We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

NamingSin

The Problem with Naming People’s Sin

Jesus told a woman caught in adultery: “Go and sin no more” (John 8:11). Since Jesus said this, does this give the church the right to tell people not to sin?

It’s one thing for Jesus, who “knew no sin” to say this and quite another for people like us—with tree trunks protruding out of our eyes—to say the same thing. The central point of the story where Jesus says these words is that none of her accusers were in a position to judge her. Jesus invited whoever was without sin to cast the first stone, but no one met that requirement. They were as much sinners as she.

Jesus, the only one who was qualified to condemn the woman, did not do so. Rather he told her to abstain from this sinful activity.

Here’s the lesson: if you want to judge someone else, you first have to be sinless. But if you are sinless, like Jesus, you won’t have any inclination to do so.

But what about the time that Jesus told the Samaritan woman that she had five husbands and was living with a man who was not her husband (John 4:16-18)? Doesn’t this mean that Jesus was setting a model for naming people’s sins?

Jesus didn’t mention this information to judge this woman. The only reason he let this woman know that he was aware of her past was to convince her that he was the Messiah. If this woman would “drink” the water he had to offer she would never thirst again. Even though he knew about her past, the offer of “life” was still on the table, no questions asked!

Had there been any shame or judgment involved, meeting a man who knew everything about her would hardly have been a joyful encounter. However, she went back to her town and joyfully proclaimed what she had heard.

Jesus did not try to fix people’s moral lives. He loved people and offered them everlasting life as they are, regardless of their moral lives. Whatever transforming impact God’s love has on people, it has incredible power because it is given before—and apart from—the transformation itself.

This is how we are called to love. We are to be the shadow that Jesus casts—to imitate God by “living in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us (Eph 5:2). We are to demonstrate the kingdom of Calvary-like acts of service and then proclaim the message of God’s kingdom.

We are to serve, no questions asked. We are to love before they are transformed—even our enemies—with a nonjudgmental love to all who are thirsty. To do this we must refrain from doing what Jesus never did: namely positioning ourselves as wiser, morally superior, or the “fixer” of others.

—Adapted from The Myth of a Christian Nation, pages 130-132

Category:
Tags: ,
Topics:

Related Reading

Podcast: What Will Keep Us from Falling Away in Heaven?

Greg talks heaven and hell in this solid little episode. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0393.mp3 Painting: Fallen Angel By: Odilon Redon Date: 1872

6 Things the Church Fathers Can Teach Us about Spiritual Warfare

Image by Christina Saint Marche via Flickr Unlike our thinking today about the source of good and evil in the world, the early church fathers, including Irenaus, Athenagorus, Origen, and others before Augustine, possessed a warfare worldview. Here are 6 ideas that are common in their writings: The Reality of the “World-in-Between” The church fathers assumed…

Cruciform Aikido Pt 3: The Judge Who Lets Them Have It

We ended our last post noting that in the cross God ingeniously turned evil back on itself and triumphed over it. But what does all this teach us about the nature of divine judgment? Two things. First, as the one who bore our sin, Jesus experienced the judgment we deserved when the Father withdrew himself and…

Q&A: Condemning Sin

Q: I have a question about how you answer the rare occasions when Jesus apparently felt it necessary to publicly condemn sin: like the cleansing of the temple and his very strong judgments on Pharisees and rulers in Matthew 23. Also John the Baptist who not only preached strongly regarding public sins but was imprisoned…

Topics:

Avoiding the “S” Word: Sin

In our culture today, we don’t like to talk about sin. While most of us have a deep sense that something is off, that something is wrong with ourselves and the world, and many know or feel that they are guilty of something, this kind of talk is avoided. Instead, we evaluate ourselves by our…

Topics:

Podcast: What Does it Mean that God No Longer Counts Our Sins Against Us?

Weights and Measures and Merciful Pleasures. Greg discusses divine math. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0392.mp3 Painting: Tea Party By: Andrei Ryabushkin Date: 1903