"The essence of sin is to fail to glorify God. Man was made to glorify God - 'Man's chief end', the Shorter Catechism tells us, 'is to glorify God and to enjoy Him for ever'. And, you see, if we only defined sin as the failure to do that, we would see how everybody is a sinner, and we would see how the most respectable people can sometimes be the most terrible sinners. They have never been guilty of certain particular sins - of course not, but they do not glorify God; they glorify themselves. So many people say, 'I cannot feel that I am a sinner, I have never felt it'. That is because they are thinking in terms of sins; if only they saw that sin is really just a failure to glorify God with the whole of their being all the time, they would see that they are terrible sinners."
Thursday 4 November 2010
The Essence of Sin
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I'm afraid MLJ is wrong! Taking the Shorter Catechism as your authority is dangerous. As far as I can recall, the "chief end of man" bit never appears in the Bible.
ReplyDeleteWhat the Bible actually says is that "whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Rom 14:23).
Systematic theology is a trap into which you mould all your responses to spiritual matters. If you are not careful, you are following the thoughts of man, not seeking out the Mind of God.
Even great preachers can be wrong. (Or, on the other hand, is it just my ignorance showing?)
That's an interesting stance to take.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I know of MLJ, I'm quite sure that he wouldn't take the Shorter Catechism as an authority, but rather as simply a helpful guide. That being the case, I think we can discount the assumption that he is basing his thinking soley on the words of the Catechism.
Incidentally, I'm a firm believer in the value of systematic theology and catechisms. They're very useful ways of helping us to 'declare the whole counsel of God'. However, I do fully appreciate the accompanying dangers, which you have helpfully highlighted.
But that was an aside.
To return to the issue, I assume you are challenging MLJ's statement that 'the essence of sin is to fail to glorify God' and you do so because you do not agree that 'Man's chief end is to glorify God'. I hope I'm interpreting you correctly.
Even though the phrase does not appear in the Bible, I think it is an accurate paraphrase of Biblical truth.
Take these verses:
Isaiah 43:7 (read verses 1-7 for context)
Romans 11:36
Colossions 1:16
1 Corinthians 10:31
Failure to glorify God is the sin of the group of people described in Romans 1:18-23.
I may be wrong but I suspect you are taking Romans 14:23 slightly out of context because (I think) that verse is talking primarily about things we do which violate our individual consciences. Although that is sin, I don't think we can extrapolate this principle and conclude that the essence of sin is to disobey our conscience.
Actually, I'm seeing a parallel between what MLJ said and what Schaeffer said a few quotes down. The essence of Man's sin is rebellion against God or, to rephrase but shift the emphasis slightly, refusing to glorify Him as God (c.f. Romans 1).
Good riposte! But I remain unconviced. I don't think we fully know why the Lord created man (and gave himself all the grief that he knew would come as a consequence), but I do think the "chief end of man" statement is stretching the facts further than the evidence we have. The verse in Isaiah is good, but I don't particularly feel the others really make it more than a single-verse-proof.
ReplyDeleteI don't know much about MLJ, so I may be doing the good man a disservice.
As for the verse I quoted, it does purport to define sin! I agree that I am then stretching the context. In its place, it is a summary of what precedes it, but I do think it has a more general application. Faith leads us to trust the Scriptures, to accept the Lord's verdict on our lives, to live in obedience to his commandments. [Tempted to add there, even the Ninth ;p ] When we sin, we fail to live by faith in what the Lord has shown us, both in terms of his righteousness and in terms of the consequences of our sin.
I think that telling a sinner that his/her chief end is to glorify God and that failure is sin worthy of eternal punishment is not particularly meaningful. That is partly because of the sin-darkened mind, but also because I don't really think it is a particularly useful definition of sin.
"But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." Heb 11:6
(I am not saying that is a definition of sin either, but it may be more useful in evangelism.)
I agree Romans 1 basically says that the people sinned because they failed to glorify God - but that is more a consequence, not a definition of what sin is.
As for catechisms and sytematic theology, I find that the Bible doesn't fit into neat, man-made categories. I have heard reformed preachers press verses into a particular mould, because that is how they believe the verse *should* be interpreted, according to their theology, but the natural interpretation in context is somewhat different. (People of other persuasions do the same, of course.) I think it can be quite damaging and teaches a method of interpretation that relies on a theology rather than starting with what the Scriptures actually mean. It may be helpful to provide young believers with "shortcuts" to interpretation, but Christians must learn how to feed themselves!
It is a fair point that we can't ever fully know why God chose to create the world. However, I am convinced that there are numerous indications in the Bible that God's overarching purpose in all He does is to bring glory to Himself. If that is the case, a logical extension of that fact would be to assume that the purpose of human beings is to glorify God.
ReplyDeleteSo, I will attempt to establish my premise by pointing you to further verses, which will hopefully demonstrate that this isn't just a single-verse-proof!
God has a passion for His own glory (John Piper's words, not mine). Some evidence:
Isaiah 48:9-11
Jeremiah 13:11
Psalm 106:7-8
Romans 9:17
John 12:27-28
I hope you can see a theme emerging.
The essence of sin is to fail to glorify God; to fail to give Him the preeminence in our lives, to fail to exalt His name, to fail to live according to His will. I think it is perhaps unhelpful to define sin as a failure to exercise sin, although there is certainly some truth in that. In any case, the definition MLJ gives does not exclude all others given in the Bible; he is merely saying that the essence, the core, the heart of all our sinning is a failure to glorify God for who He is.
As to the meaningfulness of this definition, I agree it may not be particularly palatable to unsaved sinners. But the gospel was never meant to be. I think it is useful because it demonstrates the utter depravity of the human condition and leaves nobody in the position where they can deny it.
Going back to the Romans 1 verse, it's interesting that you say the people's failure to glorify God is a consequence of sin, rather than a definition of sin itself. I suppose that, essentially, all the definitions we have both provided for what sin is are all consequences of the existence of sin. Sin is the position we are in before God. All the things we have described are symptoms of our state. Maybe. But it does all boil down to definition. Language is inevitably the problem in this kind of discussion.
Catechisms and systematic theology. I understand your wariness of them. But I still hold to my belief that they are very helpful ways of bringing all the threads of biblical truth together and weaving God's great themes for us to clearly see. Of course, there is always the danger that fallible men will misinterpret God' Word. But, I don't agree that such men necessarily rely on theology rather then Scripture. Anyway, this reply of mine is getting quite insanely long so I'll leave it there and perhaps agree to disagree over this last issue!