Defining Sin and Grace

Drafts keep piling up on my blog here and I have many subjects to cover. One of my friends told me that I need to stop procrastinating and just post a blog. I agree. Titles range from “The Sin List” to “Discerning the Word,” and even though I’ve got large chunks written on subjects that effect me personally as a Christian, I can’t bring myself to release an entry and let it become my final word on the subject. There are too many variables, too many aspects I haven’t examined, too many pieces to the puzzle. The last, “strictly spiritual” entry I wrote on this blog was on the woman at the well and that was back in September of 2008. I want my blog to focus on God, not me.

I talked to my good friend Paulie yesterday, trying to figure out where the lines fall between legalism and despising sin. Since sin pushes us away from God we should be right to despise it. Our motivation must not be that we as humans think an action is wrong, but rather that we see in God’s word that it is wrong. A closer examination of sin helps me understand the concept of avoiding it even better.

The root of the word “sin” literally means death. Because Jesus gives us everlasting life, sin is often defined as estrangement from God. Because God is holy, pure, just and righteous – Psalm 19:9 – no sin is found is His presence. Our sin essentially drives a wedge between us and God because there is no room for sin in His Glory. Sin and God cannot exist together.

When we sin we feel a need to hide from God. One of the first consequences of sin was shame as Adam and Eve hid in the garden of Eden. Sin taints our worldview and innocence flees, and we can never look at life in the same way. We often think that being naive about sin is something bad. If I knew what sin was I could avoid it! But Paul explains, “To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; even their mind and conscience are defiled” – Titus 1:15

As life progresses our minds are filled with the world and if we don’t have a growing base of the truth, we’re covered with worldly dirt until we can’t see God anymore. We then look at ourselves, see that we’re filthy, and run to the puddles of the world to try to get clean. We emerge even more caked with mud because only Jesus can make us pure again.

This is where grace comes in and here is the place that I struggle, because Grace is so beyond my human imagination. It’s so unfathomable! Paul sums it up much more eloquently than I ever could: “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!” – Romans 5:7-8

The thing that scares me most is that I would go from being on fire to a smoldering ruin because I have relied on myself to stop sinning and created a list of rules that I cannot possibly uphold. I don’t want to go into a spiritual holding pattern where I know I need to do something but won’t do anything. I don’t want to be a “lukewarm” Christian who is afraid to step out. The only way I can do this is to make sure that I progress in my spiritual life, that I’m bearing fruit and pushing towards the goal.

Hebrews 6:1-2 says, “Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.”

But I have to remind myself that even as I press into more weighty subjects that confront the Christians of today, I can never forget the Cross. I can never forget why Jesus Christ died for me and what it means.