Level of sin for believers

[Guest]

i like what you are saying too, Mort, except that 3rd degree burn victims are morally innocent (assuming they were accidentally burned). thus the painful treatment cannot be characterized as "punishment"

i certainly believe punishment is meant to restore, but i dont think we can candy coat it by calling itself something other than punishment. Jesus didnt seem to do so. i think its rather obvious throughout the bible that the wicked are punished, and the christian who sins may be punished as well. we can call it restoration, but it still stings.

TK

[Guest]

i like what you are saying too, Mort, except that 3rd degree burn victims are morally innocent (assuming they were accidentally burned). thus the painful treatment cannot be characterized as "punishment"

Of course, every analogy breaks down sooner or later. And yet, maybe we can squeeze a little more out of this one. What of a nine year old boy who, playing with matches, burns the house down and is himself severely burned? He is culpable. He was acting foolishly and rebelliously. His actions resulted in a tragic but predictable outcome. Yet I imagine that all of us would be distraught with compassion for him. We would desire to take his pain and scars, even if it meant taking them upon ourselves. We would forgive him the damage he caused, for in a sense, he knew not what he was doing.

I once heard a presentation given by a man who was very severely burned in an industrial accident caused by his own negligence. He described the events leading up to the accident, the accident itself and the rehabilitation process. One scene that particularly stuck with me was when he recounted how he and the other burn victims at the hospital would be placed in vats of water and nursing staff would climb into the vats with them and scrub the burned tissue off while the patients screamed in agony. I cringe just thinking about it. The agony was absolutely necessary in order to save their lives. Some, like that man giving the presentation, had been burned as a result of their own wrong actions. Perhaps others had been burned as a result of the actions or negligence of someone other than themselves. Yet the horrific injuries they suffered were very rarely intentional.

In his book “Missing the Mark”, Mark Biddle gives the following situation from pastoral experience:

A teenager from a troubled home – her mother had been in a series of unstable, abusive relationships – had been attending youth activities at a rural southern church with a friend for a year or so. She professed faith and joined the church in early summer. Everyone was delighted that she had found some direction for her life and hopeful that she would be able to escape the pattern established in her mother’s life. The youth minister had heard, although he had no firsthand knowledge, that she was seeing an unemployed high-school dropout notorious in the community as a troublemaker. It did not seem appropriate to intrude. Then, as the holidays approached, she came to the minister’s office after a youth function and tearfully announced that she was pregnant. She was distraught. She said that she loved the boy and that she had thought he loved her. Now, he had no interest in establishing a family. Her mother’s response to the news had been: “You made your bed, now lie in it.” Although she was at least an average student, she could envision no alternative to quitting school. The minister feared the daughter reliving the mother’s life: generation following generation.

The conventional understanding of sin offers the ministers in these situations meager tools for ministry. Surely the young girl in the first case was aware of the requirements of conventional morality with respect to premarital sex. Her youth minister could rightly conclude that she had “willfully rebelled,” call her to repentance, and promise forgiveness. In truth, however, the situation was much more complicated. The girl had known no constant, reliable, loving relationship with her father or any of her mother’s companions. No doubt there was a gaping hole in her psyche. For her, theological metaphors likening God’s love to that of a father or a mother were not very communicative of the gospel. Her mother’s example taught her not to expect mutuality in relationships, not to pursue long-term goals or aspire to achievement. Who is to blame? More importantly, what can the church do for the real “victim” in this case, the unborn child, the potential next generation in the cycle? What does the girl need most now, to be forgiven her rash and unwise act or to be healed from the scars left by her upbringing? Is she primarily a rebel or a victim? Has she rebelled against God or succumbed to her insecurities and neediness?

Sin is usually much more complicated than just willful rebellion.

i certainly believe punishment is meant to restore, but i dont think we can candy coat it by calling itself something other than punishment. Jesus didnt seem to do so. i think its rather obvious throughout the bible that the wicked are punished, and the christian who sins may be punished as well. we can call it restoration, but it still stings.

Is punishment meant to restore? What is the purpose of punishment? Isn’t it usually corrective? Punishment is used to modify behavior by instilling in the recipient a desire to avoid incurring it. How does punishment in the afterlife achieve this? In particular, how does an eternity of conscious torment achieve anything?

Is the purpose of God’s judgment to bring about punishment? Behavior modification? If God is love and life and light and is intent on restoration and reconciliation, then perhaps His judgment would be the scrubbing away of those things which are of evil and death and darkness in us. The more these things have disfigured our lives and souls, the more agonizing it may be as they’re scrubbed away. His ultimate goal however, I believe, will be salvation, healing, restoration and reconciliation.

[Guest]

21centpilgrim stated: I heard someone say that sin is sin in that all sin will get you a whipping but some sin will get you more strikes than others. Anyways I do believe that thescripture teaches degrees of punishment and degrees of reward for the things in the body while here on earth.

TK stated: if God is perfectly just (which i hold that He is) then obviously there must be degrees of punishment for greater vs lesser sins.

SIN is SIN. It will be treated the same way before our Holy and Righteous God in heaven. It seems that both of you (21centpilgrim and TK) have resorted to treating some sin as "light" and some as "heavy". Throughout the Old and New Testaments I see that God has an intense and passionate anger toward ALL sin. Let's be careful not to view sin as something that has degrees to it.

[Guest]

I would like for our friend Finneyrevivalist to present some scriptures that say there is no distinction between sins of different degrees. I think of James saying that he who violates one point of law, violates the whole law, but this might only mean that any sin against any point of God's law makes one a sinner as defined by God's law. I am not sure that it goes all the way to proving that every sin is equal in magnitude.

Sin is violation of God's law. If there are "weightier matters of the law" (Matt.23:23), would there not also be "weightier" sins?

If the day of judgment will be "more tolerable" for some lost sinners than for others, does this not suggest degrees of guilt? Or, perhaps, there may be different degrees of guilt among persons who committed equally heinous sins...if some did so with less awareness (e.g., those who did not have access to God's revelation).

It seems that a number of scriptures have been presented suggesting that some sins are more grievous than are others (e.g., sins done in ignorance, as opposed to those done rebelliously). If all sins are actually equal before God, I would be interested in hearing how these scriptures are to be understood, and which scriptures make the case that all sins are equal.

[Guest]

SIN is SIN.

Ah, but what is sin? What is your definition?

Throughout the Old and New Testaments I see that God has an intense and passionate anger toward ALL sin.

Really? So how do the following examples reflect God’s intense and passionate anger:

Jesus’ interaction with the woman caught in adultery (“Neither do I condemn you…”).
Jesus eating and hanging out with tax collectors and sinners (“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”)
Jesus healing, casting out demons and forgiving people, all of whom were SINNERS!
Jesus’ interaction with the rich young man (“If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then Come, follow me.”)
Jesus’ words of praise and forgiveness towards the “sinful” woman who anointed His head with oil and washed His feet with her tears during the banquet at the house of Simon the Pharisee.
Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman who had had five husbands and was currently shacked up with a man who is not her husband.
Jesus’ parable about the lost sheep.
Jesus’ parable about the lost coin.
Jesus parable about the lost son.

The list could go on. What I see in Jesus is the kindest, most compassionate person I’ve ever met. And Jesus said that to see Him is to see the Father. Perhaps you will say, “God hates sin but loves the sinner.” Yet you might then contend that God punishes the sinner, even eternally, which would seem to negate the prior statement.

This week I’ve been pondering the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31. This was a well-known story in Jesus’ day that comes from the Babylonian Gemara. Since we’re all sinners, the poor man in the story (Lazarus) would be a sinner also. Yet, in the story, he is treated with great compassion by God, who has angels carry him to Abraham’s bosom. The Rich Man, on the other hand is in torment because of his lack of compassion for Lazarus while alive. The implication seems clear: Both men were sinners, yet the Rich Man’s sin of neglecting the poor at his doorstep was greater.

It seems that sin does have degrees to it. Scripture would seem to indicate so.

But we still have to come back to the core issue of what sin is. Is sin willful rebellion that deserves punishment? Or is sin more like an infectious disease which we need to be healed of? Is God’s desire towards sinners punishment and torment or forgiveness and restoration? What did Jesus model?

[Guest]

mort wrote:

Is God’s desire towards sinners punishment and torment or forgiveness and restoration?

God's desire is forgiveness and restoration-- but a person has to be willing to receive it. many (most) reject it. the path is narrow and few find it. i heard Billy Graham say that once

TK

[Guest]

Which reminds me of an interesting exercise in doctrinal logic. I think I've brought this up before. Here are three statements that, if posited individually, most Christians would say they agree with (you listed two of these statements, TK, in your previous post). However, when they're listed sequentially, a contradiction becomes apparent.

1. God is able to accomplish what He desires.
2. God desires that people do not go to Hell.
3. Most people will go to Hell.

By your previous post, I guess you would say that 2 & 3 are true, which makes 1 untrue. This would be the Arminian view. A negative way of stating it would be that man's free will trumps God's will. I would question just how free man's will is when he is blinded and lost in sin.

A Calvinist would most likely say that 1 & 3 are true, which (if followed to its logical conclusion), makes 2 untrue. The implication that remains is that God created most people for the purpose of sending them to Hell.

A Christian Universalist would say that 1 & 2 are true and 3 is untrue. To hold this position means to find oneself in the company of Quakers, Anabaptists and others on the fringe of Christendom. It also means coming to grips with a vast array of scriptural interpretation and doctrine.

In this scenario, I would go with the third choice. This is perhaps the underlying reason why we would differ on our view of how God deals (and has dealt) with sin.

I don't want to take the thread off in a different direction from "levels of sin", but your post brought this to mind.

[Guest]

mort wrote:

By your previous post, I guess you would say that 2 & 3 are true, which makes 1 untrue.

not necessarily, because God may not choose to do what he is able to do. if most people go to hell, God certainly isnt happy about it. i am sure it grieves Him very deeply. i hope #3 is not true. we have discussed this ad nauseum elsewhere on the forum. but when Jesus said that "few" find the path that leads to life, i think he meant what He said. we can certainly speculate about what he meant exactly, but from the context it seems clear. He even said that many who think they are on the narrow(coorect) path are simply wrong (Mt. 21-22). if universalism is true, Jesus would not have needed to warn about being on the right path. any old path would do.

TK

[Guest]

He even said that many who think they are on the narrow(coorect) path are simply wrong (Mt. 21-22). if universalism is true, Jesus would not have needed to warn about being on the right path. any old path would do.
TK

Remember that mort is referring to Christian universalism, not the Unitarian universalism that denies the place and authority of Christ.

With Christian universalism, Jesus warning still applies because following Him on the narrow path in this life is still the right thing to do.

[Guest]

Mort, much of your post seems logical to me. But I have a difficulty with some of the statements. I understand why it might be thought that the following propositions cannot all be true:

1. God is able to accomplish what He desires.
2. God desires that people do not go to Hell.
3. Most people will go to Hell.

At one point you say:

A Christian Universalist would say that 1 & 2 are true and 3 is untrue. To hold this position means to find oneself in the company of Quakers, Anabaptists and others on the fringe of Christendom. It also means coming to grips with a vast array of scriptural interpretation and doctrine.

What are you saying about the position of Quakers and Anabaptists? All the Anabaptist groups I know, believe that most people will go to Hell.

As for "Christian Universalists", most, without contradiction, believe all three. But they don't understand the biblical "Hell" to be a place or condition of eternal torment, but rather a place or condition of remediation, where correction may require many ages.