Separating Sin From The Sinner

I think I need to clarify my previous post a little bit regarding how Christians should behave in the aftermath of the culture war.  Christians sometimes struggle when it comes to separating sin from the sinner.  This causes us to swing to one of two extremes.  We either alienate those who have sinned by coming across as too judgmental or we find ourselves excusing all manner of sin to the point where our society no longer properly functions.

On the one hand there are Christians who are all law and no mercy and on the other you have those who are all mercy and no law.  The fact is we need both the law and mercy.  Jesus illustrated this when he saved the adulteress from being stoned – an event that many misinterpret to justify their all mercy/no law point of view.

Jesus famously challenges those who are without sin to cast the first stone.  Of course no one is without sin, so the crowd disperses.  Jesus ends the encounter by telling the woman, “Go and sin no more”.

In this episode Jesus does not validate the lifestyle choice the woman made that led her into adultery.  His proclamation to “sin no more” points out the fact that the manner in which she had been living was wrong and she needs to stop it.

You can substitute any form of aberrant behavior into this story.  Replace the adulteress with a thief or a murderer and it still holds true.  We all sin.  God sent Jesus to wash away all of our sins.  None of us has the moral high ground from which to cast stones of judgment at each other.

But our collective moral failings do not make the law invalid.  Jesus did not take the opportunity of that encounter to tell the crowd, “you know what, that whole adultery thing is outdated.  From this point forward I proclaim love is love, even if you are in love with someone else’s husband or wife.”

Jesus said “sin no more” – meaning that despite the reprieve the woman had been given, the behavior that led her to that point was still wrong.  In sparing her, he validated her worth as a child of God, but he did not validate her sinful behavior.

This distinction is important because nowadays a lot of Christians are falling into the trap of validating sin because so many people are now leading lives where they are choosing to be defined by their sin.  It is a lot trickier for a Christian to navigate a relationship with a homosexual than it is with someone who has fallen into adultery.  No one self-identifies as an adulterer.  It is pretty straightforward for a Christian to make it clear that they don’t condone the act of adultery but still show love and compassion to the adulterer.  And most importantly, the Christian would make it clear that they would not define that person as an adulterer going forward.

But how does this work when you have someone who wants to be defined by their sin?  What would Jesus say if the woman had been targeting for stoning because she was engaging in homosexual behavior?  The story would play out the same way.  He would challenge the accusers by pointing out that they are no less guilty than her.  He would show her mercy, but he would end by telling her to sin no more.  So just as before, he would validate her intrinsic worth, but he would not validate her lifestyle choice.

So for us as Christians that means loving all those who live in ways that don’t agree with our Christian beliefs.  But as much as we love the individuals, we cannot support the lifestyle choices they make.  We don’t turn our backs on them.  We don’t cut them out of our lives.  We don’t point fingers at them and call them sinners.  But it is fair for us to raise our voices in disagreement when they want to make changes in our society to validate their lifestyle choice.  In fact, it is our duty to protect the integrity of God’s laws just as Jesus protected the integrity of the law during his earthly ministry.  At every turn he told the sinners that their sins were forgiven.  He did not go around telling people that they were wrong to think of themselves as sinners.

Think of it this way, when given the choice between declaring his laws null and void to remove the concept of sin or sending his son to die on a cross to redeem people from sin, God chose to keep the concept of sin and redeem people from it.  He did this because his laws have value – so much so that he was willing to let his son suffer to maintain their integrity.  He did it because human civilization requires laws to properly function.  Without them we devolve into madness and chaos.  Some might argue we are seeing that unfold right now.
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So the next time you feel sheepish about taking a stand on an issue because you don’t want to be guilty of judging, remember to separate the sinner from the sin.  Have compassion for the person but hold strong to the values that God has assigned to our society.  If you are someone who strongly believes in protecting the environment, would you stay silent as some of your friends and neighbors pushed policies that you knew would harm the environment or would you politely take a stand and attempt to counter their actions?  If it is acceptable for an environmentalist to speak out to protect the environment, it is equally justified for Christians to speak out to protect the laws of God.  But in doing so we must never lose sight of love for our neighbor, for that is the highest of laws, second only to loving God.
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