NILS VON KALM looks at what the Bible says about why sin doesn’t define us…
With the seeming never-ending madness in the world at the moment, I’ve been thinking lately about sin and its place in our lives.
For many of us, any talk of sin brings up feelings of shame. Sin is often discussed as something that defines us. To say “you’re a sinner” is heard by millions of people as you being fundamentally flawed in some way. We then remain slaves to sin in the sense of believing we are flawed and not loved unconditionally by God.
Not defined by sin. PICTURE: Ben White/Unsplash
“Yes, we are sinners, but that does not define us. Yes, we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), but that doesn’t mean we need to be shamed by it and that God is angry at us.”
The roots of this malaise in the church go back at least 200 years. The fire and brimstone preaching of yesteryear, illustrated most strikingly by Jonathan Edwards in his sermon, “Sinners in the hands of an angry God”, has understandably lost its effect on today’s people of faith.
The sense of shame that our idea of sin has brought us is not Christian. God is not a shaming God.
Yes, we are sinners, but that does not define us. Yes, we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), but that doesn’t mean we need to be shamed by it and that God is angry at us.
Yes, the wages of sin is death. What that means though is not so much the threat of hell but that sin itself will finally be defeated in the end, and the battle that ends in its defeat has already begun. The first letter of John says that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil.
The way we have described sin in the church has caused untold damage to the mental and emotional wellbeing of too many people. I believe sin is best described as a sickness, like you might have a sickness called diabetes. Being a diabetic doesn’t define you, but you would be silly to deny you have the disease. That would just make it worse as you wouldn’t be treating it.
Paul’s letter to the Romans has been seen by many as highlighting our sinfulness and God’s wrath on it. But it is right in the middle of this letter (7:14-25) that we see the great apostle say, of the conflict within him, “if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me”. Paul does not define himself by his sin; he sees the sin in him as the root of his problem, but his identity does not lie in the fact of his sinfulness. He makes the point that it is not him; sin is not part of who he fundamentally is.
But it gets better. In the very next chapter, Paul explains that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.
In this chapter again, Paul makes clear that it is not we who are condemned (8:1), but that in the flesh of Jesus, it is sin that is condemned (8:3). It seems that Paul cannot stress enough that you are not defined by your sin; you are defined by the fact that you are a loved child of God, made in the image of God and loved unconditionally.
In the flesh of Jesus on the cross, God condemned sin. He absorbed it, took it all on himself, not so we could avoid hell, but so we could be free in the power of the Spirit to live life abundantly and not be slaves to sin.
God has never been angry with us because of our sinfulness. The belief that God is angry with us has been another source of shame for millions of people the world over. Shame will never transform the human heart. If you want someone to change, shaming them will never do it; it will actually have the opposite effect. Take the story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8. When she is brought to Jesus by those baying for her blood, he frustrates them no end with his first words to her: “I do not condemn you”. There it is again, that word “condemn”. But, again, as with Paul in Romans 8, it is said in the context of not being condemned.
“Jesus is not a condemning God. It is the kindness of Jesus that leads to our change. We don’t have to do anything whatsoever to get God to love us. In fact, there is nothing we can do to get God to love us. God already loves us anyway. Our problem is we find that so hard to believe, because of the way we’ve been taught and because of what society tells us.”
Jesus is not a condemning God. It is the kindness of Jesus that leads to our change. We don’t have to do anything whatsoever to get God to love us. In fact, there is nothing we can do to get God to love us. God already loves us anyway. Our problem is we find that so hard to believe, because of the way we’ve been taught and because of what society tells us.
I’ve heard so many stories of evangelical Christians, mostly in the US, who have struggled for years with a deep sense of shame about themselves. I struggled with it too, for decades. In my early 20s, I was convinced I was just a sinner. My logical brain then decided that if that was the case I may as well live like it. So I did. My sense of self-worth could not have been much lower. Shame is self-hatred which is ultimately rooted in fear. I had forgotten the truth that there is no condemnation.
When we discover though that sin is a sickness and that we are not fundamentally flawed, shame dissolves into nothingness and we see ourselves as we really are: loved and worthy. It is out of that that we then learn to love others. We love because God first loved us (I John 4:19).
One of our most important tasks in life is to realise more and more how loved we are by God. Then we will want to live out of that growing conviction deep inside of us. Something deep within the very core of who we are will start to come alive when we grow in this realisation. Jesus called it springs of living water. And it’s interesting that he told that to a woman who hated herself so much that she went through man after man in a desperate attempt to feel better about herself. All the while she was letting herself be used and abused. Then Jesus comes along and gives her words of life; but not just words; He gives her life itself by treating her with dignity. He touches something at the core of her being and she is never the same again. She finally sees that she doesn’t have to go through men to feel better about herself. She is free of shame and free to live for others.
Shame has no place in your life. There is not something fundamentally wrong with you. What you have is a disease which needs treatment. It is often not pleasant. Surgery is painful, but that’s where the Master Physician does his work.
Nothing you have done will ever define you. What defines you is who you are as a loved image-bearer of the God of the universe. Your sin never defines you; love and grace do, and that is what abounds. Everything is going to be OK.
