Almost 50 years ago, a world-renowned psychiatrist, Dr. Karl Menninger, founder of the famed Menninger Clinic and Menninger Foundation, wrote a book entitled Whatever Became of Sin? In it he expressed concern that the concept of sin, of moral culpability for our actions to God and neighbor, was being eliminated in an increasingly secularized culture and being replaced with rationalizations and explanations excusing individual accountability. Menninger predicted that the term sin, which implied guilt, would be replaced by terms like illness, disorder, dysfunction, syndrome, etc., all implying a naturalistic rather than moral basis for man’s behavior.
He noted that our flawed (fallen) human condition and related misbehavior would be minimized or justified as a product of biochemistry, environment, experience, and trauma, such that even the most deviant crimes and behaviors would be excused.
Unfortunately, what the learned doctor prognosticated has come to pass in our present psychologized culture and has even muted the church in its preaching and teaching on sin and the Gospel. One Christian writer notes, Psychology has been a major player in these unfortunate developments. As a discipline it has successfully established the dogma that the purpose of human existence is no longer to glorify God, but to glorify self. Self, just as was the case in the Garden of Eden, has again taken center stage in the narrative of human consciousness. As this pattern always does, it is destroying the very world in which we live.
Mankind, in our fallen condition, does not/will not comprehend sin and define it as what it is – a gross and vile offense against a holy and righteous God that has corrupted the image of God in each of us and brought the condemnation and judgment of God upon us. To many, if not most in our modern, God ignoring world, sin is a foreign concept and we have no category or context for such a concept. Thus, we minimize, glamorize, legalize, and even celebrate sin and sinners, calling good evil and evil good, (Isaiah 5:20-23) and bringing the related woes upon ourselves and society.
Since the beginning of civilization, mankind has been frustrated in our attempts to solve the problems of war and crime, of poverty and prejudice, of sickness and disease, of injustice and inequality, of boredom and despair. No matter how much money or energy we put into resolving them; no matter what new laws we make to try to control or alleviate them; no matter what technology we develop to address them, no matter what new psychological and sociological theories we apply to them, our man centered attempts to alleviate these problems have been in vain, and will continue to be so.
And the reason for this is because we continually misdiagnose the root cause of all of these problems which is according to the Bible, sin, man’s rejection of God’s purpose for and rule over our lives.
Sin is the ultimate cause of all of the pain and sorrow, conflict and strife, misery and boredom that enter our lives and trouble our world each day. It is responsible for everything from the pain of childbirth to the agony of physical death (Genesis 3:16-19), as well as all of the physical and emotional misery we suffer in between. It has its ultimate end in what the Bible refers to as Hell (Psalm 9:17).
And yet in our fallen, sin corrupted condition, we run to sin, delight in sin, celebrate sin; constantly looking for new ways to satisfy our lusts for pleasure, power and possessions independent of God and in opposition to God, bringing destruction and misery into our lives and the lives of others.
But God, who is rich in mercy (Ephesians 2:4-5), and who delights in displaying mercy (Micah 7:18), has provided a way, the only way by which sinful men, women and children can be saved from the destructiveness and misery of sin, which is through faith in the person and work of God the Son, Jesus Christ (John 14:6).
But before He will save us from our sin, we need to acknowledge it, begin to grasp the gravity, magnitude and destructiveness of sin on our lives; admit to our powerlessness over it, and most importantly, begin to understand sins vileness and its offensiveness to a Holy and Righteous God, and thus its just wages of death and Hell (Romans 6:23). Only then will we sincerely repent of it, begin to hate it as God hates it, and run from it into the sinless arms of Jesus who alone can save us from sin’s power over our lives in this world and from sin’s eternal consequences in the world to come.
More on this controversial topic of sin and God’s great love and delight in saving men from it in my next post.
Grace and Peace ×