It seems that after only a little over 2,000
years of rich church history, we have buried
the hatchet on many doctrinal differences
deemed heresies by the early church for
the sake of unity and peace. Most of the
carnal truths of scripture are deemed as
unimportant for the "Big" picture of global
evangelization. However, doctrinal
differences and not doctrinal clarity are
what
define the diversity in the Christian
community. We have grouped ourselves
into classes and types of Christians that
carry the torch of the light of truth.
So I ask resoundingly, who then can
properly interpret scripture and bring truth
to light? For well over 1500 years the
church had kept the task of biblical
exegesis to the elite clergy and historical
tradition. But corruption in high places led
to questioning if they could be trusted.
Then over 600 years ago, the Protestant
Reformation cried foul and offered every
person the opportunity to read the
scriptures for themselves and do their own
interpretation. They suggested the bible be
printed in the language of the people and
let it be the sole interpreter of itself. What a
disaster this has been. Countless
messiahs and numerous cults later, the
problems still have not been resolved.
Then a little over 100 years ago, spiritual
gifts became the sole interpreter of truth, or
should I say, revelational truth.
In this entire quest for doctrinal correctness
and leadership positioning, we have loss
the essence of truth for the correctness of
truth. Somewhere in this cloud of truth we
forgot the call to holiness. Whatever
happened to the sermons on sin? Is not
character as important or more than
gifting? And what of the call of God to get
His people to maintain a standard, along
with, magnifying our talents?
To be quite honest, we act as if the
mystery of sin has been resolved.
However, scripture diagnoses "sin" as a
widespread distortion of human nature,
found at the core in every person in every
generation. In essence, missing the mark
God established for us to aim at,
transgressing God's law, disobeying
God's directives, offending God's purity by
defiling oneself, and incurring guilt before
God the Judge. All of this describes and
unregenerate person, but lately this
description is rapid in the church.
Sin actually stands revealed as energy of
irrational, negative, and rebellious reaction
to God's call and command, a spirit of
combating with God in order to play God.
The root of sin is pride and hostility against
God, the source detected in Adam's first
transgression. Man's sinful acts always
have behind them thoughts, motives, and
desire that in some way or another
express the stubborn resistance of the
fallen heart to God's claim on our lives. Sin
may be comprehensively defined as a lack
of conformity to the law of God in act, habit,
attitude, outlook, disposition, motivation,
and mode of existence.
The term "original sin", meaning sin
derived from our origin, is not a biblical
phrase; it was first coined by Augustine. It
is one though that brings into fruitful focus
the reality of sin in our spiritual system. The
declaration of original sin doesn't mean
that sin belongs to human nature as God
made it, nor that sin is involved in the
processes of reproduction and birth, but
that sinfulness marks everyone from birth,
and is there in the form of a motivationally
twisted heart, prior to any actual sins that
are committed. In other words, by nature,
we are born already knowing how to do
wrong; we have to be taught to do right.
Doing right is a lifelong mission. We don't
just do right long enough to get saved and
return to our old ways.
I guess the problem is that when we ease
up on holiness while we glorify
personalities, no one is held accountable
or responsible any longer. The danger of
church life today is that the emphasis on
moral standards has been replaced for
moral shining. As long as one can perform
and contribute, don't worry about the
vessel that dishonors. The sin issue is not
only the task of evangelism to resolve to
get converts saved, but instructing
disciples to remain close to the truth in
their conduct and discipline.
The scriptures put a lot of emphasis on
holy living and giving. We have placed too
much attention lately on the giving part and
enough on the living. There is a growing
cancer in the church to focus on the glory of
this life and ignore the qualifications of
eternal life. What happened to the "S"
word? It has been replaced with "smile" be
happy, God loves you; He understands you
really want to do right, just thank Him for
who you are. John Wesley just may have been on
to something with his emphasis
on "sanctification". There must be an
accountability of character along with
faithfulness. We must return to the
standards of holiness in order to please
God.
The cry then is "repentance". I believe the
church universal must repent of failing the
standards of holiness while we are
spreading the truth of righteousness. Oh, I
know, we have broadened the gospel
almost worldwide. But while we have
lavished our brand of salvation, we have
made attractive the package without really
making clear the contents. We have so
marketed Christianity and not evangelized
disciples until it has become one gigantic
fad.
I believe there is so much of the "S" word
in
the church today that the echo from Rev
18:1-4 is chilling as we draw closer to the
end of the age. A return to sincere prayer,
true worship, and strong commitment are
the order of the day. The problem is how
do we address this without sounding
judgmental? We must begin to relate to
people from where we were and not from
where we are. "I once was lost in sin, but
Jesus took me in" says the song. We have
to replace "sensuality" with "spirituality".
