Jesus Talked Tough About Sin

What Did Jesus Do?

Jesus Talked Tough About Sin

“And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.”

                                                                        Matthew 18:8

What could Jesus have been thinking, encouraging people to practice self-mutilation to deal with sin?  Nowadays popular opinion would have us deal with sin by administering a slap on the wrist at most; follow the instruction of the Lord and there wouldn’t be many wrists to slap!  I hope we can all see that Jesus was making a point, a strong point, about just how serious sin is.  In particular, Jesus wanted his followers not to have any misunderstanding about the consequences of sin.  Unless one finds the idea of swimming in flames appealing, sin should be avoided at all costs, even if it means losing a hand or foot or an eye (Matthew 18:9).  And, yes, it would have sounded just as extreme and shocking to the audience that was listening to Jesus as it does to us.  Maybe that’s why there’s so little attention given to sin in a lot of churches.

You know, it's tough to talk about sin nowadays, isn't it? Most simply dismiss "sin" as an outmoded and unnecessary artifact of a long-irrelevant puritanical Calvinism (Though they would be hard pressed to put it into those words). Others, who might be willing to admit the subject of "sin" into conversation, will likely have a defective understanding of "sin" as actions, thoughts, and words of varying magnitude that fall somewhere along a sliding scale of things that are "bad" or "wrong."

But, make no mistake, sin is nothing less than outright rebellion against the God and Creator of all things. Sin is absolutely, pernicious, that is deadly. Sin is constituted of offenses against God which cannot be satisfied by any payment, penalty, or sentence other than death.

Saying, "I'm sorry" doesn't get it done. Saying, "But I'm REALLY sorry" won't cut it. Even if we had access to all the wealth in the world and offered to pay it as a fine for our sin, it wouldn't begin to approach satisfying the demands of justice. And, were we to submit to being incarcerated for eternity as punishment for sin, "Life, plus forever..." that would be far too short a time to pay our "debt."

Sin is alienation from our Maker. It is corporate and individual brokenness that accounts for all the misery and suffering in the world. And there is one, and only one, remedy for sin. One and only one way to end the rebellion and restore us, and creation to loving relationship with God (and one another). The remedy is the Cross of Christ. And we can only be saved from the inevitable consequences of sin by coming to the Cross, confessing our sin, and our utter hopelessness apart from the grace and mercy of the Father, in and through the Son, imparted to us by faith by the gift of the Holy Spirit, and receiving Jesus as our Savior and Lord.

The world will offer us endless alternatives. For example, I just learned that the "Jedi Church" (Faith based on nothing more than a screenplay!), is the 7th largest in England, and growing rapidly elsewhere. But not one of these alternatives leads anywhere but to death. People ARE looking for answers, and, as I said, the world has no shortage of them, just pick the one that appeals to you, is easiest to accommodate to your life. But what we all really need is to embrace, not merely answers, but THE Truth. Jesus said, "I am the way, the TRUTH, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me." -John 14:6

Got questions: "Why are we here?" "Why is the world so messed up?" "Is there any way to fix things?" "What does the future hold?" I'd love to explore them with you.

(BTW-Just in case you don’t know, Jesus has another answer to the problem of sin in our lives besides removing offending parts of our body.  I’d be happy to talk about that with you too!)

Jim

Marion, NC

PS 37.4