Many people bristle at the Christian idea of sin, and many people fault Christianity for its emphasis on sin. Richard Dawkins criticized Christianity in his book, The God Delusion, that it’s all about sin, sin, sin. His sentiment seems to be a popular one.
As a long-time Christian, I have a “robust” view of sin not just because I have robust respect for the Bible. I see sin in myself, and I see it in mankind, generally. I see it as a fact, like gravity, that makes sense of the foibles, failures, and futility of people and human systems I see in the world.
Not that people are incapable of doing good. Even who do not believe in God can do good. Even in doing good, though, I believe most of us do it good “selfishly” – because it makes us feel good; because of peer pressure; because we want people to honor us; because we want other people to be nice to us; or simply because of the utilitarian ideal that it makes the world a better place for me and my tribe to live in.
Most people, I assume, would be uncomfortable with my assessment. Maybe what I see in myself shouldn’t be “projected” onto other people. Maybe I am right, though. I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t think it is a fair assessment.
I think one issue people have with the idea of sin is that they don’t know what to do with it. It doesn’t fit into an evolutionary paradigm that celebrates the progress of humanity from primordial ooze to ape to rational being.
Absent a cosmic redeemer, people have no “solution” for sin. Reject the One, and the other makes no sense. Many people don’t want a cosmic redeemer interfering with their self-determination (even people, ironically, who believe we have no self-determination, because we merely dance to our DNA).
People don’t see any “value” in sin. The idea of sin makes people feel uncomfortable. They blame the concept of sin for making them feel bad about themselves. When people measure their goodness against others, they either feel shame or self-righteousness, because they see themselves as better or worse than others.
People blame judgmental attitudes, intolerance, lack of empathy for others, and a host of other evils on the Judeo-Christian concept of sin.
On the other hand, do people who have rejected the Christian concept of sin stop feeling bad about themselves or stop being self-righteous? In my experience, no, they don’t.
Abandoning the idea of sin doesn’t seem to help people not feel bad about themselves, and it doesn’t stop people from being self-righteous. People still compare themselves to others. People still struggle with self-image, and some people still seem to think themselves morally superior to others even after rejecting the concept of sin.
The Christian vocabulary that includes sin has no place in alternative cultural constructs, like cultural Marxism, and the host of critical theories that flow from it. Judgment of others, however, is baked into those constructs, and virtue is signaled for group approval in ways that seem, to me, just as inimical as any bad church environment.
People are shamed and labor under judgmental attitudes perfectly well without the help of Christianity. In fact, I believe the shame and self-righteousness is even worse because other cultural constructs lack the Christian concepts of redemption, grace, and forgiveness.
But, I believe in sin simply because it makes sense of all my experiences and everything that I see in people and the world that is run by people. I have never thought of sin as a value proposition, other than to think that sinfulness is generally bad. I have certainly never thought of the idea of sin as good!
Until now.
Christopher Watkin takes the position that the Christian concept of sin has great social benefit in his book, Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible’s Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture. His primary point seems to be that the concept of sin is a great equalizer. Let’s unpack that a bit.
The biblical concept of sin puts all people on level ground. The Christian concept of sin includes the notion that “all people have sinned and fallen short”. No one is exempt. The degree to which this is true doesn’t matter. We are all in the same boat.
This concept of sin isn’t found in an isolated verse. It is a theme that runs through the Bible from the beginning (from Adam and Eve) through the end. Here are just some of the iterations of the idea:
- “[T]here is no one who does not sin….” (1 Kings 8:46)
- “What is man, that he can be pure?” (Job 15:14)
- “Who can say, ‘I have made my heart pure; I am clean from my sin?'” (Prov. 20:9)
- “Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.” (Ecc. 7:20)
- “[A]ll have sinned and fall short of the glory of God….” (Rom. 3:23)
- “[W]e all stumble in many ways. (James 3:2)
- “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8)
Many people think and live as if their sin isn’t as bad as others, but that isn’t the biblical concept of sin. And, as long as it isn’t as bad as other people, we are ok. The biblical concept of sin claims that our sin, each of our sin, is worse than we know, and it doesn’t really matter if we might be better than others, our own sin is enough to destroy us.
The biblical idea of sin doesn’t weigh one sin against another sin, and it doesn’t weigh one person’s sin against other peoples’ sin (though people, including Christians, certainly do that). The biblical idea of sin is that all people have sinned and fallen short (universally), and we all need help (equally) .
The idea that we all sin is common sense and common wisdom. How many times have you heard other people excuse their behavior with the phrase, “No one’s perfect”, or “To err is human”? I bet you have said something like that yourself. We know it is true. We are flawed beings, and we are not as we should be.
This is how Watkin explains the equalizing value of the Christian concept of sin in a discussion in a recent episode of the podcast, Truth Over Tribe:
“There is no difference between a king or a pauper, a queen or a prostitute, a wealthy man, or a poor young girl on the street of a third world country. We are all sinners. We are all
equal in that respect.”
Again, I think some people are uncomfortable with the notion of sin because they don’t know what to do with it. Being labeled a sinner may feel like a death sentence. People assume that sin equals judgement and condemnation, and they conflate the Christian message this way.
The Christian concept of sin, however, is only a starting point. It is not the ending point. It’s an assessment of our condition. It’s a diagnosis. A diagnosis has great value because a diagnosis gives us the basis to look for a solution.
Not realizing our condition prevents us from getting the help we need, because we don’t realize need help. People see God as a great Judge in the sky, but the biblical message is that He is the Great Physician, and He desires to save us from our condition:
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
John 3:17
When Jesus was confronted by the religious leaders of his day about hanging around with sinners, this was his response to them:
Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Mark 2L17
The message to those religious leaders was that a person cannot get well if he doesn’t know he is sick. The religious leaders who thought they were better than the “sinners” Jesus hung around with didn’t realize there were equally afflicted and equally in need of help.
People who don’t know they are sick are not going to seek help. People who accept the diagnosis and know they are sick are much better off than people who think they are well!
What Christians call the Gospel is the solution to the sickness we call sin. The Gospel is the help we need for the condition of sin.
In fact, the main point of the Christian message is that there is help, a way out, a promise of redemption for everyone for the sin condition that afflicts all people. No one is untainted by sin, and no one is unable to be cured.
The solution, however, is not in our control. It’s nothing we can develop, or discover, or obtain, or achieve. On the other hand, the solution to sin is equally available to all. It isn’t just available to the privileged – to the people smart enough, or lucky enough, or fortunate enough to be in the right place or to know someone who has the solution.
The solution to sin is available to everyone equally and freely.
The solution also isn’t theoretical, though we can reduce to it theory. The solution is provided for us by God, Himself. The solution is God.
The great message of Christianity is that God became one of us, lived out a perfect life, and offered himself in our place to accept the justice we deserve in order to extend us the mercy we don’t deserve. God in Jesus became sin and suffered the just penalty for sin to render sin and its cousin, death, incapable of having power and influence over us.
By accepting Him, we receive His grace. Paul says we are justified by faith (trust) in what God offers us through His grace (mercy and lovingkindness).
This grace is available to everyone, genius or imbecile, prince or pauper, queen or street urchin. It is offered to us by the mercy and grace of God – not because we deserve it.
We can do nothing to earn it, and we can do nothing to make ourselves ineligible to receive it – except for failing or refusing to accept it.
Jesus lived out the message that God loves us, and he has a solution for all of us. That message is the point of Jesus telling the religious leaders of his day that he didn’t come for the healthy; he came for the sick, the sinners. (Everyone who acknowledges sin!)
Again, we have all sinned and fallen short, but grace is offered freely and without reservation to all. Thus, sin the sickness) and grace (the antidote) are the great equalizers.
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith —
Ephesians 2:8-9
and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God —
not by works, so that no one can boast.”
Critics of Christianity not only bristle at sin, but they bristle at what they perceive to be the self-righteousness of Christians. In reality, a true Christian, who takes the biblical concept of sin (and grace) to heart, does not see himself/herself as better than anyone else.
A true Christian knows deeply the value and importance of the phrase, “sinner saved by grace” – not by anything she has done, but by the mercy of God alone. This mercy is freely offered and freely extended to anyone who will receive it, and that is humbling – not self-exalting.
Because this mercy is offered as a gift, “so none of us can boast”, it is the antidote to self-righteousness. Any self-described Christian, therefore, who is proud of his righteousness has missed the entire point of Christianity. He doesn’t understand the essence of the Gospel. He is like the religious leaders to whom Jesus said, “I have not come for the healthy….” (Not realizing he is just as ill as all other people.)
One of the things that convinced me of the truth of Christianity was my conviction at the time that pride is the primary flaw of people, including me. In our pride, we exalt ourselves more than we should, and we demean and harm others to try to feel good about ourselves.
Many people find ourselves in a never-ending cycle of comparison to others. This is not healthy; it is self-harming, and harmful to others. The Christian message is the way out of this cycle.
If I am a sinner, and you are a sinner, I am no better than you, and you are no better than me. We are just fellow travelers, companions with the same affliction, and we both seek a solution that is beyond all of us for our shared condition. The good news is that the solution is freely offered to all of us from a loving God.
If we are all saved by grace, and not by anything we have done ourselves, we have fellowship in our shared gratitude toward God who loves us enough to give us a way out of self-harm and harmful attitudes toward others.
Far from being the bane of Christianity, the concept of sin provides freedom and resolution from harmful attitudes that people fall into. The concept of sin puts everyone on level ground, if we understand it accurately, and the concept of grace offers everyone the same access to hope and relationship with God.
“[T]he righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
Romans 3:21-24
Navigating by Faith 