Posted on 04/20/2005 7:01:57 AM PDT by logos
Closely connected to the need for a renewed appreciation for holiness is the need to recapture the biblical concept of sin. Schaeffer and Lewis both recognized the difficulty of awakening a sense of sin in a culture saturated with psychological techniques designed to explain away the notion of true moral guilt. Nevertheless, both apologists insisted that a cure cannot be administered until people recognize they are sick. Schaeffer made it clear that the unbeliever must realize "that we are talking about real guilt before God, and we are not offering him merely relief for his guilt-feelings.
Lewis recognized three aspects of morality: interpersonal human relationships, individual character and our relationship to God. He pointed out that most modern people focus their attention on the first dimension, while largely ignoring the other two. He likened the ethical life to a fleet of ships attempting to reach a destination. To have any hope of a successful journey the ships must not only avoid colliding into one another, but each vessel also must remain seaworthy and stay headed in the right direction.
The interesting thing about this metaphor is its relational quality. Instead of contextualizing sin within a legal framework, which considers deviant behavior a violation against some abstract law or lawgiver, we see Lewis interpreting sin as a matter of relational failure. When we consider morality in this way, suddenly the other two neglected ethical dimensions are illuminated. Every act of sin, whether it directly violates a human being or not, is a relational breach because it diminishes one's own character, which in turn has an important bearing on future relationships. Ultimately all sin, whether or not it has immediate earthly interpersonal ramifications, grieves our heavenly Father, who knows his children will never be truly happy if they are not holy. Understanding sin and true moral guilt in a relational sense is both the most biblical model and most promising approach in our highly relational age. The apologetic task in the twenty-first century is to challenge the prevailing moral relativism by insisting that morality is grounded not in some abstract law or the will of an arbitrary Judge but rather in the character of the perfectly good and profoundly loving, infinite-personal God of the Bible.
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This is a tremendous insight, dear logos -- and it relates to a statement in an earlier installment of this series: That God is looking for a "certain kind of person". I imagine that such a person is someone for whom God's laws aren't just a bunch of rules that are set down on paper, but which are understood as a calling to live in and for God and neighbor -- in precisely the "relational" context.
The Pharisees were very good at rule-following; yet the sufferings of widows and orphans right before their eyes was not typically something that troubled them much, or compelled them to step up and provide relief. You see, they were already "right with God" by following the letter of the law, His "rules." Nothing further was required of them -- in their own minds.
Thank you so much for today's meditation!!!
All that I have to add is to point to the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus explains that thinking a thing is as bad as doing it. In my humble paraphrase, sin flows from the inside out, not the other way around and that's why saying and doing good things is not enough.
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