Sin – a taboo subject?

A younger friend of mine and her family are trying to find their way into church life. “The trouble with the church we’ve been going to,” she complains, “is that they keep talking about sin. It frightens my daughter.”

These days, the world’s easy-going view of sin gives the word an aura of enticement and daring. It is the name chosen by at least one nightclub in the UK. Another friend refers to a tasty treat that is laden with calories as “sinful squares”. A person who dabbles in a bit of sin is credited with a sense of adventure, imagination, fulfilment.

In the Bible, however, sin wears a much more repugnant and disturbing aspect. It isn’t even just limited to the odd acts of swearing or stealing or lust. It is nothing less than a way of life that we inherit at birth and that makes us all fall short of God’s standards. A word frequently used for it in the New Testament originally meant “missing the mark”. In archery terms, sin is any behaviour that fails to hit the bull’s-eye. In God’s version of an archery competition, simply getting your arrow to hit the target is no better than missing it altogether. Since He is a perfect God, nothing less than a bull’s-eye will do. He will not be pleased simply because there is a bit of good in us mixed in with the bad. A perfect God cannot even look on what is flawed.

Scared? If someone really is frightened of the consequences of sin, that’s surely a good thing. It will drive them to put their trust in the One who carried the sins of the world and is the bringer of forgiveness, the Lord Jesus Christ. When they do this, an amazing transformation occurs, even though they don’t suddenly become perfect and indeed never will in this life. Christians throughout the ages have viewed it like this: when we receive Christ as Lord and Saviour, God looks away from our blemishes and towards Him. He made on the cross a faultless self-offering to atone for our sin.

But to go into denial about the way sin clings to us is to court disaster. According to the Bible it turns us into self-deceived dupes who know nothing of God’s truth – even though we would pride ourselves on never telling lies. Worse still, it is effectively calling God a liar.

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. 1 John 1:5-10 ESV

Agreed, making people feel guilty all the time is no help to anybody. Jesus certainly didn’t aim to do that. For most people, most of the time, He was a joy to be around. He was and is our Hope. But it would be infinitely dangerous to leave anyone thinking that sin is no worse than the world makes it out to be.

After all is said and done ... sin must be bad if it caused the Son of God to surrender His life!

Families

Reading the broad sweep of the Bible, you become aware that families are important to God – sacred, even. The apostle Paul speaks of bowing his knees before the Father, “from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named” (Ephesians 3:15). According to Acts 3:25 God’s covenant with the ancient patriarch Abraham included the clause, “And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed”. Much is made of the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ in His earthly life joined a human family, with parents, brothers and sisters. He had his few days of early independence as a 12-year-old boy when He went missing from the side of His parents on their return from Jerusalem. When they had gone back and collected Him, however, it is written that He “went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them” (Luke 2:50).

I grew up an only child. When I left home, living on my own became a way of life. My parents have since died. There are some good things about living with your own company, but you miss out in certain important ways. One of the joys of travelling round the country and accepting hospitality from friends is that I learn, albeit belatedly, how different families work.

At home I am used to having things as I like them to be. There is nobody else, humanly speaking, to please. I can eat the foods I like. (That was until the medical people took to lecturing me on having too many ready meals, so that I am now having to adjust my diet.) I can arrange my life in a thousand different ways, happily going on from day to day without giving much of a thought as to what could be done more pleasantly or more productively. I have my own way of organising my waking hours, having adjusted to early retirement for the time being. For me, this daily routine is or is becoming the norm.

But it is not uniform for every household. Each one is like a different country with its own culture and customs. As a lifelong learner I am ready to pick up new insights from my visits. In many homes, unlike mine, the main meal takes place in the evening. I mostly have mine in the middle of the day because that’s the way I was used to from childhood: my dad always came home from work, and I came home from school, and mum gave us our main meal. We then returned to work and school for the rest of the day. It became a habit that I have never thought of changing. But when in someone else’s house I cheerfully adapt myself to their meal pattern.

The television is another means whereby I learn to see life as other households see it. Left to my own devices I watch the programmes I like and regard as important. This mainly means the news and historical and other factual documentaries. It is an eye-opener to go to someone else’s home and watch them enjoy something I would never have considered viewing. One such example is the couple who like tuning in to Michael Portillo’s railway journeys. I used to notice this offering on the schedules without giving it a second glance! Now I have watched more of the series at home, with real pleasure and profit.

Christian believers are one great family under the fatherhood of God. They enjoy a marked family identity and share in the eternal benefits. Marvellously, this family identity is shared not only throughout the earth but also in heaven. Believers in the West have little concept of their invisible family; but how I look forward to joining them one day! What more I shall learn there, and what extra riches there are to be had, God only knows. All I know is that I shall be more than satisfied with God’s fatherly, family likeness.