Taught by Mike Reeves at UCCF South Summer School, June 2009.
What is the fundamental nature of sin? Unbelief, pride, and incurvature.
1. Sin = Unbelief
Popularly, the definition for sin touted today is: idolatry. This was the answer given by Ulrich Zwingly, the Zurich reformer. He saw his ministry as an anti-idolatry ministry; that was his problem with Roman Catholicism. So his ministry in Zurich was: get rid of the idols. Churches were stripped of anything – particularly images – that were considered idolatrous. Though he played 7 instruments, he stripped organs out of churches for fear of the power of music capturing people’s hearts in an idolatrous fashion. But the problem was that he didn’t give the gospel instead – he said instead of serving idols, serve God instead. This doesn’t get us much further – it only leads to works.
Luther was able to go deeper. Problem of sin for him: not treating the wrong thing as God, but treating the real God the wrong way. Idolatry is the consequence of the real problem of sin: unbelief. Yes, unbelief leads to idolatry – by committing unbelief you set yourself up as an idol in your own heart; but doubting God’s word was the heart of the problem.
“Whatever is not of faith is sin”
So sin is at heart unbelief, and thus essentially is a relational problem.
Compare this with the Islamic view of sin: humans are created to be slaves of Allah, not to have relationship. We are not to know him, but to serve him. This means there is no relationship to break with Allah; sin is not about relationship damaged but commands broken.
So, the consequences of having an Islamic view of sin is that commands become the focus, not God – which in itself can be idolatrous. If there is no relationship broken, there is no relationship fixed, so salvation becomes something you provide.
The Christian view: sin is a relational problem. See Augustine’s ‘Confessions’: he speaks of sin as a loss of love (ie trust and receiving things in faith) for God. So sin is not so much about behaviour, but about adultery of the heart. My love for the Lord is misdirected, although you cannot love another – only lust after. I cannot love another woman as my wife, I can only lust after her. Augustine’s life was all lust; he was “in love with being in love”. He knew he was created to be a lover, but had no idea what he was created to love. So he tried philosophy, prostitutes, friends – but it was all misfired.
Similarly in the Reformation, sin was being seen as a weakness that’s cured by doing better. Luther debated Erasmus by saying this is the heart of the Reformation. Erasmus: try harder. Luther: try harder and you’ll try harder in your misdirections. Your will is in bondage to your heart; so you will aim for what you love. So the answer isn’t to try harder, but to have the direction of your heart changed. (Affections are deeper than emotions – periferal and fickle surface heart reactions – Jonathan Edwards made this clarification later).
This affects how we consider/analyse/find sin – ask yourself these questions: what do you find comforting or attractive? What do you love? Often this will highlight your sin.
There is something else to consider if sin is relational. The opening words of Calvin’s Institutes speak of two parts of wisdom:
“Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But, while joined by many bonds, which one precedes and brings forth the other is not easy to discern…
It is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.”
Because sin is a rejection of the Lord, you can’t understand you’re a sinner or be convicted of sin until you are confronted with the Lord you’ve rejected. In other words, to convict someone of sin you need to tell them the gospel. Preaching morality is not the way – that is Islamic! Yes the law reveals God’s character, but that is a holistic view of law – some people take the moral part of the law and quote it at people to try and convict them of sin. Preach Christ instead!
‘Unfaith, the lack of fear, trust, and love of God, shows itself particularly in ingratitude. This is “the most shameful vice and the greatest contempt of God.” Luther learned this from Paul in Romans 1:21. Ingratitude in turn depends on egocentricity, self-satisfaction, trusting in ourselves and our own righteousness. Even though men have received the goods of this life from God, they do not treat them as his gift. They are so concerned with the gift that they forget the giver. They take these gifts as though they were something which they obviously deserve or have made for themselves. “We use this gift as though we, not God, had made it.” But possessing God’s gifts without recognizing them and treating them as his, that is, without giving thanks for them, is “the same as [possessing] stolen and plundered goods.” Whoever despises God by being ungrateful misuses the gifts both against God and against his neighbor. We misuse these gifts against God by constantly bragging, as though we had only ourselves to thank for everything; and we trust in such earthly gifts instead of committing ourselves to God. We misuse these gifts against our neighbor whenever we do not receive them from God’s hand as a trust but instead use them for our own purposes and to hurt our neighbor, as “though we ourselves were God and lord here on earth.” Thus contempt of God leads to contempt of the neighbor. Man constantly transgresses the First Commandment by not putting all his trust in God. Otherwise we would believe in God, love and praise him even in time of trouble. But we cannot do this. “When temptation comes or when I must die then I think that God is a devil; yes, even that He is a wrathful God who is angry with me.” In good times it is easy for us to imagine that we really love God. We can even produce quite a remarkable appearance of loving God and our neighbor. But we can do this only as long as we are not put to the test of suffering. “God has many lovers”- “in time of peace.”’
- ‘The Theology of Martin Luther’ Paul Outhouse
2. Sin = Pride
Instead of love of the Lord is love of self (see above). The opposite of faith is pride. Let’s define pride as this, as opposed to what it appears to be.
If this is true, and if humility is the opposite of pride, then humility cannot be self-disgust, for that would be another form of self-obsession. But if pride is self-obsession, humility must not be self-disgust, but self-forgetfulness through loving the Lord. How helpful to give definition to pride and humility!
Pride is incredibly ironic – it’s self-deification, but in very ironic ways; trying to make yourself a god outside of God – this is obviously idolatry; but it is also idolatry in another way. In your proud self-worship you exchange the true self-giving nature of the real God, and propose to yourself and the world a very different nature of god – proud and self serving. Whereas to be godly is to be humble and self-giving. In this sense, the religious sins are not the slightly more palatable ones, but the very worst of them – for I am saying I’m the source of eternal life, I don’t receive it from another.
Also, pride is a weak sin. For all its self-building up, it is very dependent on others. The proud man is tickled when others like him. Also, the proud man uses others to fuel his pride. He seeks to climb up on the failures of others; eg. I’ve been given gifts that others don’t have to serve others, but I use them to batter you down because I pretend they’re inherently mine.
Pride is living a lie, and a lie is a relational thing. To turn away from Him is to turn into lies.
How does pride relate to anger? When I get angry I want life to go my way; I have such a high view of myself that I think I have rights. So I get angry because I am proud.
Righteous anger is the opposite to pride. When I’m proud, I’m angry when you hurt me. When I’m humble and concerned about God, I’ll be angry on his behalf. When I’m wrapped about myself, I’ll defend myself but not Jesus.
What about compliments? How do I receive compliments and remain humble? Praise the Lord – it’s his ministry and he’s doing it by giving gifts to people. Marcus Honeysett:
Take the compliment but not the credit.
3. Sin = Incurvature
The sinner: man curved in on himself (Luther). The refusal of relationship with the Lord. This highlights that sin is solitary.
They hand in hand with wadding steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitaire way.
– Paradise Lost
Note the curving of the spine in this medieval painting – an atempt to cloak myself. But theology speaks of our new bodies being transparent – which means there is nothing to hide!
We need to go against this by creating fellowship where there is such a love for each other, than when we see each other’s faults we long for them to be free from that problem – for the sake of the gospel. Fellowship where we are prepared to confront each other with total love, to help with each other’s sins.
Incurvature fights against this. I reject your advances, I’m internal and non-relational. But when we curve in and deny relationship, we lose being, for we are relational. Two Old Testament Hebrew words help us her:
carvove (glory): used of the true God-weightiness of glory
hebel (lightness, vanity): used for human futility.
We are created for glory but have exchanged it for the very lightness of being.
A critique: Daphne Hampson, a feminist theologian, argues that these are male sins not female sins. Pride is the winner’s sin – which is not the female experience. Curvature also is for men – of course men are rubbish at relationships! It’s cruel to try and impose these definitions on women – to say she is proud, when she struggles with self-hate.
Hampson’s opinion is intriguing – on the surface it makes helpful observations, but it doesn’t dig deep enough to consider definitions of pride etc, as considered above. 3 points to make:
- it’s ironic: all you out there are proud and curved, but we here are different
- self-hatred is inverted pride
- women also struggle with relationships too in different ways!
To conclude: Augustine on sin’s deceitfulness and pointlessness:
‘When, therefore, man lives according to man, not according to God, he is like the devil… Man has undoubtedly the will to be happy, even when he pursues happiness by living in a way which makes it impossible to attain… And hence the falsehood: we commit sin to promote our welfare, and it results instead in our misfortune; or we sin to increase our welfare, and the result is rather to increase our misfortune. What is the reason for this, except that well-being can only come to man from God, not from himself?’
And some wonderful gospel encouragement from Luther:
We teach and comfort an afflicted sinner this way: “Brother, it is impossible for you to become so righteous in this life that your body is as clear and spotless as the sun. You still have spots and wrinkles, and yet you are holy.” But you say: “How can I be holy when I have sin and am aware of it?” “That you feel and acknowledge sin—this is good. Thank God, and do not despair. It is one step toward health when a sick man admits and confesses his disease.” “But how will I be liberated from sin?” “Run to Christ, the Physician, who heals the contrite of heart and saves sinners. Believe in Him. If you believe, you are righteous. And the sin that still remains in you is not imputed but is forgiven for the sake of Christ, in whom you believe and who is perfectly righteous. His righteousness is yours; your sin is His.”
Unbelief, pride and incurvature are all undone by faith in Christ. Praise Him!
