Archive for the ‘Sin’ Category

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Chastisements for Sin

Thursday, October 23rd, 2008

In our latest Puritan book The True Bounds of Christian Freedom by Samuel Bolton, one chapter addresses the question, “Are Christians freed from all punishments and chastisements for sin?”

He clarifies between three kinds of punishments – temporal, spiritual, and eternal. In regards to eternal punishment, the Bible is clear that those in Christ have been pardoned and set free from such punishment. In regards to spiritual and temporal punishments, Christians are free from these “as they have relation to, or are subordinate to, eternal punishment.” That means these types of punishments are sometimes the direct fruits of sin’s curse, but Christ bore sin’s curse for his own, and thereby freed Christians from the spiritual and temporal consequences of the curse.

“Believers are freed from temporal punishments as they are the fruits of sin, or as merely penal, for to this extent are they parts of the curse, and so are inflicted on wicked men, but not upon the godly, all of whose troubles are fruitful, not penal, troubles.”

But note that for the Christian, he still might experience troubles as a result of his sin. However, his troubles should be seen as “fruitful troubles” not “penal (punitive) troubles”. That means these “troubles” are a means of correcting us for our good.

“It must always be remembered that, although Christ has borne the punishment of sin, and although God has forgiven the saints of their sins, yet God may God-fatherly correct His people for sin. Christ endured the great shower of wrath, the black and dismal hours of displeasure for sin. That which falls upon us is a sunshine shower, warmth with wet, wet with the warmth of His love to make us fruitful and humble. . . . That which the believer suffers for sin is not penal, arising from vindictive justice, but medicinal, arising from a fatherly love.”

And then Bolton offers five reasons why God chastens his people:

1) God may do it for the terror of wicked men: “If God deals thus with His friends what shall become of His enemies?”
2) God may do it for the manifestation of His justice, that He may show to the world that He is just: “If He should punish others for sin, but spare His own, wicked men would say that He was partial.”
3) God may do it to remove scandal: “The sins of the saints bring scandal upon religion . . . God was more dishonoured by David’s uncleanness than by all the filth of Sodom.”
4) God may do it for caution to others: “God chastises lest sin should spread to others.”
5) God may do it for his people’s own good here, and for the furtherance of their salvation hereafter: “The chief [reason] is that God chastises them to make them partakers of His holiness here and of His glory hereafter; and indeed, to sweeten heaven and glory to them.”

Posted in Problem of Evil, Sin

Even Sin Can Be Inlets of God’s Grace

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008

In our Puritan Reading Challenge book, A Lifting Up for the Downcast, William Bridge offers strong comfort to believers who have fallen into great sin. In one section, he contends that God, in his sovereignty, permits a believer to sin in order to create an “inlet unto further grace and comfort”.

“If the very sins of God’s people, through the overruling hand of grace, shall be an occasion of more grace and comfort to them than ever they had in all their lives before; then surely they have no reason to be discouraged in this respect [that is, in cases of great sin]. God never permits His people to fall into any sin but He intends to make that sin as inlet unto further grace and comfort to them.”

He goes on to give biblical examples, noting especially that the saints usually failed in that area of grace where they were strong – but where God wanted them stronger.

“And if you look into the Scripture, you will observe that when the people of God fall, usually they fail in that grace wherein they most excel. . . . Abraham did most excel in faith, and therein he did most miscarry. Moses did most excel in meekness, and therein he did most miscarry. . . . What is the reason of this, but because the Lord by the overruling hand of His grace, did make their very miscarriages, inlets and occasions to their further grace and holiness. God has a great revenue from the very infirmities of His people. He never permits any of His people to fall into any sin, but He hath a design by that fall to break the back of that sin they do fall into.”

That last sentence is amazing. That means God uses our sins, which are nonetheless evil, as instruments of sanctification. For example, God – having ordained Abraham to be the progenitor of His covenant people – allowed the man of faith to fall into sin (in his case, self-serving distrust; see Gen 12:13, 20:2) in order to strengthen him with even greater faith.

God is merciful and sovereign enough to use my sin for my good! What a staggering truth and source of comfort for the true believer who is weighed down by the burden of his or her sin.

Posted in Books, Sin

Puritan Book for June: The Mortification of Sin

Friday, June 13th, 2008

The June book for the Dunbar Puritan Reading Challenge is John Owen’s The Mortification of Sin (or, a free online version). For those unfamiliar with Owen, I direct you to this website dedicated to him and his works. The FAQ page provides lots of details about him.

The Mortification of Sin emphasizes the necessity for Christians to be daily fighting their sin – or in Owen’s own words, “Be killing sin or it will be killing you”. The implications is that even the best of saints have to deal with the indwelling sin in their flesh. The normal Christian life is not one of triumph and conquest over sin but one of constant vigilance and battle against sin.

For those weighed down by their sin but who still yearn for righteousness, consider these comforting words from Martin Luther.

This life, therefore, is not righteousness but growth in righteousness,
not health but healing,
not being but becoming,
not rest but exercise.
We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it;
the process is not yet finished but it is going on;
this is not the end but it is the road.
All does not yet gleam in glory but all is being purified.

Posted in Books, Sin

Packer: "All Sins Are Not Equal"

Saturday, March 15th, 2008

In a Christianity Today article, J.I. Packer responds to the question, “Are all sins weighed equally, or is one more important than another?”

He answers that all sins are not equal and that some have greater consequences. But first he acknowledges that in one sense all sin is equal in the eyes of the Lord.

On one level, all sins are equal in that no matter how trivial they seem, they all deserve God’s “wrath and curse, both in this life, and that which is to come, and cannot be expiated but by the blood of Christ.” No sins are small when committed against a great and generous God. Beyond this, however, the gravity of each transgression depends on varying factors.

Then he expands on each of the factors that determine the gravity of a particular sin:

  1. The extent to which the transgressor knows better.
  2. The identify of the persons offended (ranging from the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, to fellow man)
  3. The extent to which the transgressor acts in defiance of conscience or the censures from others.
  4. The circumstances of time and place involved in the sin.
  5. The unforgivable sin (“such resistance to the light of Spirit-taught truth about the deity and grace of Jesus Christ as rules out all possibility of faith and repentance”)

Posted in Sin

Is suicide an unforgivable sin?

Thursday, November 8th, 2007

[Addressing mental illness and suicide - part 3]
There is no doubt that some Christians believe and teach that suicide is an unforgivable sin. But at the outset, let me say that it is unfair to attribute this view to official Catholic teaching. To the best of my knowledge, in their scheme the category of “mortal” sins can still be forgiven through the Sacrament of Confession (please correct me if I’m mistaken). But regardless, the popular thought of some Catholics and Evangelicals alike consider suicide an unforgivable sin.

But the Bible only mentions one unforgivable sin, namely to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. All other sins can be forgiven. Let me quote Piper again from another funeral meditation for a Christian suicide victim. After expounding upon the mystery of God’s ways and the greatness of his mercy and after stating, “Anyone who will trust him can be made new” – he asks the big question.

What about our friend? Was she made new when she put her life into the hands of God? We have good reason to think she was on the new road. Not instant change, but on the road. The wounds of sin don’t heal easily. But then came the suicide. And in our minds there lingers the question: Is she safe with Christ? Or does suicide bring condemnation? Jesus has a word for us here:

Truly I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness but is guilty of eternal sin. (Mark 3:28–29)

Only one thing puts a person beyond forgiveness: blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. But this is not any single act, for Jesus says any sins and blasphemies will be forgiven those who follow him. No. Blasphemy against the Spirit of God is treating the Spirit as dirt by continually and persistently resisting and rejecting this call to repentance until death.

No single sin, not even suicide, evicts a person from heaven into hell. One thing does: continual rejection of God’s Spirit. Our friend, we believe, gave up that resistance and accepted the forgiveness of Christ. What sort of momentary weakness, what brief cloud of hopelessness caused her to take her life remains a mystery. But no one can say this: that her final act is unforgivable. Nor any other act by any of us. For Jesus said: all sins will be forgiven the sons of men if they give up resisting the Spirit and look to Jesus for salvation.

I appreciate how Piper does not shy away from calling suicide a sin, but he also does not elevate suicide above all other sins – as if it were worthy of greater guilt or damnation. All sin is equally damnable, but all sin can be forgiven if we turn to Jesus in faith – even if the sin is our final act.
[I want to direct our reader who raised this issue to Jeremy's insightful response to your comment]

Posted in Sin, Suicide

A balanced approach to treating depression

Friday, November 2nd, 2007

[Addressing mental illness and suicide - part 2]
We plan to still address the charge of suicide being an unforgivable sin, but we will first write concerning mental illness – depression, in particular. Concerning this topic, a very perceptive and pastoral resource is Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ book Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure. The book approaches depression from not only its spiritual dimension (as the title suggests) but also attends to the psychological/physical. In the first chapter, Lloyd-Jones examines some general causes. As we consider just the first two, we will highlight his balanced approach of neither secularizing nor over-spiritualizing the treatment of depression.

The first cause he mentions is individual temperament (ie. personality type). Some Christians disregard such a concern as psycho-babble, but Lloyd-Jones readily acknowledges that people are wired differently, meaning some are more prone to spiritual depression. Though this predisposition does not disadvantage a person in obtaining to salvation, such a temperament, “does make a very great difference in actual experience in the Christian life.” That means every believer fights the same fight and experiences the same kinds of sorrow, but for some the “manifestation of the trouble” can be intensified in their minds. So a blanket remedy for Christian sorrow cannot be uniformly applied to all believers.

When diagnosing or treating depression in believers, we must take into account their unique personality while ministering to their spiritual condition. Most would agree that so-called introverts are more prone to depression due to their tendency towards, as Lloyd-Jones puts it, “morbidity and introspection”. So when treating introverted believers wrestling with depression, we should teach them the difference between self-examination and introspection. The former practice turns us inward to realize our weakness before turning us back to Christ, but the latter leaves us self-absorbed. Lloyd-Jones puts it this way:

We are meant to examine ourselves periodically, but if we are always doing it…that is introspection. And if we are always talking to people about ourselves and our problems and troubles, and if we are forever going to them with that kind of frown upon our face and saying: I am in great difficulty – it probably means that we are all the time centred upon ourselves. That is introspection, and that in turns leads to the condition known as morbidity.

In addition to temperament being a cause, certain physical aliments tend to promote depression. He points to Charles Spurgeon whose life-long battle with the gout was consistently accompanied by “a tendency to acute depression”. The point is that we cannot overlook the physical causes of depression. Just treating the spiritual condition through prayer and biblical exhortation is short-sighted if we do nothing to alleviate the physical conditions that spur on the depression. Lloyd-Jones puts it this way:

You cannot isolate the spiritual from the physical for we are body, mind and spirit. . . . If you recognize, however, that the physical may be partly responsible for your spiritual condition and make allowances for that, you will be better able to deal with the spiritual.

These “allowances” would most likely include a regimen of medicine to treat their physical conditions. That means prescribing medicine to a depressed believer does not imply a lack faith in the gospel to cure, so long as you keep a right perspective of caring for the whole person – body, mind and spirit. We hope Lloyd-Jones’ balanced approach in treating depression helps our reader in ministering to hurting friends.

Posted in Suicide

Can a true Christian commit suicide?

Tuesday, October 30th, 2007

[Addressing mental illness and suicide - part 1]
Recently a reader has requested us to address the topic of mental illness and suicide from a Christian perspective. Due to the sensitivity of this issue and without knowing what prompted this question, we will have to approach this topic from more than one angle and in more than one post. This initial post will simply address suicide and the question: Can a true Christian commit suicide? Does the act of suicide nullify a Christian’s salvation or does it unequivocally prove that he/she did not persevere in faith? These are the difficult questions that haunt those who have lost loved ones – whom at one point professed and demonstrated a real faith in Christ.

In the initial reading I’ve done, the most perceptive response comes from Piper in a funeral meditation he recently gave for a young man who committed suicide. In it he says this:

True Christians can commit suicide. Or to put it another way: There is nothing unique or peculiar about the final act of life that makes it determinative in validating or nullifying our salvation. Or let me say it another way: The final season of faith with all its battles and failures is not the only season of faith that will bear witness in the Last Day that we were born again.

For example, suppose tonight, in my physical weariness, the remaining corruption in my born-again, Christian heart were to get the upper hand, and pride and self-pity and anger were to lash out verbally at my wife. And then suppose that in a great self-justifying huff, I stormed out of the door, got in the car, bolted carelessly through the stop sign on 18th Avenue and was broadsided by a truck and killed in an instant? Would I go to heaven?

Unless I have been a hypocrite through all these last fifty-five years of my Christian life, the answer is yes. For these reasons: 1) Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for my sins and bore the wrath of God in my place so that all my sins might be forgiven. 2) Jesus Christ lived a perfect life of obedience so that by his obedience many sinners could be counted righteous, including me. 3) This sacrifice and this righteousness become mine by faith alone when I trust Jesus as the Lord and Savior and Treasure of my life. 4) This trust is embattled till the day I die, with seasons of strength and seasons of weakness, seasons of darkness and seasons of light. 5) If the last season is so dark that I die by my own sin, that season is not the only season that God takes into account when he presents the evidence that my faith was real.

The main point is that the believer’s cause of death and final state of mind (whether by his own hands in a state of depression or by an accident in a state of rage) is not what determines his future destiny. The determinative factor is whether or not he placed his faith in Christ as his “Lord and Savior and Treasure”. God takes into account your whole life (not just the final moments or season), so if you have been justified through faith, then you have peace with God through Christ (Rom 5:1).

Remember: when God promised to persevere his children in faith till the end, he did not specify the condition of our minds or hearts at the final hour – only that he will complete the good work he started (Phil 1:6). I hope this promise offers our reader encouragement and comfort. The next post will address the charge that suicide is an unforgivable sin.

Posted in Suicide

Joel Osteen on 60 Minutes

Monday, October 15th, 2007

Last night, 60 Minutes aired an interview with Joel Osteen, pastor of the mega-Lakewood Church in Houston, TX. He is presently the most popular preacher in America. Here is an interesting quote from the interview:

Interviewer: You said ‘I like to see myself as a life coach, a motivator to help them experience the life of God that God has for them. People don’t like to be beat down and told ‘You’ve done wrong.’ What do you mean?
Osteen: Well, I think that most people already know what they’re doing wrong. And for me to get in here and just beat ‘em down and talk down to ‘em, I just don’t think that inspires anybody to rise higher. But I want to motivate. I wanna motivate every person to leave here to be a better father, a better husband, to break addictions to come up higher in their walk with the Lord.

Osteen should be commended for aiming in his preaching to make better fathers and husbands and to help people break addictive cycles, but he is short-sighted in his optimism of fallen humanity. Granted, “most people know what they’re doing wrong”, but they don’t know who they are offending when they do wrong. They think they’re just offending the person they lied to or screamed at, but in reality their “wrongs” ultimately offend God. Most people know they’re not perfect and that they can be hurtful to others, but most people don’t know they are sinners before a holy God.

If we really want to help people “come up higher in their walk with the Lord”, then we first need to show them how to be reconciled with the holy Lord. And that can only happen if our preaching explains the whole council of God, including the depths of our depravity, the true offense of our sin, and the blood-bought atonement of our Redeemer. It may not be a popular message, but it is the Gospel.

Michael Horton, a prof at Westminster Seminary California, was also interviewed and gave a critique of Osteen’s prosperity gospel. He has written several essays on Osteen as a case study.

But here’s the real story in last night’s interview that got lost in all this talk about preaching and the Gospel: “Osteen can bench-press 300 lbs., which is twice his body weight.”

Posted in Gospel, Sin

Does God Author Sin?

Wednesday, August 29th, 2007

The DGM blog has begun a 4-part series asking the question, “Does God author sin?” The first post has an online portion of John Frame’s Doctrine of God, not available elsewhere online.

Posted in Problem of Evil, Sin

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