On “sinners” (part 2)
Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Posted by Drew
”Yea, once, Immanuel’s orphaned cry His universe hath shaken–
It went up single, echoless, ‘My God, I am forsaken!’” [Robert Browning, On Cowper's Grave]
Now, there’s a choice here. It’s not just that Jesus did this atoning act and now all are cool with God. There is still a guilt of sin on us unless we have acknowledged the cross. If we still claim responsibility for the sin we are subject to, then we are still accountable to it. But, if we acknowledge that what Christ did actually mattered, then we are absolutely free from it.
Those who are still living in their sin, referred to as “sinners”, who refuse to acknowledge Christ, they are still sinners. But, while they are sinners, Christ died for them. As I said earlier, Jesus didn’t see their sin as their identity.
He saw it as a burden from which they could be set free.
The following is from my good friend Bob Kuo, who will most likely start contributing on this website more often. He’s a fellow math nerd, so I’ve tried to give links to try to explain some of his mathematical analogies. We do, in fact, talk this way to one another all the time.
I’ll let him describe his take on this topic, because I simply can’t put it better. I’ve just edited it to take away the structure of a “rant” (as he puts it).
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One good way to define these possibilities is that forgiveness is possible for all but only effective for those who believe, which is not necessarily the best distinction for us to be making (because anyone who dares to go farther and start to Venn Diagram who is “in” and who is not “in” is probably heretical).
Remember, God’s sovereign judgment is a non-communicable attribute.
The Bible makes the case that the over-arching story, the fall of humanity, is essentially a case of stolen identity. To continue to recognize ourselves as sinners is to believe a lie. Here’s how I see the breakdown.
Let’s say you’re a Christian. Then you have accepted Jesus, you’re conscious has been “quickened” and so has your soul. Remember that according to Romans, we are “constituted” sinners [Romans 5:12-21], that is: we (those born of Adam) are sinners, therefore, we sin. Our identity does not flow the other way; that is to say, if we sin, we are not necessarily “sinners”. The main point is that Paul declares the “Old Man”, the “Flesh”, our “Old Nature” (in Greek, the word is sarx) was crucified with Christ, and that act happened almost 2,000 years ago. In 2 Corinthians 5:17, we see that if anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creation, the old has passed away. There are numerous verses that point to our new identity, which is not that of sinner but of saint. The biblical use for the word saint includes all who believe.
I would recommend the identity that we are saints who sin, or saints who forget who we are (or who our Father is) and get into all kinds of amnesic trouble.
Now, let’s say you’re not a Christian. Then the category of “sinner” doesn’t exist! Non-Christians are said to be “dead in their sin” and to be “blinded” and to be under the authority of “the ruler of this world” i.e. the devil. This category cannot exist because, while people may believe that individual acts they do are wrong (the “countably infinite”, more on this analogy later) they do not believe that they are “bad” or “evil” or “sinners” because they cannot! God has not broken through their hard hearts to shine his light, and so they cannot possibly know. (This type of reasoning was used to make sure I hadn’t “blasphemed the Holy Spirit” or done the “unforgivable sin” — knowledge of sin can only come from the work of God’s Holy Spirit [John 16:8] so my concern over the matter is evidence of the presence, not the absence, of the Spirit.)
So the irony is that our belief that we can even identify (the word ‘hailed’ or ‘interpellated’ is often used in philosophical literature to describe the way the community forms the identity of an individual) a person as a sinner is a lie! I mean, to call an unbeliever a sinner is like saying that water is wet – not only a tautology but to be expected! And to call a Christian a sinner is to contradict God’s word.
Which is a favorite pastime of the Devil.
You can see this (particularly satanic) lie play out in the difference between guilt and shame. We are guilty of certain sins and we feel guilt for them that should lead to repentance (because the alternative is to harden our hearts). Shame attacks our identity, saying we’re not worth something, that we don’t deserve forgiveness or that something is too embarrassing because it reflects our character. Now, one comes from God and one comes from somewhere else…
Shame doesn’t come from God because the primary purpose of shame is to tear down and to immobilize; the primary purpose of guilt is to enlighten (that we are guilty) and for a response (to seek Godliness in repentance and thus be “built up”). If we do feel shame, John says that God is greater than our hearts [1 John 3:20].
But the matter at hand is that we believe a lie, that Jesus can’t redeem our whole person. Sure, he’s wiped the slate clean but he hasn’t taken care of “Sin” as a principal in my life. That is, he’s taken care of sins (plural, lower case s, the “countably infinite”) but he can’t (or didn’t) take care of Sin (singular, upper case s, the “uncountably infinite”) in my life, which is to imply that He didn’t take care of it in anyone’s life. This is a lie.
To call someone a “sinner” is to say that either this person doesn’t know Christ – which is a natural consequence as God separates himself from what is unholy – or that this person is not perfect in Christ.
And don’t even get me started on the value judgment attached to “sinner”: it sets up a hierarchy where one person is better than another one. Let’s just neglect the fact that Jesus came to serve, and not to be served; that he lived a life of downward mobility (he descended from the perfect community of the Trinity to come to humankind in the flesh, then he came as a baby, then in a poor country under occupation, then into a poor area in that poor country, to a family that was poor, and appeared to be born out of wedlock); that he, at one point, bore the full weight of sin so that we won’t have to.
What enormous audacity to call someone a sinner for whom Christ died.
How dare we identify someone in a manner that our Lord did not?
For those who are wondering about some other vocabulary:
Non-communicable attribute of God:
Theologians have traditionally divided God’s attributes into two categories (whether this is right is still up to debate). Communicable attributes are things like creativity, rationality, and love. These attributes do not reach humankind intact and in the same way that God has them (when the OT says that God is ‘jealous’ it is not the way we are jealous!) but we have some semblance of that attribute. Incommunicable attributes, on the other hand, are not shared because God alone will have them and include such hits as omnipresence, sovereignty, and immutability (unchanging nature). I contend that the right to call / identify people is an incommunicable attribute of God. Which leads me to:
Interpellation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpellation), a term coined by Althusser (eek! a Marxist!) that describes how the community will determine an individual’s identity. The primary process involves “hailing” someone and them responding to it, thus affirming the label / identity.
For example, if I’m walking down the street and shout “Hey, ugly!” and someone turns around, they acknowledge it as a valid identity (someone who is pretentious and believes that they are beautiful wouldn’t even consider the possibility that someone is referring to them as ugly.)
Dumb example, but imagine what happens when we continuously tell people they are sinners?
Infinity:
If I ask you how many whole numbers (non-negative integers) there are, you’d say infinite. You can always “just add one” to get another, bigger number. If I ask you how many real numbers (decimal numbers) between zero and one there are you, you’d also say infinite. But the second, upon closer examination, appears to be “bigger”. Not only can you go from .3 to .33 to .333 ad infinitum, but in between each one of those numbers, there is another infinity. It’s not that one is “slightly bigger” than the other, it’s that they are completely incompatible!
The point is, our sins (lower case s, plural) is countably infinite: we could devise a list, and even though our sins are immeasurable, we could go through and add “today i did this…” and “this..” and “this…”. Our Sin (capital s, singular) is completely different – it is part of our nature, out of which comes an infinite possible ways for sins to creep up. God deals with both, with, in my opinion, the second being the greater miracle.
interesting, thoughtful ideas… definitely shows your compassion for those who are not yet in Christ, and have perhaps been burned by the Church. i would agree that there is much value in not identifying people by their sin, believers or not, but rather their value in God.
i would ask, though… do you think it’s possible that with the word “sinner”, that we are sort of playing a semantics game? it sounds as though you are equating it to words like “alcoholic” and “homosexual”, or saying it is even worse… but, i would suggest that it isn’t necessarily in the same category, that perhaps it has acquired a very negative connotation in our culture that was not initially attached to it.
i suggest this because, my curiosity having been piqued by your post, i opened up my concordance, and stumbled upon a couple of interesting verses:
“…God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you *sinners*, and purify your hearts, you double-minded…” James 4:6-8
who is James writing this letter to? not to unbelievers, but to the Church. the Greek word used for *sinners* here is the same one used in every appearance of the word *sinners* in the new testament, including Romans 5:8.
the most relevant definition of the Greek word for *sinner* (just copied from the strongs concordance) with regard to your post and the verses mentioned is: “sinner, one who violates God’s will or law.” there is no distinction made between the believer and unbeliever. here is another interesting verse:
“…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. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.” – 1 Tim. 1:15-16
i think there is a lot packed into these two verses, and i don’t want to try and exegete it in its entirety at this hour, but what i would draw your attention to is the tense in which Paul is speaking. i don’t know much Greek, so i’m only going off the English translations here, but in every English translation i have seen, Paul’s references to being the “foremost of sinners” in both verses are in present tense. admittedly, i would have totally skipped over this passage as a rebuttal to part of your argument had someone not recently pointed it out to me. until recently, i think i had always thought Paul was just being humble (like how i might say that i’m not much of a musician, regardless of its veracity), or that he was referring to his life before meeting Christ, but… this is Holy Spirit-inspired text, so it must be useful for something, right?
(2 Tim. 3:16) Paul, even at the end of his life, having had such a ginormous revelation of Jesus and having given his entire life to ministry, STILL calls himself the “chief of sinners.”
and, what’s more… kind of scandalous, almost, is that Paul doesn’t seem to have too much of a problem reconciling the idea of himself being a present tense *sinner*, and yet also, at the same time, being a new creation. he doesn’t seem to see the two as being mutually exclusive. how can this be?
i’m only a novice theologian, but my guess would be that, while it is absolutely true that, in Christ, we are “children of God”, “saints”, “more than conquerors”, etc., AND it is true that we need to be rooted in our identity as such, it is ALSO true that we need to be aware of the fact that, without Him (not just in the over-arching sense, but in the second-to-second, abiding sense) we are utterly incapable of goodness. we need to regard ourselves with “sober judgment”, and it seems part of that requires us to catch on a little to just how bent we really are: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond all cure” – Jer. 17:9.
so, all this to say that it seems as though the offense that both of you take to the word “sinner”, regardless of who it is referring to, is perhaps more rooted in the Western connotation of the word, rather than in the way it was originally understood.
one of you mentioned that calling someone a “sinner” produces a sort of hierarchy, where one is exalted over another, but… Biblically speaking, being labeled as a sinner seems to have been meant to do the opposite. it really seems to be the great equalizer. i think of the example in John 8 where the woman was caught in adultery, and Jesus says to the teachers of the law: “If any one of you is without sin (stephie’s amplified version: if any one of you is not a *sinner*…), let him be the first to throw the stone at her.” Jesus’ response cleverly implied that all of them, including the woman, were sinners.
sure, the word *sinner* has been and will be misused, but isn’t everything like that? it’s really all about the tone with which it is delivered, and the softness of heart for the hearer. if someone gently acknowledges that i am a sinner, and i take it offensively, that probably means that i don’t think i am one, in which case i would be deluded.
but, maybe we should drop the term. maybe we should go around calling each other “you brood of vipers!” instead. i’m sure it would be much more effective.
Yeah, it’s true that I made the argument a bit over-stated, especially in light of verses like 1 Timothy 1:15-16 and 2 Timothy 3:16. I guess my main point was that it’s often ignored that we are new creations, and that this freedom is open to others. God doesn’t hate the sinner, he hates the sin — however, we as the Church often hate both. I’m saddened by this. That’s what I really, really wanted to say…