The Sin vs. Sinner Paradox

As Christians we are supposed to be Christ like and yet one area we continually fall short of is judgement of sinners for their sin. Many of us act like Pharisees, Sadducees, Wouldn'tsees and Couldn'tsees when it pertains to sinners and their sins. Each of these groups ends up in one of 2 ditches. In order to keep a right viewpoint it becomes necessary for us to hold 2 diametrically opposing emotions and continue to function as God intended.

     The RIGHT Ditch. The Pharisees and Sadusees were so bound by the law that they had no mercy when dealing with sinners. Either you lived up to their perceived level of righteousness or you were outcast. They invented new rules for believers to live under. Need I remind you that Eve's first sin was not eating of the apple but putting words into God's mouth? Thus sayeth the Lord should be reserved for things the Lord actually said. As such these "law only" people would judge based on the sins they saw and missed the kingdom because of it. They rejected people instead of accepting them. They "couldn'tsee" past the sin and thus persecuted everyone that wasn't like them.

     The LEFT Ditch. You have the "Extremist Seeker Friendly" crowd whom I've dubbed the Wouldn'tsees. Their extremely misguided ideology that grace = mercy taken to it's final conclusion gives them cart blanch to sin. We'll deal with those definitions in a moment. They would rather ignore the commandments of the bible in order to make sinners feel accepted. Their shortfall is taking thus sayeth the Lord and turning it into a suggestion. In an attempt to accept the sinner they have opted to accept the sin as well.

"Text without context is a pretext for a prooftext." ~Dr. Ricky Paris~

     Wouldn'tsees begin to look for scriptures to base their leniency on. Whenever you go to the Bible to prove something you CAN DO IT no matter what IT happens to be. It's called prooftexting. You can prove pigs fly and have over 20 scriptures to back it up. Does it mean pigs can actually fly? The issue is this. The wouldn'tsees have closed their eyes to people's sin and told them that it has no real consequences. They ignore scriptures like, "for the wages of sin is death" , because they would rather concentrate on the gift of God.

     So now you see the 2 ditches. I understand that I've probably offended someone along the way but please understand I'm speaking in extremes here.

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." ~F. Scott Fitzgerald~

     As Christians we are supposed to be Christ like. So what does that look like? How does God view sinners? The answer is with BOTH mercy AND grace, two words readily misinterpreted by both ditches so let's start there.

     Grace, as defined by the original languages, is the divinely given ability to make the correct choice or take right action in any situation. It takes the consequences out of the equation during the moment of decision or action and adds appropriate resources for the task at hand. It does NOT negate free will. It simply levels the playing field. Even when grace is fully activated we, as humans, have the CHOICE to sin or not to sin.

     Mercy, as defined by the original languages, is a divine forgiveness and return to right standing after a fall or mistake. It was never meant to become a foundation for our Christian walk. Mercy is NOT God's plan A nor is it His default position hence the need for a mediator and intercessor.

     There are literally thousands of examples, parables, and teachings where these 2 come into direct contact with each other to teach us how to respond but for the sake of time (and this already wall of text) I'll limit it to 2. 1 for the Right and 1 for the Left.

   John 8: The woman who was caught in adultery and pre-sentenced to death by stoning. This is one that the Left LOVES to quote. Why? Because it deals absolutely as directly as you possibly can with the people in the Right ditch who the Left deem,"obviously wrong." If you know the story skip a few lines. Pharacees have caught an adulteress in the act of fornication, a sin punishable by death according to the Law. The Right was all too happy to bring down the Law in the shape of stones hurled like baseballs too but before they did they wanted to prove to everyone that Jesus was NOT a follower of the Law. They could then push him off as a false teacher and discredit him.

     Here we find point 1 on dealing with sinners and sin. Jesus looked at the crowd and the adulteress. Who was his target? PEOPLE. When dealing with people, deal in mercy. You may know what a dirty rotten no good son of a ... you get the idea. Treat them as if they were your family or friend. Jesus looks at the crowd and answers Law with Law. "He who lives by the sword dies by the sword." There was not one perfect in that whole crowd to throw the first stone. WOHOO! Victory for the LEFT?!? NOT SO FAST! Again we have to go back to the Left's tendency to misuse scripture. Jesus doesn't say, "Go be fruitful and multiply." He says, "Go and SIN NO MORE." It wasn't that he closed his eyes to her sin. He simply differentiated between the sinner and the sin. He dealt with the sinner in mercy and with the sin with grace which leads us to point 2.

     After Jesus' baptism and awesome recognition by God himself, he was led into the wilderness to be tested for 40 days. During this time Satan tempted him with provision with power and with authority all the while using prooftexts to back up his arguments. If mercy was to be our default position then at any point Jesus could have leaned on it. He stayed stead fast answering Law with Law, Scripture with Scripture, Precept with Precept not once giving in to temptation or compromise. Each test dealt directly with the Lordship of God. Sin is a Lordship issue. The apple was a Lordship issue. Either Jesus is the Lord of your life or he isn't. You can't have it both ways. You can't tell God I'll obey you then second guess every command He gives you. The Bible is not a book of suggestions or guidelines. I'm getting off subject. Lordship is for a different thread. The point here is that when he dealt with temptation and compromise in the area of sin, He relied heavily on the grace of God, not mercy.

     So we are to Love sinners and Hate sin. That's not as easy as it sounds. When God deals with sinners He separates the sinner from the sin. He doesn't see adulterers, he sees people who are trapped in adultery. He doesn't see Liars. He sees people who struggle to speak the truth. He doesn't see politicians.... I'll leave that one alone. YOU fill in the blank. You get my point though. The bible says that God separates you from your sin as far as the east is from the west. Yep. He sends your sin to China which explains a lot... We are to do the same. Instead of doing that though we often like to make name tags up that say things like Hello my name is Les Bean and we're more than happy to stick them on everyone around us. That's not what we're called to do. When we deal with the person we deal in love. When we deal with the sin in the person's life we deal in distaste keeping in mind that the person who is trapped by their sin has often tied their identity to their sin. We MUST make it CLEAR when dealing with someone's sin that God loves them and WE love them but we also see the direction their sin will take them. It will kill them. It has to GO! Don't ignore it. Don't pretend that it's ok. Treat it with the levels of grace and mercy that Jesus taught.

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." ~F. Scott Fitzgerald~