Bartolomé Bermejo, St Michael Triumphs over the Devil (1468)
It is common today to hear sin described in negative terms; that is, as a lack, or as an inferior substitution for something better. C. S. Lewis’ quote on mud-pies is often employed, and one hears it whenever a church decides to improvise its own confession; the latest I heard included an admission that we put our own ‘short-term agendas’ before God’s eternal purposes. The lanyard-esque language belies a lack of seriousness about sin. Possibly, one can paint every vice as an absence of virtue or as a rejection of grace, but this must not be the only picture we paint. We must revolt ourselves with the positive wickedness of sin.
I speak firstly as a sinner myself (though, God be praised, this is not my primary identity). I know that when confronted with temptation, the old self has a canny game. It begins by conceding that the sin is only a replacement of something better (notice, watchful Christian, the word ‘only’). Thus pornography is only a poor replacement of covenental sexual intimacy; greed is just the shadow of joyful giving. For a moment, the new self breathes a sigh of relief. The battle is won! Why would I give into such shoddy attractions?
But then reality kicks in. I am not yet in that covenental relationship; I don’t have a charitable cause at my fingertips; the hole is not suddenly filled. Without the immediate presence of something better, well – why not take the inferior option? The inherent perversity or baseness of the act does not come to mind, and so nothing is left standing in the way.
A purely negative view of sin also hampers the church’s public and prophetic call of people to repentance. Homosexuality is a clear example. It is fashionable in our circles to say that a homosexual relationship is wrong because it cannot, by definition, be housed in a God-honouring marriage. It ‘falls short’, as if it is really quite a good thing, but just not good enough. This is a pale imitation of Scripture’s vivid abhorrence of the homosexual deed. Whereas God sees it as a deliberate act which corrupts and destroys, we abstract it as primarily a sin of omission. We thus adopt a liberal approach: why would you stand firmly against someone who is merely failing to act in their own best interests?
Sure, this may be a more winsome strategy. But it is abandoning our prophetic calling to name that which is evil, evil. We should not be surprised when Christians start calling it good. I suspect that part of the issue is that Christians do not actually think that certain sins are wrong. This was true for me regarding homosexuality for a long time; I said it was wrong because the Bible said so, but I did not really grasp why it is inherently sinful. There is therefore much work to be done through our teaching. Let us paint a picture with our words – an unhappy one, but Oh, the sweetness of forgiveness and innocence from such wickedness! In this hope might we pray with the Prayer Book:
‘There is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders.’
The Second Discourseman
The Four Discoursemen 