Today in chapel we had an "interesting" lecture on sin and empathy. It began well with a theologically informed analysis of sin in the Christian tradition: we have Pelagius, who defined sin primarily as a voluntary act, and we have Augustine, who argued that sin was more of a deep-rooted state out of which our disobedience cannot help but flow without grace. God must, therefore, take the first initiative in salvation. As a Wesleyan, I heartily affirm this strong view of human depravity resulting from the grevious Fall of man into sin.
Yet it is precisely because I am a Wesleyan that I was rather troubled by the remainder of the lecture. We've all heard the phrase "there but for the grace of God go I," right? Well, apparently, a more truthful rendering would be "there go I" - that is, evidently, Christians are just wretched sinners like everyone else. We are sinners before we are Christians, and we remain sinners after we become Christians. And, it was argued, because of this fact we ought to empathize with sinners above all else since we are all in the same boat after all. Now, maybe the speaker expressed himself poorly, but this was the message I got, and I got it loud and clear.
Is this the Gospel? Is this what Jesus Christ shed His blood for - so that we must remain under the power and dominion of sin? What exactly is the Gospel in this view? Freedom from the guilt of sin? If so, we have landed in the mire of antinomianism in which
sin itself in its damning power is converted rather than the sinner. Forgiveness is no doubt important, but it's only half the Gospel. Forgiveness and justification without repentance and regeneration invariably leads to cheap grace that prophetic voices like Wesley and Bonhoeffer so rightly deplored: "But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found
sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? May it never be!" (Gal. 2:17).
The New Testament does not
ever call Christians sinners (sin defined as a willful disobedience - James 4:17); it always refers to them as
saints, which means "holy ones." "Such
were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God
" (1 Cor. 6:11). "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin...So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed" (John 8:34; 8:36). "The one who says, "I have come to know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him" (1 John 2:4). "No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who does righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who does sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning.
The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil." (1 John 3:6-8). The passages abound. Sin is foreign to the normative Christian life, and whenever Paul encounters it he is very clear that those who practice such things "will not inherit the Kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 6:9). " Become sober-minded as you ought," Paul admoninshes us, "and stop sinning; for some have no knowledge of God I speak this to your shame" (1 Cor. 15:34).
One might argue that Christians do not
want to fall into sin, but nevertheless they find themselves falling into it over and over again. But how is this not still bondage? How is this not still being under the dominion of sin such that falling into temptation is basically considered "normal?" How is this not devaluing the seriousness of sin, not to mention the efficaciousness of God's liberating grace? This is the experience of Romans 7, a pre-Christian state properly speaking, in which the will is divided between two allegiences: "
For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want...For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members" (Rom. 7:19; 7:22-23). But what most people miss is that Paul goes on to give us the
remedy for this wretched condition of slavery: "Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Rom. 7:24-25a). It's time to move on to Romans 8, where Christ has "set you free from the law of sin and of death" (Romans 8:2).
Now, am I saying that Christians who have been truly born of God
never disobey God throughout the course of their Christian life? No, but I
am saying that the proper Christian life is characterized by liberating grace with sin as the grave exception to that norm. Even though for those in Christ the flesh with its passions and desires has been crucified (Gal. 5:24), we are free to go back to the cross and revive him if we please. If we ever do fall into temptation and willfully disobey God through a failure to walk in the Spirit and appropriate the grace of Christ through faith, our Christian life is immediately put on hold and we must do our first works of repentance to be restored to the favor of God. In such an instance, we have a right to claim the promise: "if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (1 John 2:1b). Nevertheless, John's purpose in writing is still "that you may not sin" (1 John 2:1a). God will always graciously call us back because that's who He is, but the point is that there is an immediate rift. It's not a small matter, nevermind being a regular pattern! Sin is so serious that we cannot continue our Christian walk until we make it right. That's how serious sin is: "And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell" (Mark 9:47).
To be free from the power of sin is both the standard and the promise of the Gospel. It's a standard because God is holy: "Christ indeed cannot reign, where sin reigns; neither will he dwell where any sin is allowed" (Wesley, "On Sin in Believers"). It's a promise because God is loving and has provided freedom from the power of sin through Christ as a free gift to be received with the open hand of penitent faith. "Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord," either now or in eternity (Heb 12:14). There is no straddling the fence, and there is no trying to serve two masters. Either Christ is our Master, or sin is.
Indeed, "there
went I," but by the grace of God, "I
no longer go." We should always be humble and remember both our past sin and our ever-present need to depend upon the Holy Spirit moment by moment for freedom from being enslaved by that carnal nature that often gnaws ever-so-subtly within us. But to say "there go I" as if Jesus makes little to no difference in our lives is to misprize both the seriousness of sin and the power of grace. It's a theology rooted in unbelief, not Scripture. I don't doubt for a moment that the only difference between those who belong to Christ and those who don't is grace.
But that grace does indeed make a difference. At least, it did for this debtor.
