“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
~ C. S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”
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As Christians we know that “sin” is the chief enemy in the Christian life. It is what the Bible exhorts us to strive repeatedly against. It is the power of sin that Christ broke on the cross. It is the main ‘problem’ of the Christian life. But what is sin in the first place?
Sin is not merely bad behaviour. The entirety of Jesus’s exchanges with the Pharisees teaches us this much. How so? The Pharisees did all the right things, but yet are portrayed as completely missing the point. Jesus astutely names the reality that outward behaviour is a consequence of inner corruption (Matt. 23:26-7). This is significant. The implication is that spiritual formation is not primarily about behaviour-modification. It is not just about becoming a more patient, loving, kind, compassionate, self-controlled, etc. person. Those are outward manifestations of an inner disposition. This is why the biblical logic begins with the inner man (John 15:5, 2 Cor. 4:16). The call of the Christian life is to ‘abide’ in Christ; not to bear fruit. Bearing fruit is the consequence of abiding, a relational reality.
But then what then is sin? The Bible doesn’t give an explicit definition because it isn’t a science textbook. It also talks about sin in many different ways. So while there are instances where sin refers to bad/immoral behaviour (as is the case with murder, adultery, bearing false witness, etc.), we need to integrate that with a deeper understanding from Jesus’s own statements about sin (where he includes the inner realities like anger, lust, etc.) The Bible then seems to give us some license to talk about different dimensions/aspects of sin.
Think of sin as consisting of three dimensions: (1) Dysfunctional behaviour, (2) Disordered Desire, and (3) Distrust in God.
All of us are familiar with (1), the problem of bad behaviour. Some of us are familiar with (2): this is the consequence of Jesus’s statements about outward action flowing from inner heart-realities. The reason for our behaviour is rooted in our desires. If only we could change our desires directly! But here let me suggest that there is a deeper, more fundamental issue that is actually the root of all sin. My thesis is that all sin is ultimately rooted in a relational distrust of God. Before Adam and Eve took the fruit (behaviour), there already was doubt in their minds (“did God really say…?”), and some degree of distrust in their hearts (“what if…?”). Sin, at bottom, is man’s attempt to secure for himself what God alone has promised to provide. It is a relational fracturing between man and God.
If this is right, then perhaps few of us have been trained to take sin as seriously as we should. We’re familiar with forcing ourselves to correct our behaviours. We’re familiar with shouting commands at our heart’s desires (“Stop worrying! Stop lusting! Just stop it!”) But here is a new spiritual rhythm that might help us to get at the root of sin in our lives.
Confessing sin “all the way down”
If at bottom, all sin is a result of a relational separation from God, then it is right for us to pursue it “all the way down” to its root. The question to ask, then, is how/in what way is my sin a result of this relational distrust of God? Do you worry obsessively about the future? Might that worry simply be a reflection of the deep belief that: “At the end of the day, even after all my prayer and committing to God, I AM THE ONE who must take care of this”? There is a form of paying lip service to ‘trust in God’ while our inner heart begins to vibrate at everything that doesn’t go according to plan.
Not so long ago, I noticed that I had a compulsive need to argue with people online, particularly in areas of theology/apologetics. While I didn’t always act on the desire, I knew it was there. Whenever I’d read a ‘wrong/stupid’ comment, I’d feel the urge to immediately respond to it. It would be too easy to baptise that as the desire to “correct falsehood/error.” But as I sat with it, I realised that it was because I had a deep need to be recognised as clever, to be admired, to be seen as great. But why? Because at bottom, I don’t believe that being a child of God is all the recognition I need. It is not enough. I still feel the need to bolster my own self-esteem, to construct a powerful identity and persona for myself so that no one around me can deny how great I am. Even this little compulsive behaviour of mine is rooted in relational distrust of God. It is a way for me to secure for myself what God alone has promised to provide.
I remember when I was in seminary, I used to have many conversations with a professor whom I admired very much. The problem was that he would ramble on about various theologians and books (both famous and obscure) without stopping to ask me if I’d heard of them. My conclusion was that, “He assumes I know all these people and books.” But because I didn’t want to look like an idiot in front of him, I just silently nodded and pretended to be in the know a lot in our conversations. But after every conversation it would raise deep anxiety and insecurity in me and I would scramble to read up about the people and titles he talked about. This went on for awhile until I was able to face the reality of my heart that I wanted this professor to like me a bit too much. Not just wanted, but needed; I needed him to like me. Why? Because he was very well-respected in the academic community, and a deep part of me believed that, “If I can get him to like me, it must mean that I have some kind of potential, doesn’t it? Or if I can get myself associated with him, I can ‘attach’ myself to someone who is great and recognised and admired.” Notice the pattern here again. It wasn’t so much that I needed this professor actually. But I needed to feel like I was able to have a path to greatness, admiration, adoration by others, and he was just a means to that. The need for grandiosity runs deep, and the attempts to construct an identity for myself, even a spiritual identity, are ongoing every single day.
That is how deep sin runs.
Do not be deceived into thinking that sin is merely behaving badly, or even desiring wrongly. No. On the Christian view, the problem runs much deeper and is much more God-related. All sin is rooted in relational distrust of God as a result of the Fall. To be born with original sin, among other things, is to be born in a state of relational alienation and separation from God. In Paul’s language, it is to be born living life in the flesh. That is, living life in the weakness of human autonomy. It is living life on our own, in our own power, by our own will, in our own strength, having no clue what it means to truly (not just verbally) rely on God.
So the next time the Spirit brings to your awareness your sin, try sitting with it and exploring with God what the roots of that sin are. Specifically, how is that sin just an outward manifestation of the inner relational distrust of God? In that sin-behaviour and desire, what are you trying to secure for yourself that God has promised to provide?
Why are we doing this? Because perhaps when we finally come to terms with how deep our sin runs within ourselves, we will finally begin to despair of trying to overcome it on our own. Perhaps then we might finally be open to complete dependence on Christ’s work on the cross. For as long as we persist in believing that our transformation is “at the end of the day, up to us,” we will never begin to understand the declaration of John 15:5, “without me you can do nothing.” It is a holy despair that we seek. It is a despair that finally breaks down all human fantasies and leaves us completely naked and exposed, with not even our own good character, desires, or will to cover ourselves with.
As the great Jonathan Edwards noted, “True weanedness from the world don’t consist in being beat off from the world by the affliction of it, but a being drawn off by the sight of something better.”
We cannot hope to conquer sin by effort and willpower alone (it cannot be “beat off” us). We have to be placed in touch with a deeper, better, more beautiful reality that frees the heart from its inordinate desires. And this is precisely why Scripture prescribes God’s love as the final solution for the human heart. Because at bottom the problem is relational. It is the distrust that God loves me, or that his love is enough. All manner of sin is simply an outworking (sometimes a very complicated one) of that deep reality of the heart.
To truly be able to enter into the love of God (2 Thess. 3:5), perhaps we need to be aware of all the many ways that we are attempting to secure love for ourselves, and to despair of them. What would it be to go on a journey with God into our own hearts, to open to the reality of the neediness of our own hearts, and open to his love in those place?
Faith Seeking Communion 