticus 4 focus on unintentional "sins" as well as matters that might make a person unclean. The same is true of the guilt offerings of Leviticus 5.
Why? Because the sacrificial system wasn't designed as much for intentional wrongdoing, which more frequently led to exile or death. Numbers 15 draws a sharp distinction between atonement for unintentional sins and sins "with a high hand," for which there was far less sacrificial provision for atonement. Hebrews 9:7 echoes this fact when it says that the Levitical system atoned for "sins committed in ignorance.
It is possible to sin unintentionally because we can harm someone else without intending to do so. We can wrong someone intentionally or unintentionally. In Matthew 18:21, Peter asks Jesus how many times he should forgive someone if they "sin against" him. He seems to have intentional wrongdoing in mind here, but we can imagine that a person might wrong someone unintentionally (for example, running over someone's cat).
In terms of ethics, sins committed in ignorance tend to be "consequentialist" sins -- sins that relate to the consequences or effects of our choices.
3. However, in most instances, the New Testament has an intentional act of wrongdoing in mind when it talks about sin. All such acts of sin are rooted in our minds and in our choices -- in our intentions. Wesley defined sin "properly so called" as a "willful transgression against a known law of God." [4] In this definition, he recognized the central role of the will in the type of sin with which God is most concerned.
Matthew 5 gets at the roots of sin when Jesus contrasts those in his day who focused on external standards and rules in their understanding of sin rather than on the heart from which our actions flow. A person might not violate the rule not to murder but violate it in one's heart with hate. A person might keep the letter of the Law with regard to adultery but violate it in their heart.
In both cases, one has sinned because his or her intentions are wrong and do not reflect a heart of love. Sin is thus not focused so much on the violation of a rule. Its primary nature is not legal but a matter of intent. As Jesus says in Mark 7:21, the heart is the seat of sin not the external violation of rules.
When we think of sin primarily as missing the mark -- especially falling short of absolute perfection -- we are lowering its sense. This is a less morally mature understanding of sin and, indeed, a picture of a less mature God who is more focused on rules than intentions. Jesus and the New Testament give a deeper sense of sin that gets at the heart rather than external legalism.
4. Just to make the point even clearer, let's look at several verses in the New Testament that reinforce this picture of the nature of sin acts (we will get to the question of a sin nature soon enough). James 4:17 indicates that if a person knows the good that he or she should do but does not do it, they are sinning. This type of sin is called a sin of omission. A sin of omission is when we do not do something we know we should as opposed to a sin of commission when we do something we should not.
But notice that intentionality is involved. We know what we should do but we choose not to do it.
Romans 14:23 gives us one of the most insightful pictures of sin in the entirety of the Bible. Paul is discussing matters on which Christians disagree such as whether one should eat meat that has been sacrificed to an idol or observe the Jewish Sabbath. In the end, he indicates that it comes down to faith.
One person acts from a heart of faith and keeps the Jewish Sabbath. Another person acts from faith and gives all days to the Lord equally without setting the Sabbath aside. Both are acting righteously and neither is sinning (Rom. 14:5-8).
There is a key truth that comes from this insight. Two people can do exactly the same thing and the one be sinning while the other is not sinning. What makes the difference is not the act itself but the person's intentionality toward the act. Romans 14:23 thus makes it particularly clear that the nature of sin is in one's intention rather than in one's action per se.
Some might think that 1 John 3:4 has a legal approach to sin: "The one who practices sin also practices lawlessness because sin is lawlessness." But what does John have in mind? The chapter goes on to describe such sinning in terms of those who do not love their Christian brothers and sisters. They sin by not meeting the needs of others when they have the resources to do so (1 John 3:11, 17).
And so, far from some legal sense of sin and lawlessness, 1 John also has a love-focused understanding of sin. John turns out to have a very concrete sense of wrongdoing in mind -- concrete sins of omission by not helping others when one knows he or she should. Like Jesus and Peter, John sees love as the essence of Law-keeping. Indeed, it is he who tells us that God's nature is love (1 John 4:7-8) and that the one born of God cannot sin because God's seed remains in him or her (1 John 3:9).
What then is lawlessness here? It is an attitude that is contrary to the love of our neighbor. Such an unloving attitude toward others is a lawless attitude. It is contrary to the very essence of the Law.
[1] Although even here, it is a slightly different word, diamartano.
[2] There are some exceptions. Hebrews 9:7 speaks of old covenant sins as "sins committed in ignorance. Acts 3:17, 17:30; 1 Timothy 1:13 all speak of periods of ignorance that preceded faith in Christ. Luke 12:48 mentions servants who aren't ready for the Lord's return unintentionally.
[3] The focus of sin in the Old Testament also often had a corporate dimension that we tend to miss because of our individualist culture.
[4] We find references to "sin properly so called" in Wesley's sermon, "The Scripture Way of Salvation" as well as in a letter he wrote in 1772 to a Mrs. Elizabeth Bennis.
1 comment:
Another good one. Thanks!
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