Tag Archives: Sin

The Medicine for Sin

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“The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance,
 that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”
(1 Timothy 1:15 (ESV))

I heard the comedian Brian Regan joke recently about getting to pay for his Doctor to insult him.  You know what it’s like; who else do you visit who requires you to wait for 30 minutes just for the privilege of having him tell you that you need to lose some weight and probably ought to do something about that mole on your face.  And we pay him for the insult.

But in all seriousness, I’d rather have the Doctor tell me the truth about my health than lie to me just to protect my feelings. The truth is, I am overweight and need to exercise more and shed a few pounds.  If there is a cancerous growth, I want him to tell me, then recommend, though difficult and painful it may be, the best remedy so that I might live a good long life with my family.  I want my Doctor to care enough for me to tell me the truth and to make me take the hard medicine that comes with it.

If you think about it, that is the job of the church as well.  The priority of the church is to proclaim the gospel, which is the message of the good news of God’s love and forgiveness from sin in our Savior Jesus Christ.  As Paul’s letter to Timothy reminds us, Jesus came to save sinners – that was his mission, that is our message.  Jesus said to the crowd that stood by in disbelief when Jesus entered the house of Zacchaeus the tax collector, “the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).  All sinners, regardless of the sin, are welcome, invited, to hear the Savior’s bidding, and to find salvation and hope.  The blood of Christ washes away sin, defeats sins power over us, and in His Spirit we are given new life to live for the glory of God in holiness and peace.  It has been said before, and I wholeheartedly agree, that the church is the hospital for the sin-sick soul, and the gospel is the medicine that has been entrusted to the church. 

Yet it seems that for a while now the Church’s medicine cabinet has been closed and locked.  The church has begun to tell the world, “You don’t need medicine.  You are sick.  The sickness is the judgment that made you think you were sick in the first place.  What you need is simply reassurance, God loves you just the way you are.”  That’s like my Doctor saying, “Your ballooning waste line is nothing to worry about, keeping eating the pizza and drinking the root beer and you’ll be fine.  See you next year.”

To get to this point in the church (or at least in my particular denomination, the PC(USA)), there have been three subtle shifts that have taken place.  First, there has been a Redefinition of Sin.  The old moralistic and puritanical definition of sin as those thoughts and actions that either disobey or neglect God’s word no longer qualify.  Instead, in a more enlightened age, sin is now that which brings harm, either interpersonal, environmental, social, or personal.  Sin is the oppressive force that subjugates the weak.  To that end, the progressive church has also Relocated Righteousness and Salvation.  Righteousness and salvation are now less of a personal issue, and are more focused on social righteousness and justice.  Salvation is from the oppression of cruel and unjust practices of those in power, and true redemption exists when we learn to live in peace and acceptance of one another.  At the heart of these two changes is the most important: a Reimagining of Scripture.  Setting aside the teaching of the Authority and Inspiration of Scripture, the church no longer says that it is the Truth, but that it “contains the truth.”  No longer do you hear preachers say before reading the Bible, “Hear now the word of the Lord,” but rather something more ambiguous like, “Listen now for a word from the Lord.” 

In a desire to be found acceptable by a dying and broken world we have taken away the one thing that the world needed most; the truth of the gospel for salvation from sin.  The hospital for the soul is still open, but we’ve stopped treating the patients.

I say this with all confidence: God’s Church, the body of believers in Jesus Christ, will not be diminished by the faults and failings of this assembly we call the church today.  Denominations will rise and fall, congregations will come and go, but Christ’s Church is victorious.  We must “be vigilant lest while the pious snore the wicked gain ground and do harm to the church” (2nd Helvetic Confession).  We must, with renewed compassion and diligence, boldly proclaim the gospel message, that whatever the sin (addiction, sexual sin, pride and self-righteousness) – Christ is the cure.  Yes, let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream (Amos 5:24), and at the same time let us confess our sins to one another and pray that we be healed (James 5:16).  Let us never forget that wherever the gospel is faithfully proclaimed and humbly heard, God’s true church will flourish and grow in righteousness and grace.

Grace and peace – and truth – be with you!

SDG

Meet the new Sin, same as the old.

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“What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”
(Ecclesiastes 1:9 (ESV))

In reading George Marsden’s “Jonathon Edwards: A Life,” I came across something that surprised me.  Marsden wrote that when Edwards grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, passed away leaving him as the lead pastor of a church of 1300 members, Edwards faced three major obstacles.  The first was the issue of admittance to the Lord’s Table for Communion.   His grandfather had practiced a rather open table, allowing all who had been baptized to receive the meal regardless of whether their life showed evidence of true conversion.  There was great debate on this matter, one that plagued Edwards’ entire career, but Stoddard’s position was that there was edification and encouragement for conversion in the celebration of the Table.

Another pressing issue facing Edwards in his new church was a growing political divide.  This was the 1720’s, and already there was a growing divide between those who were loyal to the crown, and those who felt independence from the throne would lead to financial and religious prosperity.  It is fascinating the level of contention and divisiveness that political matters such as these had in the church.  Perhaps the reason was that in Edwards day, there was no Cable News to present the political ideas of the day, so the pulpit was the forum in which all ideas were disseminated. 

What struck me as most interesting, however, was what Marsden says occupied the majority of Edwards’ attention: the “indulgences of the young” (pages 130-131).  Marsden writes,

The most notorious result was amazing impurities tolerated among the young in recent years.  Not only was lasciviousness encouraged by nightwalking and similar frivolities, but New England parents allowed practices that are “looked upon as shameful and disgraceful at Canada, New York, and England.”  Everyone knew that he referred to the New England practice of “bundling” in which parents allowed young people to spend the night in bed together partly clothed.  “I believe there is not a country in the Christian world, however debauched and vicious, where parents indulge their children in such liberties… as they do in this country…”

Bundling, which was supposed to be a way of getting acquainted without sexual intercourse, did not always work as advertised.  Pregnancies before marriage were rising dramatically in New England.  Premarital sex was commonplace.  Even when it resulted in pregnancy, so long as the couple married, there was no longer much stigma involved.

Sound familiar?

Edwards noted that the indulgence on the part of the parents was most likely a reaction to their own very strict upbringing, but was increasingly discouraged by the behavior of the youth in his community.  The taverns were full of young men who were wasting their time and energy in worthless pursuits, delaying marriage and work, living with their parents rather than forging out and establishing themselves.  Sounds to me like Edwards could have been writing about 21st century youth as well.

“And there is nothing new under the sun.”  We hear today of the Culture Wars, and young men and women are portrayed in such negative light.  Parents decry “what’s wrong with the children today?”  We see the political divisions of our national leaders, the lack of concern for spiritual growth and maturity, and the erosion of any semblance of moral integrity and we think to ourselves, “Whatever happened to the good old days?”

The truth is, there were no good old days.  Edwards railed against the moral turpitude of the youth of his day; as did Augustine, Chrysostom, Luther, Calvin, and Baxter.  Sin has always and will always attack us where we are most easily tempted.  The youth are tempted with passion and lust; the elders are tempted by power and division, all are tempted to spiritual stupor and sloth.

What Edwards saw as the corrective to the moral decay of his time, the heart of true reformation, was a return to the Word of God.  Revival and reformation would only come through the renewal of the passionate preaching and teaching of the Word of God.  To awaken a people to a zeal for the Lord, to heal divisions within the community, to draw the youth from their immorality and sensuality, they must heed the call of Scripture.

And as we share the same problems as the people of Edwards’ day, we also share the same solution.  We must return to the Word of God.  We will only find revival and reformation in the renewing work of God’s Holy Spirit that comes from the passionate preaching and teaching of God’s Word.  That means that we need to be studying God’s Word for ourselves.  It means that we need to be leading our families in private worship and study of God’s Word. It means that we need to find ourselves in churches that faithfully teach and preach the Word of God.

There is nothing new under the sun.  The sins we face today are the sins that have been with us since the fall. 

There is nothing new under the sun.  Our savior from sin is Jesus Christ: always has been, always will be.