Today’s culture has downgraded the idea and reality of sin. Aberrant
behavior is explained away as the result of bad parenting, poor circumstances or social pressures.
Allied with this is the absence of what we were taught was shame. No longer is anyone held up to standards where shaming works, and to feel shame somehow degrades the errant person. All that is needed is some therapy, some validation of our ‘worth’ as an individual and encouragement to do ‘better’.
Yet a look at the world about us and we seen actions, words and attitudes that can only be described as evil, as wrong. People are estranged from one another on the flimsiest of excuses as anyone who disagrees with us is somehow devoid of intellect or decency or correct thinking.’
Historically, there are myriad examples of truly evil behavior. One of the most referenced in our day are the atrocities of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Not far behind are the actions of Josef Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao Zedung. The treatment of the people in Rwanda in the 1990s, the Armenians in the World War 1 era and the present day actions of the Chinese government toward its Muslim minorities, the, Uighurs, each exhibit what we would call egregious sin.
In our nation, we have witnessed what is truly evil many times. In recent years we have seen the mass murders in the Parkland, Florida, school, the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, D. C., the looting and burning of American cities and multiple instances of killings. An exhaustive list would be hard to chronicle in one blog post.
All major religions have a set of standards by which we measure our own morality and ethical behavior. We, in the United States, are a majority ‘Christian’ nation. So what does the Bible, the guidebook for Christianity, say about sin and shame? No person has ever been so perfect as to not have violated the norms of society, the expectations of our fellow humans and the precepts of Holy Writ.
But what we do see is that, although humans tend to rank what sins are worse than others and so excuse our minor deviations, God looks on sin as sin, no matter how small or great. Dante’s Divine Comedy showed the many circles of sinners in hell; we cannot find this in God’s Word.
Some examples of sin being sin include (again, no full report of these can be done in this short essay):
King David’s sins of adultery and murder, Jonah’s errant actions concerning his duty, Moses taking a life and taking credit from God, Samson’s fall from grace with Delilah, the repeated falling away from Divine Will by the Hebrews — these from the Old Testament just scratch the surface of broken commandments.
Sins in the New Testament include the treachery of Judas, the denial of Jesus by Peter, the condoning of killing Christians by Saul (Paul) and the beheading of John the Baptist. During the Christmas season, the massacre of the innocents was one of the worst crimes of humanity.
But there are other sins that were enumerated that we don’t always want to acknowledge as being ‘beyond the pale’ in God’s eyes. James wrote of what the tongue can do wrong. Jesus told of the ‘rich young ruler’ who chose wealth over eternal life. Envy, anger, judging others, thoughts and words, lies and false witness — all these and many more come under the umbrella of what God calls sin.
Is a small sin better than a great sin? Our laws are based on a gradation of wrongdoing, and many, even Christians, have taken that into their spiritual life and feel that a ‘white lie’ is not so bad as a black one. According to the New Testament, however, a small sin that is unforgiving, is as deadly to the soul as the most horrible crime we can commit
We received a flyer in the mail last week, from a church in town, and the lead article claimed four levels of grace for four levels of sin. But these minimize the severity of sin, of committing offenses against God. He is perfect, and any action, word, thought or attitude not in accord with His righteousness separates us from His love and forgiveness. To claim different amounts of God’s grace and forgiveness lessens this most important feature of what God is.
When we come to the realization that sin is sin, no matter how man wants to peg our lives in one of the upper circles of Hell, we will also realize the greatness of God, who will forgive the penitent of the smallest sin or the greatest offense.
We Christians need to be reminded of our propensity to sin, and the equal propensity to make our sins less sinful than they really are.
A beautiful song, written by Charles Gabriel and C. M. Battersby speaks to the idea of sin and our response to it. Called An Evening Prayer, and recorded by Elvis Presley and Jim Reeves among others, it reminds us of the many sins that we commit, often without considering them sins at all.
“If I have wounded some poor soul today
If I have caused one foot to go astray,
If I have walked in my own willful way,
Dear Lord, forgive.
If I have uttered idle words in vain,
If I have turned aside from want or pain,
Lest I offend some other through the strain,
Dear Lord, forgive,
Forgive these sins I have confessed to Thee,
Forgive the secret sins I do not see,
Guide me, love me and my keeper be,
Dear Lord, forgive.”
Paul wrote, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Large sins or small, forgiveness is needed. For each transgression, we must always echo this in our evening prayers, ‘Dear Lord, forgive!’