You likely
know what I’m referring to when I say “it’s complicated.” It is a reference to relationships in all
their, well, complexity. Why we do what
we do in relation to others; how we go about it; and, where it is all going is
sometimes, even oftentimes, subject to us struggling to define a particular
relationship or situation to another person as “it’s complicated.”
When it comes to the church, nothing
is quite as it seems. Nice and
apparently good people say some of the most off-the-wall and even mean-spirited
things you would ever want to hear.
Conversely, some of the most gossiping and loose-tongued persons within
the fellowship are so capable of doing amazingly good works that the only thing
we can say with any confidence is that “it’s complicated.”
There is a reason it’s
complicated. Sin, death, and hell rule
over the human condition like a perpetual wet blanket. Whenever we want to simplify situations and
people by categorizing them into good people and bad people; whenever we have
the propensity to place labels on others in order to keep things black and
white; and, whenever we make gross generalizations about a group of people in
sweeping blanket statements; then, we are severely underestimating the impact
of humanity’s fall into sin (including our own) and have simplified a situation
that is in reality rather complex.
One of the problems we encounter in
any group of people, including the church, is that there are two dimensions to
sin, not just one. Western Christians
typically discern sin as intensely personal – as a verb in which we do or not
do certain sinful acts. And this is
true. “All of us have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory” (Romans
3:23). Yet, if we stop there we are only
seeing sin in one dimension. Sin is also
a power, a dominion under which all of humanity exists. In other words, we might think of lower case “sin”
as individual deeds of sinfulness; and, upper case “Sin” as a constant
pervasive realm of evil that is continually oppressing us. “Jews, as well as Gentiles, are ruled by Sin”
(Romans 3:9). So, then, sin resides both
in the human heart and in human institutions.
Sin is both personal and systemic so that when we look at the complete
landscape of the human condition in all of its foulness and degradation, it’s
complicated, man.
Sin is such a ubiquitous and pervasive
reality that the Scriptures can say “No one is acceptable to God! Not one of them understands or even searches
for God… There isn’t one person who does right” (Romans 3:10-12). This situation exists primarily because of
the vast realm of Sin. Therefore, when
we turn to the answer to this terrible and egregious calamity of s(S)in, the
crucifixion of Jesus on the cross, the atonement of Christ has taken care of it
all – dismantled the dominion of Sin and taken away its power of death, as well
as absorbed all personal guilt for individual human sins.
Let’s bring this theological and
anthropological understanding back into the church setting. Praying for lost people and proclaiming
salvation for individuals who have guilt over personal sins is a must. But having people saved from guilty acts is
not the whole story of your church. If
we fail to pray against the persistent problem of Sin as a realm and dominion,
then Sin is going to come back and bite us because it is still there, still
exerting its power. Saving faith must
turn into sanctifying faith in which people realize that the dominion of Sin
must be continually overcome by applying Christ’s redemption to both personal
and corporate life. The late Dallas
Willard used to say: Grace is opposed to
earning, but not opposed to effort.
People are enslaved to Sin. They must be set free through the death of
Christ by turning from sin and following Jesus, as well as putting a great deal
of effort into forsaking the old masters of cultural obsessions and systemic
compulsions of evil. In short, we must
become slaves to God’s righteousness in a great transference of allegiance. “You gotta serve somebody,” said Bob
Dylan. And that somebody needs to be God
and not Sin. Oversimplifying sin will
only get us in trouble. Sin is terrible
and complex. Let’s make sure we are
forsaking it in all of its sinister manifestations so that we might pursue God
in all His goodness.