JOURNEY OUTSIDE THE CAMP

What is original sin?

Many Christians struggle with what we call original sin. What is it? How come we're saddled with it from birth? In teaching Bible classes, I sometimes encounter people who do not think that people are born with original sin. They have the notion that people are born neutral, i.e., there is no inherent leaning towards good or evil in babies. Some others believe people are born good but when they do their first act of sin, they then become sinners.

To frame the thought carefully in people's minds, my wife and I often ask this pair of questions: Are we sinners because we sin? Or do we sin because we're born sinners? At first glance, there doesn't seem to be any difference in the two. But if we phrase the questions in another way it becomes more obvious: Is an apple tree an apple tree only when the first apples appear on its branches? Or has the apple tree always been an apple tree, and it's just that we can't tell easily until it has its first fruit? The answer of course is that an apple tree is an apple tree since it was a seed. But the 100% surefire way to confirm is by looking at its fruit.

So it is with sinners. We are born sinners. But it becomes obvious when we see our fruits: our actions, words and thoughts.

Why is it that everyone is born like that? For the answer, we have to go back all the way to the garden of Eden. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve chose to trust a stranger rather than their Creator who had so graciously and lovingly taken care of them. Satan—whom Adam and Eve knew nothing about—appealed to their pride. He told them that they could live independently from God and could decide for themselves how they led their lives. God had created Adam and Eve to have a relationship with him and they were supposed to be his representatives on earth (his mirror image, so to speak). They, in their pride, chose a new identity for themselves. They turned their backs on God. They turned away from the purpose they were created for.

Thus, they broke trust with the One who loved them and when trust is gone, the relationship is gone too. They no longer found their value and identity in God but they found it in themselves instead. Their pride and self-centeredness are what God calls sin.

In his book, The Reason for God, Tim Keller describes sin in this way:

Sin is the despairing refusal to find your deepest identity in your relationship and service to God. Sin is seeking to become oneself, to get an identity, apart from him. What does this mean? Everyone gets their identity, their sense of being distinct and valuable, from somewhere or something. Kierkegaard asserts that human beings were made not only to believe in God in some general way, but to love him supremely, center their lives on him above everything else, and build their very identities on him. Anything other than this is sin.

In Romans 5:12, the Bible says:

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

In other words, the sin of that first man, Adam, spread to all men who came after him. This pride and self-centeredness is in everyone from the moment they are conceived. (See also Psalm 51:5; Job 14:4) This is the essence of original sin. This original sin causes us to rebel against God's purpose for our lives, causes us to live selfishly, at the expense of others, and causes us to put ourselves on the throne of our heart. Simply put, we worship ourselves.

John 3:18
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

All people, because of original sin, are born separated from God and already stand condemned to live the afterlife apart from God. But in Jesus, we can be reconciled to God. When we put our trust in Jesus, he wipes out our original sin but putting his perfectly righteous life over our own (2 Corinthians 5:21). And in our day-to-day life, Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, will war against our pride and self-centeredness, replacing that sin with true worship of God that leads to joy.

Therefore, even though we are born with original sin, we don't have to remain in it. Jesus offers us an escape. He's here to do what God promised in Ezekiel 36.

Ezekiel 36:26-27
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

How wonderful indeed that God would do this for us. He will restore us to what we were made for. How amazing that at such great cost to himself, he is willing to make right what man has warped. Thank God for his great love.

 

Christian, are you ready to receive all things?

How much do you think God is for you? For the believer, in everything that happens in life, be it good or evil, do you trust that these things are something God does for your benefit? What would you say if you lost your job? Or face financial ruin? Or found out you had cancer? Or lost a child? Or a parent? Or were caught in an earthquake with no hope of survival? Do you trust that God means for these things to work toward your good?

Romans 8:31, 32
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

 

Paul's words here in verses 31 and 32 are a bold statement, a follow up from one of the most powerful promises of God: Romans 8:28.

Often times, we live as if God were stingy. We get petty when we feel our blessings are scant. We start to think of protecting the little we have when we feel life getting a little harder. We hold on a little more tightly when we feel we are in a pinch. We worry that God may sometimes not be for us.

Jane Grey: Would you stake your life on what you believed?

(Image: Public domain photo from Wikipedia.)

In reading Stephen Nichol's book, "The Reformation: How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World", I came across the account of Lady Jane Grey. She is known as England's Nine Day Queen. When King Edward VI died young because of an illness, Jane Grey ascended the throne, thanks to political machinations.

During Edward's reign, the Regency Council that ruled on his behalf (because he became king when he was nine) pushed England into becoming firmly Protestant (following Edward's father, Henry VIII's break from the Catholic Church). However, Edward's sisters (whom were exiled) were staunchly Catholic and if either of them came to power after his death, England would undoubtably go back to being Catholic. The Regency Council therefore acted to keep the country Protestant and thus continue the Reformation that was taking root in the English church. Enter Jane into the picture. She was Protestant and a cousin once removed of Edward. But not only was she a Protestant, she was deeply rooted in her theology.

The mind set on the flesh is hostile to God

I was reflecting today on how the inner lives of humans are so bent toward sin. Paul says it very clearly in Romans 8:7–8 when he declares that,

"For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God."

That is a shocking statement. Did you hear what he said? The person whose heart is set on fulfilling the lusts of the flesh (worldly pleasures) cannot submit to God's law. It has never occurred to a flesh-oriented person to think about the things of God. Indeed, even if shown the things of God, this mind simply ignores it. It is not even a case of looking at the things of God and then rejecting it. It simply doesn't see them. In fact, this type of heart is hostile to God, which makes evangelism very difficult.

A doulos of Christ Jesus

I like the way the Apostle Paul identifies himself in his epistles. In Romans 1:1, Philippians 1:1 and Titus 1:1, he begins the letter by referring to himself as "a servant of Christ Jesus". The English word servant doesn't do the Greek term justice. Bondservant is better but still incomplete. The word in Greek is doulos. A doulos was a slave who was the property of the slave master. The slave master (called kurios) bought the slave and thus had complete rights over the slave. He could order the slave to do anything; he could even order the death of the slave at no penalty to himself. The doulos was like chattel.

Paul explains that people are all slaves. They are either slaves to sin, or slaves to righteousness (i.e., God).

Direction, not perfection

One of the misconceptions about being a Christian is that we are goody two-shoes. People, including Christians themselves, think that once they believe on Jesus, they can become good people overnight.

How I wish that were true. It is true that believing on Jesus justifies us. This means that the punishment we deserve for sin we have (and for future sin we may commit) is paid for completely by Jesus. We can stand before God and be counted as righteous. That is what we call justification (see for example Romans 4:22–5:1).

Which is better: to do it yourself or to let God lead?

A friend of mine talked about a DIY life. My friend believes in making oneself a success through personal hard effort. This includes getting one's emotions under control, managing relationships and being successful at work. My friend believes that taking the road less travelled (and the harder road at that) will make one stronger in the end.

However, till date, my friend doesn't feel there has been much success or progress. My friend was in the dumps. My friend wanted to know how I managed my life. My simple answer was that I don't. I had recognised some time back how incapable I was at managing my life. I was making a mess of it. I had poor relationships at work, I had some rough patches with my wife and I genenrally was living a life of quiet desperation. Then the Holy Spirit helped me make the most counter-intuitive move: I surrendered control of my life. I surrendered because I had tried it my way and it didn't work. Now I was going to surrender control of my life to God.

The Gospel is binary: Are you under law or under grace?

Here is one of the definitions of binary from the Merriam-Webster:

relating to, being, or belonging to a system of numbers having 2 as its base <the binary digits 0 and 1>; involving a choice or condition of two alternatives (as on-off or yes-no)

So binary is a choice between all on or all off. It's either 1 or 0. There's no in-between state. How does this relate to the Gospel?

As I was reflecting on Romans 6, it dawned on me that the Gospel could be described as binary. Consider the tail end of Romans 6:14—"you are not under law but under grace". Paul reminds us that we are under grace. That is, we are saved 100% by what Jesus did on the cross. We contributed nothing toward our salvation. Zero percent.

There are those in Paul's time—as there are in ours—who think that they can contribute something toward their salvation. They are trying to keep the law in order to attain righteousness. Paul calls them "under law". In his day, they would insist on doing parts of the law like circumcision. In our day, such people may insist on a sinner saying the Sinner's Prayer, or that going to church, or that regular tithing, etc., makes one acceptable in God's sight. They are under law.

A vision for the glory of God

My wife and I have been preparing for our Spiritual Habits of a Child's Heart workshop. One of the main points we want to impress on the participants is the need to give our children a vision for the glory of God.

We're learning that how we move through life is determined by what we value most. Is it money? Reputation? A need for security? Pleasure? What we desire most will direct how we live. If we gain a vision for the glory of God, how will our life be? When we marvel at the sovereignty of God, when we are in awe of his supreme power and his all-surpassing wisdom, how will we react to him? How will our life be changed by this knowledge?

We were created with a need to worship. We love our Hollywood idols, our love to imitate the lifestyles of the rich and famous. But worshiping man was not what we were created to worship. We were made to worship God. But we have traded the greatness of God to worship other men.

God is one

Romans 3:29-30 says, "Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith."

These are weighty words from Paul. And they have huge implications for everyone and every nation. These words are also very offensive to a lot of people if they understood clearly what Paul is saying. After reading up on it and listening to a message preached on it, I learnt several things.

God is one. There is only one true living God and he is the ultimate source of everything except God. How do we know there is only one ultimate God? Well, the very word ultimate is the key. You can only have one ultimate source. You can't have two ultimates. If there is one ultimate God, then everything comes from him. It's as simple as that.

Romans 11:36 says, "For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen."

The Bible states clearly there is only one God who made all things by his own power. There is no other. God is one also means that he has only one way for all the nations to get right with him. That is, justification through Jesus by faith alone. God has a oneness about him, he has a coherence in all his dealings with men. He doesn't reveal himself with one set of standards to one people and another set of standards to another group. In other words, he does not reveal himself in contradictory ways. He is always the God of sovereignty, grace and wrath. Therefore no one can claim they have a different way to be made right with God because God provided only one way.

For many non-Christians, this is no doubt starting to sound offensive. Such talk flies in the face of pluralism. In today's world people are saying, "I have my truth, and you have yours. We can live together, no problem." Such an opinion as God has only way one to salvation is offensive. How dare you say what I believe is not the right way! I learnt that we should not be too worried about this because the church of Jesus Christ was born in one of the most pluralistic cultures in the world. The Roman world was far more pluralistic with its plethora of gods and cultures. And the early church back then had far fewer members than we do today and still the church flourished and grew. We therefore have no excuse about finding it hard to fight a world steeped in pluralism. The church has been through it before.

With the message we carry of one God and one way to salvation, we will encounter the criticism of arrogance, presumption and offensiveness. Our faith is very threatening to pluralism. But we must not back down from the truth. We must however, go in humbleness. We can go in humbleness because we hold fast to another great truth. In John 18:36, Jesus declares, "My kingdom is not of this world..." Jesus was not interested in taking over geography and establishing an earthly kingdom where his subjects would rule and lord it over others. No, Jesus' kingdom is in the hearts of people. Therefore, as his followers, our commitment is not one of bringing others under our rule but rather going to others in love. Jesus' kingdom is not spread by violence, nor political maneuvering, nor coercion. His kingdom is spread by love, spread by service, spread by prayer, spread by proclamation, spread by being persecuted.

One last thought. Verse 30 says God will justify the circumcised and the uncircumcised. I think there is meaning here that goes beyond physical circumcision. Circumcision can be broadened to include all the things we do which we think will make ourselves right with God. This could be doing good deeds, being religious, reading the Bible and so forth. These things will not get us justified before God. The uncircumcised can be expanded to include all those who feel they are completely unworthy to be in the presence of God and do deserve his wrath. God says in verse 30 that he will justify both types of people through faith in Jesus. It is not anything we are or anything we've done that will merit God justifying us, i.e., making us righteous before him. This act of justification is done by him, outside of anything we could ever be or do. And that's the beauty of the Gospel. It is not gained by merit. It is freey available to all.

There is only one way to God but that way is available to all who believe and not based on any merit in a person. Now that truly is good news.