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Is the Shedding of Blood Required for the Forgiveness of Sins? (Hebrews 9:22)

By Jeremy Myers
147 Comments

Is the Shedding of Blood Required for the Forgiveness of Sins? (Hebrews 9:22)
http://media.blubrry.com/one_verse/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/428490399-redeeminggod-114-does-god-require-blood-sacrifice-before-he-forgives-sins-hebrews-922.mp3

Hebrews 9:22 provides the main reason Christians believe that if Jesus had not shed His blood for us, we could never have been forgiven for our sins. Hebrews 9:22 refers to Leviticus 17:11 as saying this:

… without the shedding of blood, there can be no forgiveness of sins.

So there we go! The blood of Jesus is important – necessary even – for the forgiveness of sins.

End of story. The question is answered. The post stops here.

Except … hmm … something doesn’t seem quite right with that quick and tidy answer …

For example, I forgive people all the time without requiring that they shed blood for me. And I’m really glad that people forgive me all the time without asking that I open a vein or kill my cat for them.

So if I can offer forgiveness without the shedding of blood, and so can other people, what is going on with God? Doesn’t He freely forgive (Col 3:13)? Since when are there conditions for unconditional love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness? Is God’s forgiveness of a lesser sort than ours? Or maybe His forgiveness is of a more powerful type of forgiveness that requires blood?

And if God’s forgiveness is greater and so requires blood, then my next question is, “Why blood?” I mean, if God is the one making the rules, and sin is a serious affront to His holiness, then why did He decide that blood would appease Him? Why not require … I don’t know … spit? Or hair? Yes, I like the hair idea.

Why didn’t God simply say “Without the cutting of hair, there can be no forgiveness of sins”? Of course, that might not be fair to bald people, but I digress …

Hebrews 9 22

What’s the deal with blood?

Yes, yes, I know. I’ve been to “the seminary.” They tell us:

It’s because the life is the blood.

That’s from Leviticus 17:11. In the Bible. And since we have a verse, the discussion is over.

But wait! That’s no answer. The question still stands. So okay, God wants blood, and it has something to do with the life of a person being in the blood. But God makes the rules, so why did He decide He wanted blood? Why does God want to kill people (or animals in the place of people) because people sin?

In fact, come to think of it, the issue isn’t with blood any more. The issue now is with God. Why does God want blood?

I could follow this line of reasoning further, but I think you get the point. In fact, some of that conversation might sound very similar to conversations you have had with atheists. At least, much of what I wrote above echoes conversations I have had with atheists. Atheists are atheists for a variety of reasons, but some of them have real issues with a god who demands blood so that He can forgive sins.

And you know what I tell them? I say this:

God Doesn’t Want Blood

God doesn’t want blood. God wants life! It is WE who think that God wants blood (when He doesn’t).

The idea of God demanding blood is borrowed from pagan religions. Jesus went to the cross, not to reinforce and support this idea, but to expose and redeem it. That’s a huge idea which would take us down a whole new rabbit trail.

Hebrews 9:22 shedding of bloodBut if God doesn’t demand blood, then how does God forgive? Doesn’t Hebrews 9:22 teach that God needs blood in order to forgive us? No, it does not. Let us read carefully what Hebrews 9:22 says in context.

1. Hebrews 9:22 contrasts Jesus with Moses

The first thing to notice about the context of Hebrews 9:22 is that the author is clearly contrasting the sacrificial system of the Mosaic Law with what Jesus accomplished in His death on the cross.

One way to note this is by looking back to Hebrews 9:15, which is the opening statement in the larger context of this discussion about sacrifice and blood. In Hebrews 9:15, the author writes about the “redemption of the transgressions.” The word used there is not the normal word for “sin” in the NT, but is parabaino (STR: 3847), and means to overstep or go beyond the boundaries.

The TDNT says that parabaino is closely connected with sin in the New Testament, but primarily in the sense of using human tradition to disobey the law of God while claiming to be the fulfillment of the law.

In other words, parabaino takes place when someone tries to explain and apply the law of God, but actually ends up doing the exact opposite of what the law says.

The author of Hebrews indicates that Jesus came to redeem sin, that is, to redeem the parabaino type of sin. More specifically still, Jesus came to redeem the sin of misusing the law. It is this issue that concerns the author of Hebrews.

2. Hebrews 9:22 says there is purification and forgiveness Without Blood

Second, it is important to note that even in Hebrews 9:22, the author pretty adamantly states that there is purification and forgiveness apart from the shedding of blood. The author says, “almost all things are purified with blood …”

If we went back to read the Levitical law, we would see that purification and forgiveness was extended under a variety of circumstances, including the washing with water (Lev 15:16-17; 17:15), anointing with oil (Lev 14:29), burning flour (Lev 5:11-13), giving money (Exod 30:11-16), or releasing an animal into the wild (Lev 16:10).

And in fact, when it comes to intentional sins, there was no offering of any kind which was prescribed by the law. All the sacrifices and offerings of the law are for unintentional sins only. This means that when an Israelite sinned intentionally (as they most certainly did, just as we do), the only way they could receive forgiveness from God was to look to Him for it in faith (just like us)!

The author of Hebrews knows all this, which is why he says that almost all things are purified by blood.

3. Hebrews 9:22 is not about Sin; but about the Covenant

Of course, even this requires further modification, for it is not true that almost all things required blood for purification. A quick reading of the Law reveals that most things did not require blood.

So what does the author of Hebrews mean?

The context indicates that the author specifically has in mind the tabernacle and the religious items within the tabernacle (Hebrews 9:21). The author is talking about the initial dedication ceremony of the first tabernacle built by Moses. This purification and dedication ceremony initiated the Mosaic Covenant (Hebrews 9:18-19).

So the author of Hebrews is not giving a general principle in Hebrews 9:22 for how we receive forgiveness of sins, but is instead referring to how the covenant of Moses was initiated by blood.

4. Hebrews 9:22 says that Shedding of Blood came from the Law

Fourth, notice that the author of Hebrews specifically states where the instruction about offerings of blood came from. He does not say, “and God commanded that all things be purified with blood, for without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”

No, Hebrews 9:22 specifically states that this these things are “according to the law.” Of course, those of us who hold to the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture don’t see much difference between something the law stated and something God stated, and yet we must be careful because numerous Old Testament prophets emphatically declared that God is not the one who gave the law or commanded that the people offer sacrifices, and He was not pleased with these sorts of religious rituals, nor did He ever want them (cf. Jer 7:21-23; Amos 5:21-24; Micah 6:6-8).

This is the same point the author of Hebrews makes in 10:5-6.

Reconciling the words of these inspired prophets with the modern understanding of inspiration and inerrancy is a difficult task indeed. I have a way that works for me, but again, to travel down that rabbit trail would take us too far afield.

But however we understand that thorny issue, we can all agree that in Hebrews 9:22, the author is simply contrasting how the law inaugurated the Mosaic Covenant with how Jesus inaugurated the New Covenant.

shedding of blood for forgiveness of sins

5. The Shedding of Blood Never Brought Forgiveness!

In light of this contrast, notice fifthly, that the author of Hebrews deftly shows how the Mosaic covenant, with all its bloody sacrifices, was never able to accomplish what it promised.

The author of Hebrews points out that it is “impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4). Though it was the law that promised the forgiveness of sins through blood sacrifices, the simple fact that the law required perpetual sacrifices revealed that the law could not deliver what it promised.

Nobody was ever actually forgiven through the blood of a sacrifice! So according to the author of Hebrews, though the law required blood for forgiveness, blood didn’t provide any forgiveness! The law didn’t work!

6. Hebrews 9:22 is not about Forgiveness OF SINS

This leads to a sixth point about Hebrews 9:22 which should not be missed.

I intentionally misquoted Hebrews 9:22 above. I quoted it as saying that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”

But Hebrews 9:22 does not include those final two words. Hebrews 9:22 says nothing about sin. Yes, sin is mentioned in Hebrews 9:26-28, but only in reference to the sacrifice of Jesus. The first time the author references sin in connection to the sacrificial blood of the Mosaic covenant is in Hebrews 10:4, where, as we have just seen, the only connection between sin and blood is that sin cannot be taken away by the blood of bulls and goats.

So what is the blood for in Hebrews 9:22? Again, as we saw above, it was for the purification of the tabernacle and its vessels when Moses inaugurated the first covenant. Modern western Christians are so infatuated with sin, that we see sin everywhere and believe that our biggest problem in the world is sin and that God is sitting in heaven trying to figure out how to stop us all from sinning.

I believe that nothing could be further from the truth.

God is not nearly as concerned with sin as we are.

Before the majesty of God’s holiness and love, all the sin of the world is little more than an annoying flea jumping around on the ground by his foot. Sin is not that big of a deal for God. The only reason He is concerned at all about sin is because sin hurts and damages us, and since He loves us beyond all imagination, He wants to do something about that annoying flea, because it has bitten us and injected us with all sorts of harmful toxins.

Also, God must do something about sin because sin is a big deal for Satan, and Satan uses sin to lay claim to our lives, which is something God does not want. But this too is another rabbit trail which we must avoid for now. The bottom line is that sin is not a big deal for God, and sin is not the issue in Hebrews 9:22.

7. Hebrew 9:22 isn’t even about “Forgiveness”

But what about the word “forgiveness” in Hebrews 9:22? Doesn’t that indicate that sin is the issue? No, it does not. This is the seventh point about this important text.

The word which the author uses here is the Greek word aphesis. This word does not mean “forgiveness” in the way that modern, English-speaking people think about forgiveness. Instead, aphesis is something closer to “deliverance” or “release.”

It has in mind the picture of someone who is enslaved and in chains, and someone else come along with the key to unlock them and set them free. I have written previously about aphesis.

In Scripture, we are freely forgiven of all our sins, past, present, and future, completely and only by the grace of God. We are, however, called upon to obey God so that we might enjoy the freedom from sin that He wants for us. Sin injects us with toxins that further enslave us, which God wants to liberate us from.

This sort of release often requires something on the part of the one who is being released, lest they fall right back into slavery after having been released! In this way, aphesis is a symbiotic forgiveness. It not only requires that the liberator unlock the chains; it also requires that the liberated run away from what had chained them.

blood of Jesus shed for us forgiveness of sins

8. The “Release” of Hebrews 9:22 is a Release of the Covenant

In Hebrews 9, it is not people who are being released, but the covenant itself! This eighth point is that the blood of Hebrews 9:22 has absolutely nothing to do with the removal of sin.

Instead, the blood was for the enactment of the Mosaic Covenant. The author of Hebrews could not be more clear. He says that a testament, or will, is not put into effect until the one who wrote it dies (Hebrews 9:16-17). My wife and I have Wills, and as is the case with all Wills, they do not go into effect until we die. A “Last Will and Testament” has no power while we live.

So after Moses wrote the Covenant, or the testament, he enacted a death over it to make it effective and active upon the people (Hebrews 9:19-21).

Whose “Last Will and Testament” was this? It was God’s! It was God’s covenant to the people.

But since God Himself could not come down to die and so enact the covenant, Moses symbolized the death of God with “the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop” (Hebrews 9:19).

The “release” in Hebrews 9:22 then, is the release of the covenant.

Prior to the shedding of the blood of the bulls and goats, the covenant was not active. It was under lock and key. A death was needed to free it, liberate it, or enact it.

And since God was the “testator” (Hebrews 9:16), but God could not die, Moses killed calves and goats to symbolize the death of God, and in so doing, enacted the covenant of God with His people, Israel.

It has nothing whatsoever to do with sin.

Nor does Hebrews 9:22 have anything with the conditions of forgiveness, for as we have seen above, the covenant offered numerous ways for people to receive purification from sin, and when it came to forgiveness for intentional sins, the Israelites believed on the grace of God for forgiveness just as we do.

9. The People were also Released from Slavery

But the “remission” or “release” of Hebrews 9:22 is not just of the covenant. The implementation of the first covenant with Moses took place after the Israelite people had been delivered and redeemed from captivity in Egypt.

From a purely legal standpoint, they were runaway slaves. And according to the laws of slavery, as long as a slave is still living and has not yet been set free, the slave is still a slave, even if they run away.

So the redemption enacted as part of the Mosaic covenant was the redemption of the slaves from Egypt. The death of the calves and goats symbolized the death of the Israelite people to their former life of slavery in Egypt.

Through the Mosaic covenant, the people of Israel died to their old identification as slaves to the household of Pharaoh (i.e., Egypt), and were raised again to a new identification as members of the household of God. This is why the water and the blood was sprinkled not just on the book of the covenant, but also on all the people (Hebrews 9:19).

They were dying to their past and were being born again into a new family. As members of this new family, they had new household rules to live by, which were enumerated in the Mosaic covenant.

10. Hebrews 9:22 in the context of Hebrews 9-10

All of this together helps us understand the discussion in Hebrews 10 that follows about how the New Covenant, which was enacted through the death of Jesus, is far superior in all ways to the Old Covenant which was enacted through the blood of animals.

This also helps explain why Hebrews 10 talks about sin so much. Though we have seen that Hebrews 9:22 is not talking about the forgiveness of sins, we often get confused about the rest of Hebrews 9 and on into Hebrews 10 because there are many references to the sacrifice or offerings of Jesus Christ for our sins.

blood of Christ Hebrews 9-10

The best way to understand this is to remember what we have learned from Hebrews 9:16-22 about why the blood of the calves and goats was sprinkled over tabernacle and its instruments, along with the book of the covenant and the people, on the day the Mosaic Covenant was instituted among them. The blood was to inaugurate the covenant and indicate to the people that they had been set free from slavery.

All of this is exactly the same with the death of Jesus.

Jesus did not die to rescue us from the wrath of God. Nor did Jesus die to secure for us the forgiveness of sins. God has always freely forgiven people of their sins.

No, the death of Jesus on the cross was to inaugurate the new covenant of God with the entire world, and to indicate to all people that we were no longer slaves to sin.

That second point is critical. Jesus did not die for God because of sin. Jesus died for sin.

God’s holiness did not demand that Jesus be put to death. No, it was the devil that demanded death and blood (cf. Hebrews 2:14-15). Sin was the certificate of ownership which the devil held over the heads of humanity.

By dying, Jesus cancelled this debt of sin so that the devil could no longer have any claim upon us. This happened because just as all sinned in Adam, and so became slaves to death and the devil, so all died and were raised to new life in Jesus, and so were liberated and redeemed from our slavery to death and the devil.

Just as the Israelites in the wilderness died to Pharaoh, and were raised to new life in the family of God, so also, all people in Jesus died to sin, death, and devil, and were raised to new life in the family of God. This is the basic meaning of the discussion in Hebrews 10 about the sacrifice of Jesus for sin.

But the discussion goes beyond this as well. The author of Hebrews intentionally subverts the sacrificial elements of the Mosaic covenant by transitioning away from images of blood and death, and writing instead about offerings and purification.

Let just a few of these be noted.

Following immediately after Hebrews 9:22, we read that Jesus also purified the heavenly sanctuary. And just as the first ceremony indicated the inauguration of the Mosaic covenant and the death of the people to their past enslavement to Egypt, so also, the actions of Jesus indicated the inauguration of the New Covenant and the death of the people to their enslavement to sin.

In Hebrews 10:1-4, the author emphasizes the complete failure of the Mosaic law to do anything about sin. In Hebrews 10:2, we are informed that if the law could have taken away sin, the people would have stopped making sacrifices, for they would have had no more consciousness of sins. Yet the sacrifices themselves are a reminder of sins, even though they do nothing about the sins.

Then in Hebrews 10:5-10, the author indicates his understanding that the sacrificial system was never intended to take away sins, and that God Himself never wanted such sacrifices or took any pleasure in them. Again, God is a God of life; not death. What God did want, however, was a life lived in obedience to the will of God, which is exactly the “offering” which Jesus brought. This understanding of “offering” and “sacrifice” as the life of Jesus rather than His death is critical for the rest of the chapter. While it is true that Jesus died a bloody and gruesome death on the cross, it is critical to recognize that the death of Jesus on the cross was for sin, while the life of Jesus was for God. God did not want nor desire the death of Jesus. God always and only wants life.

Building upon this truth, Hebrews 10:11-18 moves on to compare and contrast the covenant enacted by Moses and the covenant enacted by Jesus Christ. After explaining that the sacrifices and offerings of the priests could never do anything about sins, Hebrews 10:12-13 shows that Jesus not only dealt with sin once and for all through His death, but actually perfected forever those who are in Him. The author then makes the absolutely shocking statement that God (and Moses) knew from the very beginning that the Law of Moses was obsolete and useless for doing anything about sin.

The author of Hebrews points at what the Holy Spirit said through the prophet Jeremiah about the new covenant (Jer 31:33-34), and then ties this together with the word “remission” (aphesis) which was used in Hebrews 9:22. In so doing, the author indicates the truth that Moses knew from the very beginning that his law was temporary, obsolete, and ineffective for doing anything about sin.

In Exodus 20, after God had given the 10 Commandments, God wanted to speak to the people of Israel Himself. But they were too scared of God, and declared that they would rather have Moses to speak to God for them (Exod 20:19). What follows in Exodus 21 through most of the rest of the Pentateuch is called “the Mosaic Law” for good reason.

It was how Moses believed God wanted the people of Israel to live out the 10 commandments. But forty years later, Moses saw that what he had given to the people was a complete failure. He had been with them for forty years (Deut 29:5), and knew that the law would be completely ineffective in helping them follow God and live rightly (cf. Deut 31:16-21).

As a result, Moses knew that what he had given to the people would be replaced by what God had wanted all along. Before Moses died, he prophesied that his law would pass away and would be replaced with the law of God written upon men’s hearts (Deut 30:6-20). Long before Jeremiah ever prophesied that God would do away with the written law and write His law upon our hearts and minds, Moses had said the same thing (cf. Deut 30:6, 14). Paul understood Deuteronomy 30 in this way as well (cf. Rom 10:7-8). In fact, in a recent book on the Pentateuch,

John Sailhamer has argued that one of the central points of the Pentateuch is to show that the law was ineffective, obsolete, and not what God had wanted for His people at all. God wanted faith, humility, mercy, and righteousness, which are the things the law could not provide.

But Jesus provided what the law could not, which brings us back to Hebrews 10. Jesus lived the way God intended, and in so doing, accomplished several things.

First, Jesus crucified the law of sin and death (Hebrews 9:26-28).

Second, Jesus revealed what God had always wanted for His people (Hebrews 10:16-17).

Third, Jesus revealed how God’s people could live for love and life instead of sin and death (Hebrews 10:20-23).

In Jesus, we learn that God no longer wants death, and He never did. God always and only wants life.

Hopefully, all this provides a deeper understanding of what Hebrews 9:22 is actually teaching (and not teaching) about the shedding of blood and the forgiveness of sins.

God always forgives sins freely. He does not need or want blood.

Note: This article by Brad Jersak on Hebrews 9:22 is also helpful.

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God is Redeeming God, Redeeming Scripture, Redeeming Theology Bible & Theology Topics: atonement, blood, crucifixion, cruciform, crucivision, death of Jesus, Hebrews 9:22, Leviticus 17:11, subst, Theology of God, Theology of Jesus, Theology of Salvation, Theology of Sin

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Since Grace is Free, YES … You CAN just go sin all you want

By Jeremy Myers
200 Comments

Since Grace is Free, YES … You CAN just go sin all you want

I hold to radical, outrageous, shocking, scandalous, limitless grace. I believe there is no other kind of grace.

But whenever I teach or write about this sort of grace, it is almost guaranteed that someone will object by saying, “So are you saying that we can just go sin all we want?”

sin all you wantThey are referring, of course, to the statement in Romans 6:1 where a person objects to Paul’s teaching about grace in exactly the same way. And Paul’s answer, of course, is “God forbid!”

Can I sin all I want?

In the past, I have responded similarly as Paul. I say “No, of course not!”

Then I go on to explain that just as obedience does nothing to help us earn or keep eternal life, sin does nothing to cause us to lose it or prove we never had it.

The reason God doesn’t want us to sin is because sin damages us.

(By the way, if you have a presentation of the Gospel which never gets the Romans 6:1 objection, then I submit to you that you are probably not teaching the same Gospel Paul was. If, after teaching about grace, no one says to you, “So are you saying I can just sin all i want?” then you probably have not taught grace. I call this question the Grace litmus test.)

But this past week I was talking to someone about grace, and they objected with the grace litmus test, and I don’t know what happened, but I sighed out of exasperation and decided to give a different answer than the one I had always given before.

The man said to me, “So are you saying I can just go sin all I want?”

And I smiled and said, “Yep. If that’s what you want to do, go right ahead.”

I got the “Deer in the headlights” look back from him. I think he had heard rumors that my type of theology existed, but he had never met anyone who was so willing to give him a license to sin as I had just done.

license to sinSo yes, in a way, grace is a license to sin.

He started getting huffy with me, and tried to show that my response to him was different than what Paul said in Romans 6:1, and how therefore my understanding of grace different from that of Paul and so on…

But the more he preached at me the more convinced I became of what I had said out of exasperation.

Grace allows you to sin all you want … if that’s really what you want

If you really understand grace, and if you really understand God, and if you really understand God’s love for you, and after understanding all this, you really want to go sin, then be my guest, go right ahead.

Although grace teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lust (Titus 2:12), grace also allows you to go sin all you want … if that is really what you want.

Let me put it another way.

If I told my daughters that I loved them completely, and that no matter what they did, I would always love them, forgive them, and be willing to die for them, and if, after I told them this, one of my daughters looked at me and said, “So I can just go stick my hand in the blender and you will still love me?” I would look at her a little strangely and say, “Well … yes … if that’s really want you want to do, go ahead. But know that if you do that, it’s going to be extremely painful. I will, of course, pull your hand out of the blender and rush you to the hospital to stop the bleeding and rescue what I can of your hand. But no matter what, I will still love you and cherish you as my daughter.”

This is what Paul means in Romans 6 when he responds with “God Forbid!” He is not saying, “No, you cannot!” but rather, “Why would you want to?”

grace sin all I wantYou see, sin doesn’t stop God from loving us, nor does it stop God from doing everything He can to rescue us from the devastating and destructive consequences of sin. Sin definitely doesn’t prove that we were never His son or daughter to begin with.

No, sin hurts us. It cuts us. It ruins us. Sin destroys our relationships, our health, our finances, our marriages, our jobs, our longevity, our emotions, our psyche.

Asking the question “So I can just go sin all I want?” simply shows that you do not fully understand the love of God, the grace of God, or even God Himself! It also reveals that you do not understand the devastating and destructive consequences of sin.

Asking the question, “So I can just go sin all I want?” reveals that you don’t understand how painful sin can be.

Asking the question “So I can just go sin all I want?” is like asking, “So I can take this knife and stab it into my leg?” … Yes, if that is really what you want to do, go right ahead.

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God is Redeeming Theology Bible & Theology Topics: grace, sin, Theology of Salvation, Theology of Sin, Titus 2:12

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Stop Saying You “Love the Sinner; Hate the Sin”

By Jeremy Myers
449 Comments

Stop Saying You “Love the Sinner; Hate the Sin”

love the sinner hate the sinIt is common in Christian circles to hear admonitions to “Love the Sinner; hate the sin.”

More and more I hear this said in the context of LGBT people and gay marriage.

“Oh, I don’t hate gay people, I just hate the gay lifestyle. … You know, I love the sinner, but hate the sin.”

There are so many things wrong with the “Love the Sinner; Hate the Sin” statement, I hardly know where to begin. So let’s begin with a laugh:

Calvin and Hobbs love the sinner hate the sin

Now… on with the post…

There are several things wrong with the statement, “Love the Sinner; Hate the Sin.”

Let’s begin with the word “sinner”

love the sinner hate the sinThe simple fact that we label the person we are talking about as a “sinner” indicates that we do not have love for them in the first place.

To label someone a “sinner” is to imply that they are outside of God’s grace and unless they clean up their act, cannot be forgiven.

To label someone a “sinner” reveals an “us vs. them” mentality, where you are the “righteous” person looking down your nose at the poor, wretched, ignorant “sinners” down below who just cannot get their act together. If only they would listen to what you tell them to do…

We Christians pay lip service to the idea that “We are all sinners” but we reveal that we do not really believe this when label someone else a “sinner.”

By labeling them a “sinner,” we condemn the sin of someone else as worse than our own.

Then there’s the word “hate”

love vs hateWhen a watching world says Christians are full of hate, it is not a good strategy to tell them that we don’t hate them we just hate their sin.

Why do we have to “hate” anything?

Is it because God “hates” sin?

Well, there are some statement like this in the Bible, but such statements require great care in understanding and applying them to life.

We have to understand why God says what He says.

We also have to recognize that even if God does “hate” (which I don’t think He does … at least, not the way we understand it), He doesn’t anywhere tell us to hate.

Furthermore, we have to recognize that when God uses this sort of language about certain sins, it is not because He that upset at the person for committing the sin, or even at the sin itself for being so “terrible.” God isn’t nearly as worked up about sin as we are. God is not in the sin-management business.

The reason God says some strong things about certain sins in the Bible is because these sins hurt us, and He loves us, and doesn’t want to see us hurt by sin.

So if you really, really want to hate someone’s sin, hate a sin which is actually hurtful to them and to others. Hate a sin like rape, murder, incest, child abuse, torture, sex slavery, or one of the other multitudes of damaging and destructive sins.

But why do we Christians sometimes focus on hating the “sins” in others that they say results in love and community? If a homosexual couple wants to get married because they say they love each other, why would we say they cannot?

“Because it destroys families!”

Really? How exactly does their love hurt your family? I suspect any problems in your family might be found a bit closer to home…

“Because it destroys the definition of marriage!”

Is it really? And even if it does, so what? What is more important? The definition of a word or a relationship between people? Don’t use an argument over the definition of a word as an excuse to hate people. That sounds an awful lot like something a Pharisee would do in the days of Jesus. Even if the definition of marriage changes, will that somehow ruin your marriage? I cannot possibly think how.

“Yeah, but … but … AIDS!!! They’re gonna get AIDS and AIDS will hurt them and so I’m just trying to warn them about the dangers of AIDS! You see? I am concerned about them! I don’t want them to get AIDS!”

… If this is how you express your concern, I think they don’t need it.

I could say so much more about this, but I must move on. Here is a post which says more: Love the Sinner, hate the sin is really just hate

love the sinner hate the sin is just hate

There is also a problem with the word “sin”

Yes, yes, “sin” is a biblical word. No, I don’t want people to stop talking about sin.

But here is what I have noticed in my own life, and among the majority of Christians.

We all have our “favorite sins” we commit.

We have sins we ourselves commit all the time that we don’t bat an eyelash at. And when someone point out to us the sin in our own life, we say, “Well, Christians aren’t perfect, you know.” Or maybe we say, “Thank God for grace!” Or possibly, “Yeah, I know that’s an issue, but God is working with me on that.” Occasionally, we may even justify our behavior and says, “What?! No, that’s not a sin! Stop judging me!”

Lots of these “favorite sins” in Christians circles are even “Pulpit approved.” That is, pastors and churches leaders raise up these “sins” as virtues to be acquired.

The sin of pride is called “healthy self-esteem.”

The sin of gluttony is called “Respecting the wife’s cooking.”

The sin of laziness is called “relaxing after work.”

The sin of greed is calling “planning for the future.”

The sin of national idolatry is called “patriotism.”

The sin of hate is called “warning them of the fires of hell.”

The sin of anger is called “standing up for what I believe.”

And so on.

These are our favorite sins, and we have baptized our sins to make them acceptable and even praiseworthy. And even when our sins our not praiseworthy, we allow ourselves excuses which we never allow to anyone else.

mark lawry on love the sin hate the sinner

And then we have our “favorite sins” we like to point out in others.

These sins are ones we typically do not commit, but we use these to make ourselves feel better about our own sin. How? We point them out in others and condemn them and their sin for all the problems in the world and in society.

Ironically, when we point out the “sin” in others, we hardly ever allow them to use the same “excuses” toward us that we use toward others about the sin in our own lives. We tell them that their sin is worse than ours. That their sin is destroying the unity in the church. That their sin is bringing down our country. That their sin is perverting our culture. That they better fix their life right now, or God is going to kill them and punish them and send them to hell to burn forever.

More ironically still, the favorite sin we love to condemn in others the most are usually the sins that are mentioned by Scripture the least, whereas the “favorite sins” we ourselves commit are the sins that get a lot of attention in Scripture.

Take the most popular “sin” in America to condemn right now: homosexuality. It is mentioned 3 times in the Bible (6 times at the most, depending on how you want to understand a few terms).

But how often are greed, pride, slander, gluttony, anger, and hatred mentioned? I don’t know, but it’s probably in the hundreds for each one.

So why have we picked out this one “sin” as the one to focus on?

Because we need a scapegoat to blame for our own sin, and the “other,” the “outsider,” the “one who is not like us,” is always the person who gets chosen to be the scapegoat.

So to bring this back around…

love and hateWhen we say, “Love the sinner; hate the sin,” what we are really saying is “I will love only those I want to love, and I will hate and despise and cast out those people who do things I have decided are worse than the things I myself do, and this way I can make myself feel better while I condemn them for all the problems that I myself have contributed to but don’t want to admit.”

That’s my problem with the word “sin” in that statement. It sets us up in the position of God to decide which sins are worse than others, and which sins can be overlooked and which cannot. It makes us the arbiter or grace and forgiveness.

Which is the worst sin of all? When we say “Love the Sinner; Hate the Sin” we ourselves commit the worse sin possible, by setting ourselves up in the position of God to decide which sin is acceptable and which is not. We Christians must repent of this self-idolatrous, scapegoating judgmentalism of others.

And finally, the entire “Love the Sinner; Hate the Sin” statement is complete BS

If you just take the statement as a whole, it makes no sense.

People are complex creatures, and psychologically and emotionally, it is nearly impossible to separate what a person does from who a person is. This is especially true when a person is the way they are because they were born that way.

Forget homosexuality; take obesity as an example.

Many people who are overweight say that they were born with a slow metabolism, or they have some sort of disorder. Or maybe they went through some difficult times in life that were out of their control and psychologically turned to food for comfort. Or maybe they were just born with tastebuds and a stomach that really liked to eat good food.

Now imagine going up to such a person and saying, “Overeating is a sin. I love you, but I hate your fatness.” How will such a person respond?

I believe that person will be rightly offended.

Here’s the bottom line: If you love someone, you love all of them — even the lifestyle choices that might have resulted from sinful actions and behavior.

This does not mean you have to agree with what they do, but instead, you simply view the things in their life that you don’t agree with the same way you view all the sinful habits and choices you make in your own life.

And how do you want people to view you and your sin? You want to be loved while others withhold judgment.

This also is how you should view others who do things, say things, or live in ways that you think are “sinful.” Just love them, and withhold judgment.

And look, if you really want to start judging some sin somewhere, start with the whole mess in your own life first. Stop pointing out what you think is the sinful behavior in other people, and instead, work on the stuff in your own life.

I think Jesus said something about that… (You know … something about specks in their eye and a log in your own?) And when the Bible does talk about the relationship between love and sin, it says that love covers a multitude of sins. Hmmm…

just love and forgive the sin

The One Word I Like

So when it comes down to it, the only part of the “Love the Sinner; Hate the Sin” statement that I like is the word “love.”

just loveAnd why can’t that be enough? When we see someone else behaving in ways we don’t approve of and which we think is sin (and as long as it’s not illegal or harming someone), why can’t “love” be the only word that comes to our mind?

Apparently, Jesus loved this other person enough to die for them. And if He loved them, why can’t we?

So the next time you are tempted to say you “Love the Sinner; hate the sin,” just stop at love.

God is Redeeming Life, Redeeming Theology Bible & Theology Topics: forgiveness, homosexuality, looks like Jesus, love, love like Jesus, Theology of Sin

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Stop saying “Christians Aren’t Perfect”

By Jeremy Myers
17 Comments

Stop saying “Christians Aren’t Perfect”

I am so tired of hearing Christians say “Christians aren’t perfect” as an excuse for bad Christian behavior.

The statement can also come out like this:

“Well, the church is a hospital for sick people.”

or

“No church is perfect.”

or

“Christians are sinners too.”

or my favorite of all (*barf*),

“Christians aren’t perfect … just forgiven.”

christians-arent-perfect

These sorts of statements are usually said when you are critical of a church, a church leader, or some other Christian for something they said or did.

If you say that a pastor doesn’t practice what he preaches, or if a church makes poor decisions about how to spend their money, or if a Christian group behaves meanly, arrogantly, or rudely toward some non-Christian group, the response you will often get back is “Well, Christians aren’t perfect.”

Seriously?

What is so hard about saying

“You are right. That was mean. I am sorry.”

or

“That was selfish. I am sorry.”

or

“That was insensitive and judgmental. I am sorry.”

say Im sorryIt is true that everything we need to know in life we learned in Kindergarten, and one of the main things we learned in Kindergarten was the importance of saying we’re sorry to others when we hurt them.

Many of us Christians need to go back to Kindergarten to learn the lesson all over again. When we hurt someone (even if it is unintentional), we need to say “I’m sorry.”

(By the way, apologizing for all the pain we experience in life is one of the things God was doing in Jesus on the cross. Think on it!)

And please, don’t add a “but” to your apology. Don’t say, “I’m sorry, but …”. Grace has no but, and neither do apologies.

And as long as I’m on the subject …

Usually when Christians say, “Well, Christians aren’t perfect either,” they then go on to point out the sin in other people, and if you challenge them on why they can point out sin in the lives of others, they say, “I can’t just overlook sin. Someone has to point out sin in people’s life. If I keep silent, I am condoning the sin.”

I have three things to say against this line of thought.

First, maybe someone does need to point out sin in other people’s life. But that someone is not you. It is the job of the Holy Spirit to convict the world of sin (John 16:8). So unless you are a member of the Trinity, you don’t need to point out the sin in other people’s lives.

Second, if you point out sin in other people’s lives, but then justify your own rude sinful behavior by saying, “Well, nobody’s perfect,” what kind of hypocrisy is that? You don’t want other people to justify their own sin, but you are more than happy to justify your own by saying, “Christians aren’t perfect”?

Third, yes, yes, yes, I am falling into the same trap here myself by pointing out sinful behavior in the lives of others instead of just letting the Holy Spirit do it, and yes, maybe my tone here is not that loving or kind toward my sinning Christian brethren who talk rudely and unkindly toward others.

But you know what? You should just let me be mean and rude and angry toward you because, after all, “Christians aren’t perfect.”

God is Redeeming Theology Bible & Theology Topics: apology, forgiveness, Theology of Sin, Theology of the Church

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The Murder of Abel and the Murder of All

By Jeremy Myers
15 Comments

The Murder of Abel and the Murder of All

I have a new eBook coming out soon. The following post hits on one of the themes I write about in this book. To get this new book when it comes out, make sure you have subscribed to receive my blog posts and eBooks by email.

the murder of abel

There is a reason why the very first murder in the Bible is a fratricide – a murder between brothers. What is that reason?

Because every murder is a murder between brothers. When Cain murdered his brother, Abel, it represented every murder in history.

When one person murders another person, they are murdering their brother or sister. Every homicide is fratricide.

But the significance and symbolism goes deeper still, especially for those of us who have never murdered anybody.

The Cycle of Murderous Revenge

The blood of Abel cries out from the ground for justice, for revenge. This is the cycle of murder which is behind every murder as well. Most murderers do not think of themselves as murderers, but simply as vigilantes of justice. Their murder of another person was justified. They were righting a wrong, killing a criminal, or invoking vengeance upon some injustice. Every murderer is able to justify his own murder.

This we also see in Genesis. After Cain kills his brother, Lamech get injured by a boy, and retaliates with murder. But he feels his murder was justified, and says that if anyone tries to re-retaliate against him by killing him, vengeance will come upon them seventy times over (Gen 4:24). The cycle of vengeance and retaliation goes from hurt to murder to mass-murder, and eventually, to the place where “the entire earth was filled with violence” (Gen 6:5, 11).

But the cycle of violence did not stop with violence covering the earth. Whereas a rivalry between brothers led to the murder of one (Genesis 4), and the rivalry between all people led to murderous violence among all (Genesis 6-9), humanity eventually turned their rivalry upon God Himself and sought to place themselves upon His throne (Genesis 11:1-9). But the only thing that ever resulted from all this murderous rivalry and violence was death (Genesis 5), death (Genesis 10), and death (Genesis 11:10-32).

This is why the only proper response to murder is forgiveness. Without forgiveness, murder leads to a cycle of violence that ends only in annihilation.

But who can have the courage (and wisdom) to respond to murder with forgiveness? Nobody! At least, I do not think I have the courage to forgive those who murdered one of my loved ones, or to forgive those who attempt to murder me. In this world, the only way, it seems, to keep from being murdered is to be stronger than the one who wants to murder you, and to murder him before he murders you.

And yet, we do have Jesus as our perfect example of how to treat those who murder us. As Jesus was being murdered on the cross by His brethren, He asked God to forgive them.

This is why the author of Hebrews says that Jesus “spoke a better word than the blood of Abel” (Heb 12:24). And what word did Jesus speak as His own blood was being spilled by His brethren? Though the blood of Abel cried out for vengeance from the ground, as the blood of Jesus poured from His veins on the cross, He cried out, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!” (Luke 23:34).

Can we do this? I am not so sure.

Cain_and_Abel

A Second Look at the First Murder

Maybe it begins by going back to look once again at the first murder, the founding fratricide. If we look at what happened when Cain murdered his brother, we may be able to get a glimpse of our own hearts also when we have murderous hate for others.

If we go back and look at why Cain murdered his brother, we discover that it was because Cain was trying to please and appease God. His parents had “stolen” God’s fruit, and Cain, as the “promised seed,” was the one who would get his family back into God’s good graces. So He became a farmer and when he received his harvest, he tried to give God back His fruit.

And God’s answer to Cain was, “Sin is crouching at your door, and it will destroy you.” What sin was that? The sin of trying to make amends with God!

In essence, God looked at Cain’s offering of fruit and said, “I don’t want the fruit. You do not understand. I am not angry at you. I do not want sacrifices and offerings. I just want you. I want to live life with you. Go ahead, keep the fruit for yourself. Eat it. Enjoy it. It’s yours.”

But Cain believed that God’s justice had been violated, that His honor had been destroyed, and Cain believed that something must be done to restore God’s honor, and make the world “right” once again. Cain believed that justice must be served, that order must be re-introduced, and that satisfaction must be made.

Most importantly, Cain believed it was his responsibility to make things right, to restore order, and to serve justice. This feeling is the foundational emotion for murder.

For when Cain saw that God had a good relationship with Abel, Cain believed that Abel would become the one who would rescue his family from exile. He didn’t like to have a rival, and so he murdered his brother.

In this way, God’s promise that eating the forbidden fruit would lead to death was fulfilled in the first generation of humans after Adam and Eve were exiled from the Garden of Eden. And it was a murder of brother against brother. This murder of brothers began a cycle of contagious violence, murder, and death that spun out of control and enveloped the whole earth.

As such, it is not an exaggeration to say that violence is the most prominent theme in the Old Testament text. No human activity is mentioned as frequently in the Old Testament as the activity of violence. Raymund Schwager states that the Old Testament books “contain over six hundred passages that explicitly talk about nations, kings, or individuals attacking, destroying, and killing others. … No other human activity or experience is mentioned as often” (Must There be Scapegoats? p. 47).

Yet there is something more troubling than this.

Does God retaliate against violence with more violence?

murder of brother against brotherFor all the mentions of human violence, references to divine violence appear almost twice as often.

Again, Schwager provides the statistics: “The theme of God’s bloody vengeance occurs in the Old Testament even more frequently than the problem of human violence. Approximately one thousand passages speak of Yahweh’s blazing anger. … No other topic is as often mentioned as God’s bloody works. A theology of the Old Testament revelation that does not specifically deal with this grave and somber fact misses from the very start one of the most central questions …” (Must There be Scapegoats? p. 55).

What are we to make of this?

How can Jesus call us to bless and forgive our enemies when it appears from Scripture that God does the exact opposite? Furthermore, how can Jesus be the exact representation of God, when everything Jesus taught about God seems to contradict what we see about God in the Old Testament?

A straightforward reading of the Old Testament text seems to indicate that as violent as humanity can be, God outdoes us all; God is more bloody and violent than all humanity combined.

And if this is the case, is it any wonder that humans are murderously violent — just like their God in whose image and likeness they are made?

Between the violence of humanity and violence of God, it is obvious that “violence is the most central theme in the Old Testament” (Must There be Scapegoats? 66).

But maybe, just maybe, despite all our scholarship, studies, and sermons, we have missed the main revelation of the Bible. Maybe, just maybe, the Bible we want is not the Bible God gave us. Maybe, just maybe, the Bible is not a book of spiritual devotion or “a morally reassuring manual of religious piety” (Bailie, Violence Unveiled, 135).

Maybe, just maybe, we have completely ignored the main truth of Scripture.

The Most Ignored Truth in Scripture

And what truth is that?

That we are the violent ones, and there is no violence in God at all.

That God appears violent because we have made Him to be the scapegoat for our own violence.

That God appears violent to us only because we do not want to admit our own violence and so blame Him for it. In our scapegoating violence, we have made God the universal scapegoat for all violence.

We have, each one of us, killed our brothers. And the blood of every victim in Scripture and in history cries out from the ground. And when God appears and says, “What have you done?” we reply, along with Cain, that we are the victims, that we are the ones God has wronged, that if He would treat us more fairly, life would turn out better.

In our hearts, we secretly desire to become God. We secretly know in our hearts that if we were running the world, we could do a better job than God. In our hearts, we secretly believe that God has wronged us, not treated us fairly, and shows favoritism to others. And so we grow in our resentment towards God. We secretly wish that we could replace God.

With this secret desire in our hearts, we set out to “be God” to the world by doing the things He doesn’t seem to be doing. We try to make things right. We try to enact justice. We try to retaliate against wrongdoers.

And when God whispers into our hearts, “Be careful! Sin is crouching at your door!” we try to protect ourselves from this sin by “righteously” killing “God’s rivals,” who are really only our rivals.

When we place ourselves up as the bringers of peace, as God’s spokesman in the world, as the ones who will restore humanity to the garden, and then God seems to favor someone else who is “doing it all wrong,” we get jealous and envious, and we set out to kill and destroy them so that we ourselves do not lose our privileged position.

This desire to be God leads to a rivalry against others, which leads to murdering our rivals, as we think God should do.

And thus goes Scripture and history. We behave violently toward others. God says, “What have you done?” and we say, “Don’t punish me. It was you. You drove me away. If you would only treat me fairly, I would not have had to do what I did. I got a bad hand in life. I was not treated rightly. If I had not done what was necessary, I would not have received what was rightfully mine.

So we have always blamed God. We blame Him for not running the world correctly. We blame Him for not killing our rivals, and we blame Him for not setting things straight in the world.

And if God were a human, taking all this blame, He would set out to prove His innocence. He would set out to kill us in retaliation for trying to take His place, for trying to be a rival to God, for questioning how He runs the world, and for killing others in His name when He had nothing to do with such murder.

But this is not what God did when faced with all the blame for our sin and shame. God did not behave like a human would, but He showed us how a human could behave.

And He did this in Jesus. In Jesus, God bore the blame. God took the shame.

murder of JesusThough innocent of any wrongdoing, God, in Jesus, let us blame Him for every wrongdoing.

And then He let us kill Him in God’s name.

Why did we kill Jesus? To set things right. To restore order. To defend God’s righteousness. To bring justice.

We were the ones who had the plan to set things right and bring humanity back into Paradise, but the teachings and example of Jesus messed everything up, and when it appeared that God favored Jesus more than all our religious rules, regulations, and restrictions, we knew that He had to be stopped.

We brought our unwanted and unneeded and unasked-for offerings of fruit in order please and appease a God who was not angry at us in the first place, and when we saw that our brother, Jesus, was accepted by God, we became jealous, and so we killed him.

And yet though the blood of Abel cried out from the ground for vengeance, the blood of Jesus cries out from the cross for forgiveness.

In this way, while the sin of the first man, Adam, brought about the murder of brother against brother and a never-ending cycle of retaliatory vengeance, the offering of the second Man, Jesus, also brought about the murder of brother against brother (and of man against God), but in so doing, Jesus offered a word of forgiveness, which put an end to the need for retaliatory vengeance. Of all the murders in the world, God alone could have righteously retaliated for the unjust murder of His innocent Son, but instead, He forgave, showing that the only way to peace, love, and unity is through forgiveness.

So have you been wronged? Follow the example of Jesus. Stop the cycle of retaliation by offering forgiveness instead of vengeance.

Only in this way can both Cain and Abel come together and bring their human family back to the garden.

God is Redeeming Books, Redeeming Theology Bible & Theology Topics: Cain and Abel, cruciform, crucivision, Genesis 4, mimetic rivalry, murder, scapegoat, Theology of Jesus, Theology of Man, Theology of Salvation, Theology of Sin

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