When I have talked to people about sin sometimes. People often and perhaps rightly so. View sin within the context of ones behavior. They look at sin as something that is “right of wrong”. And then inevitably we sometimes go down a path as to who defines right and wrong, and who has the authority to pronounce the offended parties actions as “right or wrong”.
I’m coming to realize that in the day that we live in. Perhaps how we deal with the topic of sin needs to change.
Isa 5:20 states, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”
We live in this day and age. A day where what once was established as clear and unmistakably evil, are now accepted lifestyle choices. Where presumptive societal agreements about right and wrong has been turned on its head. It’s simply hard to appreciate Jesus’ vicarious and atoning death without understanding the magnitude of why he had to die. To take our sins to the cross. People don’t get or want to talk about sin.
So I’ve seen many of us, myself included continue to use the romans road method of talking to people about Christ, and I’m wondering maybe we need to adopt our methodology to the changes of the times.
But what’s the alternative? I want to toss our for my readers consideration that perhaps instead of talking about sin in terms of right and wrong, we talk about sin as if we would talk about cancer. And most of us definitely understand the subject of cancer and the subject of terminal illness.
What about framing it this way. We have a disease. It is called sin. This disease is terminal, and it has outward symptoms that show it exists. The bible has given us a diagnostic checklist for signs of this illness. Gal 5:19 is a good starting point. But the Bible is replete with checklists that confirm if we are the carrier of this pathogen.
“Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”
These things demonstrate sin in our life. There are various signs and symptoms to determine if one has cancer. But why does cancer scare us? Because if it’s not treated we will die. It’s real simple. Its not complex. It does not matter what type of cancer you have. How pronounced it is. All cancers unless checked have the ability to be fatal. And that’s the point. The wages of sin is death. It doesn’t mater weather its foolish jesting, adultery, murder, gossip, eating from a tree that God told you not to. A cancer cell is small thing that lives within you and feeds off of you. It grows, and if left unchecked, there is no coming back from it. Interesting—sounds a lot like sin to me.
All cancers (all sins)—they all lead to the same result, “on the day that thou eatest, thou shalt surely die.” Period. We get so hung up over the symptoms we miss the point of the Gospel. That Jesus came to give us LIFE. To save us from our sins. He’s the cure.
Maybe we as Christian have become so judgmental in our society that we need to take a medical approach to explaining the gospel. Perhaps it will help us to see people in a different light. Not as fornicators, homosexuals, drunkards, etc. But as people who Jesus dies for and loves and whom he wants to see rescued from this fatal malignancy that has plagued humanity since the fall of man.
It’s about the fact that the whole human race has been infected with a deadly spiritual pathogen that left unchecked is 100% fatal to the carrier. Adam was patient zero and only the blood of Jesus possess the antibody needed to save us from what is the inevitable death that awaits us all. It doesn’t matter how you acquired sin. Where it happened. Weather your sin is “liver sin”, “breast sin” Bone marrow sin”. All that matters is that you have it. And once you realize you have it, the question becomes what do you do next.
Just my two cents.
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