In reading Blaise Pascal’s, Pensées, I’m reminded of something I’ve thought about but never really tried to write down, so I will try.
Many people feel that Christianity is unnecessarily harsh in its doctrine of sin. People feel that the notion of sin produces an unhealthy negativity toward the self, perhaps a self-loathing. It can also be used in judgmental and self-righteously harsh ways as people condemn and judge others for their sin.
It seems that people either turn the negativity inward, or project it outward, or both. This is a common criticism of Christianity and the doctrine of sin. When we embrace the doctrine of sin and try to understand it from a biblical perspective, the truth is far more positive than we might suspect at first blush.
For one thing, the idea of sin is a great equalizer. When the Bible says that all have sinned and fallen short, it is mitigating one of the chief ways people feel badly about themselves, which is in comparison to others. The idea that all humans have sinned the negativity trap that comes from comparing ourselves to other people.
Paul says that anyone who has sinned in one way has transgressed the entire law. Thus, it makes no difference whether one person may be more or less sinful than another person. We are all in the same boat. To think that I am better than or worse than someone else by comparison is to misunderstand the doctrine of sin.
The great poet of the 18th century, Alexander Pope, says in more poetic language, “To err is human.” We all know this intuitively. If we are honest, we see our faults and our failures in ourselves that other people do not even see. This self-awareness can and does produce feelings of negativity even if we do not subscribe to the Ten Commandments or Christian morality.
The entire quotation from Alexander Pope is: “To hear is human, to forgive is divine.” When we struggle with our own failures and faults, we can find ourselves in an endless feedback loop of negativity. The answer to that vicious cycle is the idea of divine forgiveness. This is what the Bible teaches us.
The doctrine of sin also eliminates a primary way people are cruel to each other – by establishing comparisons that render certain people less than. This is the outward manifestation of negativity that flows from the reality that human beings are error-prone. Whether it’s the Ten Commandments, a cultural or societal standard, or a self-imposed standard, we all fall short. When we turn that negativity outward, we focus on the errors of other people; we judge them; and we become self-righteous if we think we are better than them.
The doctrine of sin levels this playing field also. I once heard the analogy of people escaping a natural disaster in California by taking to the sea. The best swimmers might outdistance the lesser swimmers, and the worst swimmers among us might perish quickly in the ocean waters. Not even the best of swimmers, however, are capable of swimming the entire ocean to reach the shores of China.
The doctrine of sin is similar to this analogy in the sense that the best of people still fall short. As Paul stated, the doctrine of sin is a losing proposition for us: it is all or nothing – if we have failed to keep only one part, we have transgressed the entire law because we are still sinners. It doesn’t matter how far any individual swimmer makes it out into the Pacific Ocean. Every swimmer will fall short of making it to the opposite shore.
When we understand that our position relative to each other makes no difference, we are not apt to judge others or to feel superior. The Bible eliminates all of that if we take it seriously, because all have sinned and fallen short so that there is no reason for boasting merely merely because some people sin more or less in one way or another.
In this sense an accurate understanding of the biblical doctrine of sin, is the great equalizer. If we truly understand a biblical view of it, the reality of sin puts us all on the same level. It equalizes all people in relation to each other and in relation to God. We are all in the same position relative to each other and relative to God.
The biblical solution for sin, of course, is God’s grace/forgiveness. The solution for sin is not doing better, but in receiving God’s grace and forgiveness and in willingness to extend that grace and forgiveness to others. As Paul also says, “If we are forgiven by grace, where is the boasting?” Sin and grace eliminate boasting and mitigate against pride, which is the root of all sin according to great thinkers of old.
Someone might say that we all, then, are equally consigned to an unhealthy, negative view of ourselves and others. If we are all doomed in our sin, where is the hope?
The hope is in the grace and forgiveness of God.
But people are prideful. We don’t like that answer. We want to accomplish our own redemption. We want to be justified in ourselves. We want to take credit for what we accomplish, but the biblical doctrine of sin does not allow us that luxury. To acknowledge our own shortcomings is simply to recognize the reality. To recognize the reality is the first step in coming to a real resolution to the problem of human pride.
We could spend our lives trying to be “good enough,” but the reality is failure after failure. Whether it’s the Ten Commandments or a self-imposed standard of morality, we are going to fail at some point. To err is human.
Psychologists tell us that all human beings struggle with the idea of self-condemnation and/or feelings of judgmentalism and superiority. These struggles are not limited to Christians or people who succumb to the Christian doctrine of sin. These are universal struggles that all people wrestle with.
The solution is in the potentiality God built into us when he made us in His image, male and female, Greek and Jew, slave and free. There is no distinction. In that potentiality, we all have hope. If we submit ourselves to God and to his plans and purposes for us, God promises to make us into everything we truly desire and were intended to be, the truest and most complete version of ourselves.
It is sin that frustrates us in reaching that goal. It is God’s grace and his sanctifying work in us that gives us hope as we allow God to forgive us and release ourselves from that negative feedback loop. It is the universality of those promises that allows us to release others from our own judgmental defense mechanisms to extend the same kind of grace to them that God extends to us.
Paul says that God works in us to will and to act according to his purposes – to make us perfect as he is perfect. Jesus tells us what this perfection looks like: it looks like love. Love holds no record of wrongs according to Paul. According to Paul, God also promises to complete that work that He begins in us – if we let Him. There is no reason for us to boast in this because we understand it is God working in us that will complete the work to attain to that perfection for which we instinctively strive.
The biblical hope in all of this is that we are assured of being our real selves in all the glorious facets for which God created us. Far from being a negative view of ourselves, we are freed to become the truest and most positive self we can possibly be. Though we may fail, God is faithful and just to forgive us, according to John. The only real failure is in failing to embrace the biblical truth that we cannot accomplish these things on our own and are dependent on God for the outcome.
The one who finds no forgiveness or release from the condemnation of sin and a negative self-view is not the person who has too low a view of themselves, but too high a view of themselves. For such a person exalts his or her own standard of themselves over God’s proclamation that we are forgiven, and God’s promise to work within us, to will and to act according to his good purpose to be the persons we are meant to be. For many of us, the ultimate act of humility and submission to God is yielding up our own high view of ourselves and releasing ourselves from self-condemnation.
In Christ, there is no condemnation. If God says we are not condemned, and if God says we are forgiven, and if God says our sins are not counted against us, then who are we to hold them over our own head?
In every way, the revealed word of God presents a more positive view of mankind than we could ever have of ourselves. In God’s view, there is no hierarchy of value or worth.
At the same time, we are all unique in the multifaceted way each of us reflects the character of God as we truly yield to His work within us. In God, we do not lose our uniqueness, though we are equal in the sense of sin and forgiveness of sin, and in value and in worth. As Paul says, “The foot cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ and the head cannot say to the neck, ‘I am better than you.'” So in Christ, we shine in our unique individuality, even as we enjoy no hierarchy in comparative worth or value.
Far from perpetuating a negative self-image in people, Christianity perpetuates the only healthy, positive, and hopeful view that is available to mankind. Every person fails, even the very best among us. This is true regardless of intellectual capacity or physical ability. It is equally true that every person is uniquely made in the image of God, regardless of intellectual capacity or ability.
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to grasping these things is human pride. Human pride influences some of us to condemn ourselves for our failures. Human pride influences some of us to judge other people who seem to be worse than us. Sin neutralizes human pride and frees each of us up to live in the fresh air of forgiveness and grace for ourselves and to extend forgiveness and grace to others as we have been forgiven and received that grace.
