Things Evangelicals Think: All Sins Are the Same

I love Evangelicalism.

  

The word evangelical initially meant something like "gospel-believing," from the Greek word for gospel: euangelion.  The movement within Protestant Christianity known as evangelicalism has become significantly watered down, such that we have come up with a new term to mean what evangelical was supposed to mean.  We now say something like "gospel-centered."  A little less poetic, but it makes the point.

But despite the glorious etymology and strong beginning, the good things about evangelicalism can be a bit hard to keep in mind since it is really easy to pick on.  It is like a kid that grew up with a good heart, but somewhere along the way took on an overly sentimental, cheesy demeanor.  When he realized that this was making him some friends, he started mass-marketing it; writing books about beef flavored raman of the heart, talking like Stuart Smalley, getting committed to sparkle motion choreography, and turning the stories that form the backbone of the glorious Christian heritage into silly songs acted out by vegetables.  

Anyway, part of what keeps things the way they are is bad thinking.  If studying philosophy has taught me anything, it has taught me that ideas have massive consequences for all of life and culture.  So I plan for this to be the first post in a series called: Things Evangelicals Think.  The goal of the series is to point out things evangelicals have made up over the years that the Bible doesn't teach.  The goal is not to score points by making fun of an easy target, but to take the plank out of our collective evangelical eye.

So, to begin, the Bible never says that all sins are the same in God's eyes.

I suspect we think it says that because James says, "For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.  For he who said, 'Do not commit adultery,' also said, 'Do not murder.'  If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law." (Js. 2:10-11)

Calvin helps us here, "At the first view, this sentence (in James) seems hard to some, as though the Apostle countenanced the paradox of the Stoics, which makes all sins equal...but it is evident from the context that no such thing entered into his mind."

How is it evident from the context?  I think James' main point is that all sin is a violation of the royal law to love your neighbor as yourself.  He made that point a few verses before.  If you steal from someone, it is because you are not loving them.  You are wanting your gain at their expense.  Murder has the same problem.  I want my purposes at your (greater) expense.  Love is the opposite, love says I want your good, even at my expense.  Love is the main thing, and so every sin is a transgression of love, a failure to love, and love is the goal.  Therefore if we fail to love through stealing, we are guilty of the whole law, which is ultimately a bunch of different iterations of how to love God and others.

But this doesn't mean that every failure to love is of equal severity.  Jesus teaches us this in several places.  Consider John 19:11, where Jesus is answering Pilate.  He says, "You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.  Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin."  

*Gasp*  Jesus, didn't you know all sins are the same, no one is greater than another!

Or, remember Matthew 23:23 when Jesus was talking to the Pharisees and he told them, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness.  These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others."

Apparently there are weightier matters of the law, and less weighty matters of the law.  He says the same when he warns about those who relax even the least of the commandments.  Consider also the Mosaic distinction between sins of ignorance, which have their own specific sacrifice, and sins of a high hand, for which there does not seem to be a sacrifice.  

So, what is the big deal?  The big deal is that if we all really believed that all sins are the same, then we would admit no distinction between stealing a candy bar and carrying out genocide.  While it is true that the seed of murder is anger, and the seed of adultery is lust, this does not mean they are of equal severity.  Committing adultery with someone in your heart is very serious.  Committing adultery with someone in your heart and your bed is even more serious.  

Thinking biblically about this might also help us to not be so tangled up when rebuked for talking about homosexuality as a sin.  After all, didn't you say a cross word to your wife yesterday, and isn't that of equal severity?  Yes, I did.  And it is more evil than I generally care to admit.  And no, it isn't of equal severity as homosexual acts.  We all sin.  We are all transgressors.  We should all be humble.  We all have hope only in Christ's perfect righteousness accounted to us by faith.  But we shouldn't throw away all sense of proportion with regard to sin.  There are greater sins, weightier matters of the law, and least commandments.

God Won't Meet You Halfway

When I was a boy one of my favorite books was "Where the Red Fern Grows."  When I showed the movie to my kids I tried to stop it before the end, right after his dogs win the hunting contest.  

"Well, what a good story.  A kid gets some dogs, loves them, and they win a contest."  

But they could see there was further to go on the little red line at the bottom of the Netflix screen, and insisted that we watch to the end.  I tried to warn them.  I will try not to spoil it for you.

Anyway, there is a line in the book when the boy is struggling to get the money to buy these dogs that he wants more than anything in life.  His grandpa tells him that he has to meet God halfway, that if he will do his part, then God will do his.  This helps the boy own his responsibility and work hard to get his dogs.

The advice is practical, and it helps the boy to work hard, but there is one problem... it isn't really true.  

This gets us to a theological question that works out in our lives in all sorts of daily kinds of ways.  In theological terms, we refer to this as the interplay between God's sovereignty and human responsibility.  And so we often ask, where does God's sovereignty end and my responsibility begin?  Is it halfway?

It isn't halfway, but neither is it 90/10 or 99/1.  This is the wrong way of looking at the situation.  When we look at it this way, we wonder how much we have to do before God's sovereignty kicks in.  How much planning do I need to do before God's will starts operating?  How many times do I need to tell the gospel to my unbelieving friend before I pass the baton to God?  How much did I bring this bad thing upon myself, and how much was it God doing it?  How far do I need to walk before he meets me?

This question gets ramped up when someone becomes a Calvinist, because they begin to see that the Bible ascribes absolute sovereignty to God.  Our God sits in the heavens, he does whatever he pleases.  God works all things according to the counsel of his will.  The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.  Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord commanded it?  Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?  Etc.

So then we start to wonder where our responsibility fits at all.  What percent is mine?  Is it zero?

But these questions are looking at the whole thing wrong.  God's sovereignty and man's responsibility are not on the same plane, so both are complete.  They do not limit one another.  God's sovereignty undergirds man's responsibility, it upholds it.  This is why it says that you should work out your salvation with fear and trembling because it is God who is at work in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.  God is completely sovereign.  Man is completely responsible.  There is no place where your responsibility ends and his sovereignty begins, or where his sovereignty ends and your responsibility begins.

Does God keep you alive or do you have to eat to live?  Yes.
How much planning do I need to do before God's sovereignty kicks in?  You don't stop planning because of God's sovereignty.  He works in and through your planning and your lack of planning.  

But there is something that is opposite God's sovereignty; your worry.  Plan, be responsible, preach, love, serve, pray, and trust God.  He is working all things for your good if you are in Jesus through faith and rebirth.  Even the bad things.  Do your responsibility and rest in God's sovereignty completely.

If the boy really believed his grandpa in the book, the end would be utterly devastating because it would show that he didn't go his halfway enough after all.  Try harder next time, this one is on you, not God.

We have a better hope, a better message, a better God than one who meets us halfway.  And rather than destroy our responsibility, it enables us to take it in hand freely while still resting fully in God.

One More On Unrest

Friend: Christian, how are you?

Christian: Fine.

Friend: Right, but how are you?

Christian: Oh, yeah.  I am learning through confession, praying out my anxiety, and repentance to let my restless heart find its rest in God more.

Friend: Beautiful.

Christian: It really is.  I know it will take time, but I am learning.

Friend: He does tell us to strive to enter the rest.

Christian: I am striving, and I am gaining.  All by God's grace.

Friend: I'm glad to hear.  I do need to tell you that there is a degree of unrest that you will not overcome until the Day.

Christian: Thanks for the pep talk.

Friend:  Haha.  Yeah.  But it really is encouraging in one way.

Christian: Okay, how?

Friend:  Well, the rest we get now in Christ, which is real, is only the beginning.  It is only a shadow of what is coming.  It is like the first sunny day of spring, even though it starts snowing half-way through the day.

Christian: Okay.

Friend:  The real rest God promises is still coming.  Canaan was a picture of it.  It is the destination, the goal, the country for which you have been longing all your new life.

Christian: Heaven?

Friend: Yeah, the new heavens and the new earth.  The resurrection.  The great hope.

Christian: That is the goal.

Friend:  It is the goal and it is our home.  We are exiles, away from home, traveling.  We are ambassadors sent here from a future kingdom to establish outposts and offer citizenship to all through the blood of our king who will come to establish his kingdom.

Christian: That is a cool way to think of it.

Friend:  It is what the Bible says.  And since we are exiles and ambassadors, we have a longing for our home.  We are not fully at rest here.  When you are traveling you can get rest at a hotel, and it can be refreshing, but there is nothing like the rest you have when you finally get home.  

Christian:  So that is the restlessness that I will always have here?

Friend:  Yes.  But it is an expectant restlessness.  It is a restlessness that keeps you moving towards the rest.  We call it hope.  It reminds us of the perfect rest that is coming.

Christian:  Right, who hopes for what he sees?

Friend:  Exactly.  But we will see it eventually, so keep working on your restlessness by faith, and what remains will chase you home to the rest that is so perfect that no vacation, no weekend, no summer, no perfect night of sleep will seem to have ever had a hint of true rest in it by comparison.