Wrestling With Sin

1 John 1:5-2:2

Introduction

I have been involved with churches for most of my life. Even when I was an atheist, I found myself often reflecting on religion and church. I have been part of three different denominations representing three very distinct traditions within Christianity. I have been a pastor for about twenty-five years. None of this makes me an expert, nor would I suggest that I have all the answers.

But there is one thing that I have noticed and that is Christians, and likely just humans in general, tend to live in the extremes. If we think of ideas on any particular topic as a spectrum, the most comfort is on either end of the spectrum. Even when we change our mind on a topic, instead of just sliding somewhat on the scale, we tend to go from one end of the spectrum to the other.

I see this in general when it comes to beliefs within the church. I find it especially true when it comes to talk about sin. Rarely will you find a church that has moderate discussion of sin. Most often you will find churches that always talk about sin or those who never talk about sin. Even when you hear me mention sin, you might be thinking, “Finally someone who is going to tackle sin” or you might be thinking, “Oh come on, aren’t we past all this sin talk.”

Here is the problem. I believe that at certain points in the history of the church, sin has been weaponized. What do I mean by that? Accusations of sin have been used to control people. Sometimes people have used sin as an identity marker, a boundary by which you knew who was in and who was out. You see this in the phrase sinner and saint. There are people who are following the rules and they are saints and there are people not following the rules and they are the sinners. The rules may or may not be biblical in nature. Even when rules were based on biblical passages, they were often selective in nature. Sin language might even be used to keep the congregation in line. Question what the pastor was saying or doing could be considered a sin and thus must be prohibited. 

Many people have reacted negatively to this weaponizing of sin. For some, sin language has outlived its usefulness. None of us are really sinners. We are all just broken people who are doing our best to get through life. What right do any of us have to say one this is right or wrong? For some Christians, all we need to know about sin are the words of Jesus: “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7) They see in this passage Jesus’ condemnation, not of the woman, but of any accusation of sin. They ignore the fact that there is any other mention of sin in the New Testament or even by Jesus.

While I acknowledge that it is easier to live on the extremes of the issues, I also see that there is a place for nuance. I truly believe that the Bible has something to say about sin that does not require an abusive weaponizing of sin. Our choices are not either a harsh judgmentalism or an everything goes attitude. Not only is that a false dichotomy, I believe that neither of the two extremes are healthy.

John has something to say about this in his letter. It is interesting that it is sin that is the first thing he tackles after establishing the priority of our relationship with Jesus. What John says about sin might surprise you.

Sin is Unacceptable

Probably one of the most week known phrases from 1 John is “God is love.” (1 John 4:8) We are struck by that verse because it is not just saying that God is loving, it is saying that God is love. It is saying something not just about what God does but who and what God is.

But before John ever tells us that God is love, he actually tells us that God is light. (1 John 1:5) What does that mean? God is often identified as light. There is an interesting passage in the Old Testament about when Moses received the tablets from God on Mount Sinai. “When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord.” (Exodus 34:29) God was so bright that when Moses was in his presence, Moses’ own face with glow with the light of God and that he even had to wear a veil. Jesus, on the mount of transfiguration, is described in this way: “There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.” (Matthew 17:2) But this is not just about what God looked like but about what God was. Light, in the biblical world, was an image of purity. Purity in the sense of holiness, truth, and all that is life-affirming. This is the God that we are in relationship with. If we value our relationship with the God that is light, then we must also walk in the light. This includes taking sin seriously. We recently bought a cottage that included a newly dug well. One of the first thing we had to do was to get a water test. We could not just say that water was water and the presence of bacteria was no big deal. When the water failed the test, that was something that had to be addressed. 

Sin is serious and it must be addressed. But isn’t that the version of “old time religion” that everyone is reacting against today? Not exactly. The weaponization of sin is when we use accusations of sin against another. What John is teaching here is the importance of each us us to make sure that we are walking in the light, not that we condemn others who we think are in the darkness. This is the point that Jesus was making with the woman caught in adultery. 

Sin is Unavoidable

So sin is not something we can just say is okay. We need to take it seriously. But soon as we start to take it seriously, we tend to do two things: get frustrated by the sins of others and get frustrated with our own sin. Both reactions can lead to a pretty miserable life because we see the Christian life as having the expectation of a life victorious over sin. 

John has indeed set a high bar for us when it comes to walking in the light. But John also admits that everyone, including Christians sin. “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8) Truth is part of the idea of light. If we ever get to the point where we think we are walking in the light so perfectly that we no longer sin, that is actually evidence that we are still in the dark. The great reformer Martin Luther used the phrase “simul justus et peccator.” This means “simultaneously justified and sinner.” This was definitely true of Luther, who God greatly used in the Reformation, and yet his later writings are tainted by terrible prejudice. We sometimes portray the Apostle Peter as this bumbling disciple, until he receives the Holy Spirit and finally becomes a man of God on the Day of Pentecost. We forget that the Apostle Paul publicly confronted Peter on his sin of hypocrisy in Galatians 2. We love the story of John Newton, the writer of Amazing Grace. We may have heard of how he was a slave trader who came to Jesus and became an opponent of slavery. The truth is not as today as that. Newton became a Christian in 1748 but did not become a captain of a slave ship until the early 1750s. He quit sailing because he suffered a stroke.

None of this is meant to condone sin. We live in this tension between a Christian being required to walk in the light and yet, as human beings, continuing to experience sin. 

Sin and Jesus

How do we sort through all of this. Sin is both unacceptable and unavoidable. It seems like we are in an impossible situation. But John has already given us the solution to this in his opening remarks. It is all about Jesus. So what is the role of Jesus in our struggle for sin?

We are told: “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” (1 John 2:2) This is what Jesus did on the cross. But it is a bit more complicated than how it is often presented. Yes, there is an experience (whether or not the person knows the time and place) in which a person embraces the forgiveness that comes from what Jesus did on the cross. But it is not a simple transaction. It is much more of an ongoing relationship. John speaks of Jesus as being our ongoing advocate. Forgiveness does not just come once at a conversion. When we are struggling through this challenge of trying to walk in the light but still experiencing sin, Jesus walks with us through that journey. We are not abandoned at our baptism, with Jesus giving us one final warning: “You better not mess this up.” There have been people who have aimed to be converted and baptized on their death bed because they saw no hope for living the Christian life. There is hope and the reason for that hope is the ongoing ministry of Jesus in our life.

Conclusion

We still need to talk about sin. Perhaps our conversation about sin will have changed. We may move from worrying about whether someone is playing cards or having the wrong length hair to issues of social justice and personal integrity. God is looking for more than just people who spent a couple of minutes in a baptismal tank. God wants us to walk in the light because God is light. We are going to be tempted to look at others and begin judging based on our personal convictions. Instead, we need to begin with ourselves. To be honest, it is hard enough to walk in the light ourselves, much less, trying to be the morality police for everyone else. Really, the best way to help others walk in the light is to be an example ourselves rather than trying to condemn them. 

However, we are still human. This means that we are going to sin. I have noticed something about the sin lists in Paul’s letters. If you look at them carefully, you will notice things that are obviously sinful and things that we would be very concerned about. But mixed in there, you will also see plenty of things that we all wrestle with each and every day. We need to have grace both for others and for ourselves but we must do that without abandoning the quest to walk in the light.

Our guide through this confusing journey of the Christian life is Jesus. One of my favourite passages is: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.” (Hebrews 4:15) Jesus walks with us as we struggle to walk in the light. Consider these familiar words. “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” (Psalm 23:4)