"A Perspective On Sin"

Chapter 7  
                                            "A Perspective On Sin"

The Bible uses only one specific word to describe living with darkness, the Biblical word is Sin.  According to the Hebrew Scriptures, the Quran, and Kitab-i-Iqan, which form the Abrahamic religions, ADAM the first human had a disagreement with God.  The result of that disagreement is described in the Genesis 2 of the Old Testament.  This disagreement was the result of ADAM and his mate Eve wanting to exercise their free will.  God allows them the freedom to choose and they chose to do what pleased themselves.   Some modern biblical scholar coined this disagreement with God, as the original sin.  Let us take note here that there is no reference to the words “original sin” in any of the early translations.  The Hebrew meaning for sin is to miss the mark.  Another way of looking at it is this.  Living in darkness can be seen as living contrary to the natural laws of creation, and this darkness traps us from seeing the truth about ourselves.  If you need a good example of this today, think about the blindness to global warming or any of our environmental issues. 

ADAM, at least according to these religious teaching, becomes the carrier of darkness into the world.  Because we are all descendants of ADAM we carry his human darkness and it can make us blinded to the sinful human nature that exists in all of us.    Some have described our sin in later writings as our curious or selfish human nature running wild.  You know the old saying “the devil made me do it.”  The paradox here would be to suggest that God made me do it.  Others see the fall from Eden as the result of God offering us our own will to choose.  From this perspective by ADAM choosing to exercise his free will, there was a price to pay and the consequences were devastating to say the least, especially for the coming generations.  In this view bad circumstances take place because our choice is out of alignment with God’s will or the creative order.  The logical thought that comes to my mind is that good circumstances take place because the choice is in alignment with God or the created order.   Either way you can see that it is our choice that brings either good or bad consequences.  I must make note here that good choices do not always give us protection from being an innocent bystanders who just happens to be in the wrong place at the time when collateral damage occurs.  We will talk about this later on. 

In this view God doesn’t judge, punish or reward.  He leaves that up to us.  A bad choice calls down its own judgment and punishment, and sometimes takes an innocent bystanders down with it.    A good choice brings with it mercy, grace and forgiveness, regardless of the circumstances.    In this view God never forsakes or leaves us and is ready to offer us unconditional love and forgiveness, even if we choose poorly.   The choice becomes ours.  It matters not what view you take as long as you can make the connection.  Check your choices out with your heart before making them, even though they may run into conflict with worldly ways of thinking, your heart will always revile to you the truth.

                     OUR HUMAN NATURES VERSES OUR SPIRITUAL

On the day of your conception you were given two natures.  One is aggressive, wanting and can be mischievous, we call this our human nature.   You might think of this nature as meaning we all have a bit of the devil in us.  The other is compassionate, humble and full of grace, we call this our spiritual nature.  You might think of this nature as the Holy in all of us.   These two natures will continue to live side by side within us until death.   You can read about their existence and their differences in the Apostle Paul’s writings to the Ephesians, found in chapter 6 of the New Testament {NIV}  One is our spiritual nature, the nature of God and the other is our human nature, the nature of man or using the Hebrew word for man, ADAM.  Here is one view on how this came about.  ADAM the first human according to the Hebrew Bible story didn’t just materialize out of thin air, nor was he just an accident.  MAN [Adam} was part of the created order brought about by God, formed from the earth and given the breath of life.  God named his creation ADAM {man}.   ADAM a Hebrew word which means when translated, man of the red earth.  The soil in Eden, according to the Hebrew story, was reddish in color.  God breathed his spirit into ADAM, giving him life and a spiritual spirit, the nature of God.   At this point ADAM only has a spiritual nature, the nature of God.  Then God creates a partner for ADAM, WOMAN and names her EVE.   God then allows ADAM and EVE the freedom to choose for themselves.  This gift of free will would give birth to our second nature, our human nature.  With the gift of free will and this selfish nature, they choose the way of the serpent {representing the way of humankind} rather than being obedient to God’s way and so they begin to feed this new nature within.  This would become our human nature.   The story tells us that their curious human nature became sinful {meaning to fully miss the mark} when ADAM and EVE choose to disobey God and did eat the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge in the center of the garden.  These two natures will now be from this day forth engaged in what Apostil Paul calls our spiritual warfare within and will be apart of MAN and WOMAN until death.   If you look real close at man and his accomplishments you can see that many folk of all races have perished because of the exercising of our human nature.  It is our longing to be co-creators with God or to control nature itself that feeds kayos and keeps it alive in our world.  Even when we seemingly do good things with our free will and creativeness many have suffered or died.  It seems that our human nature can justify just about anything these days regardless of the outcome.   Hence EGO, the devilish part of our human nature is given its rightful place.  

Many of the diseases, addictions, dysfunctions  environmental problem and human accidents that plague individuals, families, the innocent bystander even whole countries today, have come from our curious egotistic human nature.  We still believe we can top God’s creative genius and can rule over our world.  That we can in fact become just like God, create human life and know all things.   Dr. David Browning a visiting  Psychiatrist at a local mental institution,  passes a patient who is standing in the doorway of his room, he asks” Hello sir and what is your name”  the patient salutes the Dr. and replies”  “Napoleon, SIR! ”  The doctor then asks “who told you that” he answers “God did SIR”, and then a voice came from the next room “Oh no I didn't ”.  Illusions click and check it out!

Next time:          “Our Devilish Ego”