Sin: The Uncut Version

The heavily edited version of sin, debuting around 900 b.c. in theaters across the Middle East, goes something like this:

DO NOT DO x, y or z, for they are sins.

The Ten Commandments, in other words. Even when they evolved into several thousand commandments, such as do not eat a camel, do not cook a calf in its mother's milk, this was okay because people love to know what the ground rules are so they can get around them.

These rules were a concession, perhaps a training device, because if God had told them what sin really was, it would have BLOWN THEIR MINDS. It still has the capacity to blow people's minds. They would have run screaming into the desert never to return.

So they went along following their rules, and then Jesus came along. Now Jesus did several things straight off that turned the rules on their heads.

First, he focused on what you should do, not what you must not do. In other words, his focus was on mercy not merely justice, on goodness not merely righteousness. On love, not just respect. He was interested in breaking down barriers to goodness, not in setting up limits to evil.

Secondly he said that the spirit of a law was more important than the letter of it. In other words, what did God intend men to do and be? This was more important than a legalistic interpretation. He was seeking to conform the hearts of men to God, not just their bodies.

Thirdly and very critically, he said that the intention of the heart could sin just as much as the action of the body. In other words, the man who looks at a woman lustfully has committed a form of adultery, even if he has done nothing legally wrong against the Law.

Jesus was in fact revealing to us a very different vision of sin:

A sin is any thought, word or action that is contrary to the will of God. It is also the absence of thoughts, words or actions that God does will.

So you can see from this that virtually everyone sins almost continually. There are no rules to follow, to save you from this sin.

Now you may say, "who knows the mind of God? How can we be responsible to do what we cannot possibly know to do? And if we did all these things, would we not be automatons constantly obeying an impossibly demanding ruler?"

Here it may be helpful to think of sin as a state of being, rather than a precise transgression. Sin is a state of disunity with God. It is impossible for someone in an active state of disunion with God to please God. For someone who desires disunity with God, who desires to go his or her own way, of course this definition of sin must be impossible to deal with. Unlike the Law, this definition gives the sinner no place to hide, no way of being externally obedient while being internally disobedient. If you want to run your own life, if you want "freedom from" God, you are in a state of sin. Period. If there are areas of your life you want to segregate from God, keeping those areas to yourself, those areas are sin. For instance, if you want to separate your business dealings from your life in God, your business dealings are sin.

At this point I want to bring up a very interesting quote from Jesus, speaking of his disciples:

"My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one."

So on the one hand Jesus is speaking of the Father as greater than himself, on the other hand he is saying that he and the Father are one. Jesus' subserviance to the Father is something that is well documented in the gospels; his mystical unity with the Father is also well attested. This is because Jesus is literally one with God, which is to say that God expresses Himself without limit in Jesus. Jesus has God's spirit in him, he has unity with God, and he is not at all whatsoever in rebellion to Him. Jesus is united to but not identical to the Father. The Father is greater.

Similarly, the means of our escape from the state of sin is unity with God. For God's spirit to dwell with us. It is no more servitude or robotlikeness for someone united with God to serve God, than it would be for a loving wife to remove her husband's shoes. Your will is united to God's will. Sin is the slavery, even if it is done in the name of your own will.

Now people who have God's spirit still sin on occasion, hopefully not too badly. When they do sin, so long as that sin does not consist of a total breach with God, it is treated as a teaching exercise, because God's spirit in them is able to teach them. God knows that it is a difficult world full of troubles and temptations, and that our understanding is limited. The difference is in truly wanting unity with God, obedience to God.

Those who have God in them, are children of God. Children meaning quite literally, those who are in training, who have not yet grown up. The Children are not condemned, because through Jesus Christ who has opened up the way for the Spirit to enter us, we have committed to become united to God. We have come to terms with the One whom we previously rebelled against - indeed He has sought us out for us to make peace with Him and more than peace. Unity.

Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one.
-John 17:11