A Seriously Miscalculated Swap

Once again, we’re back at the the blog My Morning Meal, written by Peter Corak. (For many of you, our blog would be called My Afternoon Snack!) I hope you’ll click the header which follows and read this on his blog. Because this was posted just hours ago, I’m going to close comments here to encourage you to encourage Peter there.

A Bad Deal

We made a bad deal. A poor trade. A seriously miscalculated swap. That’s what I’m taking away from one of the most depressing passages in all the New Testament, Romans 1:18-32.

Yesterday, I concluded my Romans 1 reading on a high — the good news of the power of God for salvation. A righteousness independent of our best efforts at trying to be righteous. Available for all who believe. Revealed “from faith for faith.” But there’s no need for such good news if there isn’t the reality of bad news. Cue the end of Romans 1, and Romans 2, and the first part of Romans 3. Heavy sigh.

In past years, it has been the repeated phrase, “God gave them up,” which caught my attention in this reading. It’s the response of God toward those who choose self-determination over God exaltation, He allows them to be more self-determined. For those who resolve to lean on their own understanding, who trust in their own wisdom above their Creator’s, God says, in effect, Go at it. Heavy sigh, again.

But this morning it’s another repeated word that catches my attention.

Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

(Romans 1:22-25 ESV)

All creation points to the Creator. All that’s been made, a testament to the invisible attributes of the Maker. Every person a walking indicator of His eternal power. All of nature pointing to His divine nature. Everything declared to be good in the beginning a conduit towards knowing His glory in the present (Rom. 1:19-20).

But the propensity of fallen men and women is to exchange the glory for goods. To disdain invisible attributes for more tangible aspirations. To not see creation as a means towards knowing about the Creator, but as an end in and of itself. As something worthy of worship. Choosing not to distinguish man from birds from animals or creeping things. All the same. All idol worthy. Exchanging the riches of a supernatural reality “for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand” (MSG).

It’s equated to exchanging the truth about God for a lie. That, instead of “In the beginning, God,” we think we should rewrite the story, “In the beginning, molecules and matter.” Instead of God creating men and women in His own image, men and women imagined into being God for their own purposes. Rather than living in the here and now with a view towards a there and then, there is no there and then so do what you gotta do to be happy here and now. And the exchange goes on . . . and on . . . and on. Lies supplanting truth, thus mankind becoming increasingly out of sync with reality, as God gives us over to our own “wisdom.”

What a bad deal. Exchanging immortal glory for immaterial gain. Exchanging a revealed reality for a narrative of our own making.

Bad news. But that’s what makes the good news so good!

. . . but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

(Romans 5:8 ESV)

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved . . .

(Ephesians 2:4-5 ESV)

But God. How I love those two words.

We refused His glory shown through creation, but God shows us His great love through His crucified Son.

We traded in His truth for our lies, but God offers to redeem our lives by His amazing grace.

Yeah, we made a bad deal. But praise God for a better deliverance!

Sin is a Verb | Sin is a Noun

One of the reasons you struggle with trying to change some of the things you have been unable to change is that you have been addressing the verb sin and not the noun Sin.  – Steve Greene

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Which is it?

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God – Romans 3:23  ESV

In 2017, someone asked this question at Worthy Christian Forums. They had a more specific reason for asking, but the first part of their question reads, “Is sin a verb, showing action or activity or is it a noun as if it were a presence within our world?”

A reader, G. DeMoss offered an answer:

I might have a ‘cut’ on my arm because I was ‘cut’. First is a noun and second a verb.

Sin is what sin does and what sin does bears the name of sin.

Adam was the son of God but when he ate the fruit sin entered Adam and Adam became sin…

Just when you thought you had it figured out, Adam becomes sin — still a noun — but it also becomes a label. Does that make it an adjective, too?

Then we have Skip Moen at Hebrew Word Study. He introduces the concept of sin as an adverb. He gives this example:

Is Pedro Calderón de la Barc, the Spanish playwright, correct, when he wrote “Man’s greatest sin is being born”?  My friend, Giorgia, says, “Every Italian knows he is guilty.  He was born guilty.  He just doesn’t know why.”  Do you suppose Pedro and Giorgia think sin is a noun, something that exists independently of any action?  Do you?  Are your sins hanging out there in divine space, entries in God’s accounting book, plus and minus integers?  Do they exist apart from your present relation?  Or is sin an adverb, a qualifier of an action, whether for good or ill, so that apart from your present action, the adverbial “sin” doesn’t exist?

Earlier in the short article he provides this:

Sin:  “In the original sense of New Testament Greek, ‘sin’ is a failure in missing the mark, primarily in spear throwing. Hebrew hata ‘sin’ originates in archery and literally refers to missing the ‘gold’ at the center of a target, but hitting the target. Relating to the Christian definition, the gold center of the target could be seen as God’s commandment for righteousness. To sin is to miss our mark of living in a virtuous manner, not only failing to meet God’s commandment but acting against our own interests by engaging the world in an immoral manner. To sin is to fall short of our potential, missing the mark of our highest self and best quality of life.”

Is sin a noun or an adverb?  The answer is not trivial.  “There is an awareness in many religions of a blindly working guilt, of sin as a situation in which man is begotten, of sin which is involved in man’s very being and stands far above the ability of the individual man.  Sin is not conceived as something that happens, but as something that is and obtains regardless of man’s relationship to the gods.  ‘Since we are what we ought not to be, we also necessarily do what we ought not to do.  Therefore we need a complete transformation of our mind and nature.  That is the new birth.’” [from Abraham Heschel, The Prophets]

Steve Greene at the blog Ready for the Road Ahead contends that sin is both noun and verb.

Last time I asked, “What makes us ungodly sinners?” The Apostle Paul said, “Just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned.” (Romans 5:12) One of the problems is that we think of sin as a verb, or an action word, and it is. Sin is something we do. A Wesleyan definition of sin tells us that sin is a willful transgression of God’s known law. But there is more to sin than that.

It seems that Paul was speaking of sin as a noun. At a particular point in time, Sin (the noun) entered the world. At one point, there was no sin. But sin then came into the world, through one person. His name was Adam. When Adam sinned, Sin entered the world like a disease. Paul is not describing sin as an activity or a verb. The way he describes sin here is as a noun that results in verbs. What that means is that there is Sin that results in sinning.

One of the reasons you struggle with trying to change some of the things you have been unable to change is that you have been addressing the verb sin and not the noun Sin. It is like trying to cut down the tree without getting rid of the root.

Paul says, “Sin entered the world through one man.” Death followed close on the heels of sin. And of us have experienced this. You have seen how your sin might have killed a relationship, killed your finances, killed your career, or killed your marriage. Most of us in one way or another have seen the death that followed our sin. Wherever sin goes, death is close behind. When Adam sinned, Sin entered the world and along with sin came death.

Because Adam was the first human being, we were all in Adam. We are his descendants. When Adam sinned, it is as if we sinned. Because when Adam sinned, Sin contaminated the entire human race. So, the problem isn’t just our sinning. The problem is that we were born sinners. The reason we were born sinners is not because of anything we did. It is because of who we are related to – Adam.

Hopefully all this gets you thinking…

…Now then; is grace a noun or a verb? You should be better equipped to answer that question than you were before you read today’s devotional.

At least I hope so!

We Have Both a Sinful Nature and a Divine Nature

A few weeks ago I shared a conversation with someone on the very topic of today’s article. We live in the intersection of two worlds; this world and the world to come; and we possess both a fallen nature and an Imago dei nature. Keith Giles is an author, podcast host, house church pastor and blogger at Patheos.  This is our third time highlighting his writing here at C201.

Please click through to read articles here at source. We post them here as a matter of record and for email subscribers, but you are strongly encouraged to send some blog traffic to the original writers’ site of origin.

Our Divine Potential

The question usually gets framed as something like: “Do you believe that humans are all born in original sin?” or “Do humans have a sin nature?”

For me, the problem is in the question itself. It assumes the answer before anyone can really consider all the variables.

As an example, we could factually say that every human being goes to the bathroom on a regular basis. So, does that mean that humans are poopers by nature? Well, yes, but is that our identity? Is that who you are?

Of course not. The fact that everyone poops is not a reflection of their nature, or their character. It’s just a fact. People poop. But, who we are is so much more!

So, the fact that people have the potential for evil, or even that we all sometimes act in ways that are selfish, or unforgiving, or hateful, or harmful, does NOT mean that this is who we are by nature. Why? Because these same people – you and me – are also constantly doing things that are thoughtful, and kind, and selfless, and compassionate, and good.

In other words, we all have the potential for both good and evil. We are no less born with a sinful nature than we are with a righteous nature. Everyone has the potential for either, or both, at any given time.

The Good News is that we also have the potential to share in the Divine Nature of Christ:

“His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature.” (2 Peter 1:3-4; NRSV)

This is the other reason I reject the notion of Original Sin, because it keeps us in a pre-Christian state of mind where we are hopeless and helpless to overcome our darker tendencies. The Good News is that Christ empowers us to live (abide) in the life of Christ and learn to participate in his Divine nature.

In other words: We all have the potential for both good and bad thoughts/actions, but if we abide in Christ we can start to experience our Divine Potential.

The emphasis, then, is not on our sinfulness, or our tendency to fail, but on our awesome ability to be like Christ (which is the whole point of the Gospel of the Kingdom).

We are not only called to walk as Jesus did, we are empowered to do so, and have been given “everything we need for life and godliness.”

So, rather than fixate on our sinful potential, the shift we need to make is to focus on our divine potential.

You are not a sinner, even if once in a while you sin. You are a child of God who is made in this Divine image, and you have been given everything you need to grow into this new nature today.

You have a Divine Potential. Start living in that reality as soon as possible.

Why not right now?

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Christianity 201 is a melting-pot of devotional and Bible study content from across the widest range of Christian sources. Sometimes two posts may follow on consecutive days by authors with very different doctrinal perspectives. The Kingdom of God is so much bigger than the small portion of it we can see from our personal vantage point, and one of the purposes of C201 is to allow readers a ‘macro’ view of the many ministries and individual voices available for reading. Please click through on titles to read articles at the site where they originally appeared.

“What is This You Have Done?”

Today we’re returning again to the blog of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. The author of today’s piece is Lisa Rieck. This is another site you might want to bookmark and check back with from time to time. Click the title below to read this at source.

The Sorrow and Mercy of God

“What is this you have done?”

These words from God to Eve in Genesis 3:13 are always heart-wrenching to me when I read them. I imagine so much anguish in his voice.

Because of course God isn’t just talking about Adam’s and Eve’s one decision to eat from the one tree they were explicitly told by God, in his one command, not to eat from. This is the God of the universe speaking. A God who took exquisite delight in creating a world exactly as he wanted it. A God who was wild about these two people he had made in his image, and about their intimacy with each other and with him. A God nearly incoherent with joy regarding the eternity of beauty and goodness and rightness he could see stretching out before him.

It’s hard for most of us to imagine the glory of the world those first two chapters of Genesis describe because we’ve only ever known a world disfigured by sin. But try to picture it. Every plant vibrant with color. Every animal thriving, both on its own and in relationship to other animals. Human relationship free from blame or shame or fear or hurt or jealousy or dishonesty, with each person being fully known, fully loved, fully satisfied in the most complete way.

All of this and so, so much more was changed in a minute, in what seems like a flippant decision on Adam and Eve’s part. Of course, they could not have known what the full implications of their action would be, since they had no concept of sin or brokenness, imperfection or guilt. But God obviously did. And so, as he uttered his question, I imagine the span of history flashing before his eyes: Cain killing Abel. The Israelites enslaved in Egypt. Children sacrificed to idols. War between nations from the first civilizations to the present. John the Baptist being beheaded. Mary and Martha weeping at Lazarus’s tomb. The Black Death. Genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda and Ukraine and Germany and Guatemala. The Trail of Tears. Miscarriages and abortion. Affairs and divorce. Cancer and dementia. Families torn apart by deportation. Poverty. School shootings. Slavery. Mass incarceration. White supremacist rallies in Charlottesville. I wonder if it all rushed through his thoughts in an instant.

“What is this you have done?”

This is not to say that I think I would have chosen differently than Adam and Eve. I’m sure, had I been in their place, I too would have been persuaded that tasting the fruit, testing God’s words a bit, wouldn’t matter much. Isn’t that the way the devil always works? He tells me today that my jealousy, my bitterness, my judgment of others or my self-condemnation, my fears, my silence in the face of injustice, are not that big of a deal. He tells me that I have not contributed to racism because I did not march in Charlottesville this weekend. He keeps me dulled to the pain and far-reaching effects my sins of omission and commission have.

I imagine, though, what also flashed through God’s mind in that instant was what it would cost himself and his Son to make things right. His question was not without hope—but that hope did not cancel out or override his sorrow. Nor does it today; I believe he still suffers and grieves with us in the pain we experience from our own sin and from the sins of others, even though he has set in motion, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, the redemption of all things.

Today, as on so many days, I am trying to hold those two things in tension as well—a horrified sorrow that does not end in despair, and a grounded hope that does not make light of the gravity of sin.

I’m also finding hope in ten other words from Genesis: “But Noah found favor in the sight of the LORD.” Amidst a world gone completely evil, where “every inclination of the thoughts of [people’s] hearts was only evil continually,” and “the LORD was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth,” God saw the (I imagine) quiet faithfulness of Noah.

Given the rampant wickedness he knew was coming, it seems like God must have been tempted to end things right away in Genesis 3. By Genesis 6, we know that his grief over the wickedness in the world was so great that he did, indeed, send the flood to destroy most of what he had made. But not all. As has happened over and over throughout the history of the world, God was merciful, seeing and saving the ones who could not be moved from their faithfulness to him, despite being surrounded by utter evil.

And that renews my faith that every seemingly small act of obedience matters. Every kind word. Every risk, in conversation or action, that helps me know someone different than me politically or ethnically or denominationally or religiously a bit better. Every dollar given away joyfully. Every “thank you” spoken, and meant. Every beautiful poem or painting created. Every act of listening that seeks to really understand. Every truth told. Every renouncement of racism. Every meal shared with every orphan and widow. Every hurt forgiven.

Most days, I feel more aware of the world’s evil than of God’s mercy, more cognizant of the fact that we have inherited the painful effects of Adam’s and Eve’s sin than of the truth that those who believe in Jesus have also received every benefit of his death and resurrection. But as Paul wrote in Romans 5, “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.” Which means that every day, through God’s Spirit at work in us, we can choose differently than Adam and Eve did. We can—and must—choose obedience over disobedience, worship of God over worship of self, humility over pride, life over death.

And when we fail, as we will—when I fail—I can and must refuse to blame someone else, like Adam and Eve did, and refuse to listen to Satan’s lie that my own seemingly small sin is not that big of a deal. Each time I rebel against God, my work is to hear his question to Eve in my head, ringed with the sorrow of a Creator watching the destruction of the world he created to be good and beautiful. I must be willing to look straight at, to name, to reflect on and lament the ways my particular sin has contributed to that destruction, hurting others and myself and perpetuating the broader sinful structures and systems of our world.

Because though God’s question came from grief over the death that had entered and would continue to enter the world, even this weekend, even today, it can lead us to life if we let it move us, next time, to choose faithfulness. To receive God’s forgiveness, and then show forgiveness to others. To take every opportunity to be kind. To work for justice for all, even when it means giving up some of our own power and privilege. To live in genuine relationship with others. And, in the face of every evil, to choose obedience to the God who grieves with us, grieves over us, and still chooses mercy. Over and over and over again.