Lets take a moment to talk about sin.
Sin is defined as an immoral act specifically against divine law. We
can argue about the divine law part, but that's not really the
direction I'm going here. I am writing from the position that God is
the divine being to whom we are accountable. Period. Now that I have
that established we can move on to the point of this post.
I believe that most people would agree
that we are all guilty of sinning in some way, shape, or form. If
there is any doubt, we can look to the ten commandments for
confirmation of our lacking in perfection. There is not a person
alive who hasn't coveted, lied, or stolen.
There are two general ways that sin is
viewed. The first is through a societal lens and the second is
through a divine lens. It would probably be more appropriate to
switch the order of these since God, being responsible for the divine
lens has existed for ever. However, this is the order in which I will
be discussing them.
The societal lens refers to the way we
as humans view sin. We look at various sins and rate the severity of
a sin based on the effect it has on the society as a whole. For
instance, infidelity is not illegal in America because it doesn't
have a direct effect on the society as a whole. In this case, the
cheater, the mistress and the spouse are theoretically the only ones
affected by this sin. Therefore, there are no laws against it.
However, theft has an effect on the
local economy. If someone steals a car, the dollar amount of that car
has been removed from the local economy. The car lot must suffer the
loss of the value of the car from their inventory. This affects
their ability to pay their employees and may possibly cause their
insurance rates to go up. The insurance company may seek to recover
their losses by increasing the rates of all the car lots in the area,
burdening the local economy in a broader sense. Because of the effect
of this sin, the perpetrator will be fined over $1000 and imprisoned
in a federal facility for at least one year.
Murder removes a person from a society
forever and effectively squelches any potential that person had for
contributing to society. By killing someone, one destroys anything
that person might have become whether it be good or bad. Society
takes this very seriously. Murder is considered one of the worst sins
by societal standards and is punishable by life in prison or the
death penalty.
The societal lens is very useful. It
allows us to provide second chances for those guilty of “lessor”
crimes and give them a chance to contribute to society.
The divine lens gives us an entirely
different view of sin. God looks at all sin as being the same. Where
society arranges sin by severity based on the effect it has on the
community, God sees all sin as the same. This is something the we as
humans struggle with. The average citizen is probably guilty of
speeding, lying on occasion and coveting his neighbors boat. This
citizen would cringe at being placed in the same category as a
murderer or rapist. But to God, we are in the same category.
Let me explain. God places us in two
categories. Those with Him and those separated from Him. It doesn't
take much to separate us from God. All it takes is sin. One sin. Any
one sin. God is perfect and does not tolerate imperfection in his
presence. It doesn't matter how close to perfect you think you are,
you're not close enough.
Think of two glasses of water. One of
them has one single solitary pellet of rat poison in it. You can look
into the glass and see the pellet sitting conspicuously on the
bottom. The other glass has five pellets of rat poison in it. Which
glass are you going to drink? I'm guessing you said neither because
one pellet of rat poison is enough to separate you from that water.
That is how I view sin. One single solitary sin is enough to make me
unworthy of stepping into Gods presence.
To summarize, God looks at all sin the
same because every sin has the same effect on our relationship with
Him.
Now, here is my point. We as
Christians have the inside scoop. We know better than to categorize
our sins based on severity. This should make it easier for us to
relate to unbelievers. It should make it easier for us to leave our
judgmental tendencies behind when we're reaching out to
non-believers. The problem is that we forget that we were once every
bit as separated from God as the murderers on death row. We forget
that we all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
We forget that Jesus Came not to call the righteous but the
sinners. We forget that we are
all in the same boat without God and that boat is sinking straight to
Hell. We as the followers of Christ need to stop looking at sin
through the societal lens and view it as God does. Only then can we
reach out to minister to those around us where they are.
