Birth Defect - The First Exile

I have made the distinction about being in exileor on exileover the past two months.

 I do not believe this is merely a matter of semantics. However, it is a matter perspective. 

We all are in some form of exile. It is our perspective that allows us to purposefully and proactively be on exile.

 So let’s deal with the first exile.

We are born in exile. SIN. The notion of original sin, our inheritance as members of the human community, is not very popular today. In the age of pluralism where every idea must be equal in value we cringe at naming something as a lesser good. 

Thus to name something as bad doesn’t stand a chance. And to say that people are born with a stain of bad in our inner person must be rejected outright.

However, we have real problem. It shows up everyday on our Google news feed or the evening news. Evil. It is in our face. We observe human actions that are just plain evil. Hatred. Rage. Hostility. 

And it is easy to objectify those realities as belonging to really bad people.

How about what we feel in our own hearts? I experience hatred, rage and hostility in my heart. The people around me generally perceive me as a nice and kind person. How do I know? They tell me so. I am not closely watched as a danger to society. Why? Because I do not act on those heart instincts. But nonetheless, they are there as evidence of the sin stain.

Temptation is not sin. But temptation toward evil reveals my heart condition. SIN. It is not just out there, it is within here. I have an inner reflex to evil. And so do you! The hymn writer caught it well,

             Prone to wander, Lord I feel it,

             Prone to leave the one I love . . . .

Our culture knows that there is a problem (it is too obvious to not see). But it does not like the notion of sin – and particularly the idea that it might be in me, in you, in everyone. So we conceived of another notion regarding the source of evil.

The secular solution is to shift evil out away from me. As a human, I must be good. So evil is explained as the result of bad socialization or education. The problem is society. Oddly, this notion is laced with internal contradiction on at least two accounts. 

Relativism - if nothing can be bad, how can we say that society is bad? Isn’t that closed-minded?

Cultural Theory – the hard categories of culture were abandoned long ago by the social sciences. Culture, or society, isn’t something outside of us. These only have life as created and maintained by human beings. Culture and society take on systemic power but they do not exist outside of the cooperation of humans. So the streams of good and evil in society still find their source in human beings.

So secular theory breaks apart based on its own underlying principles.

So maybe it is time to turn our ear to a better source of understanding regarding the problem of evil in our world – and the problem of evil in my own heart.

God’s Word, the Bible, identifies sin as a human condition. 

Sin was introduced into humanity with the Fall of the first humans. Historically the church has referred to this as original sin.

The apostle Paul writes:

“sin came into the world through one man (Adam), and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12)

Born good, Adam (humanity) chose sin. Our view of sin is often reduced to one notion - breaking the rules. So God sits in heaven watching to make sure that we do not break the rules. Yes, sin does involve breaking the rules. Or better yet - missing the mark. But the target has little to do with rules and much more to do with a misplaced love and purpose.

Sin is far more complicated than what we do or do not do. 

It is a condition.

Born good, and even very good, by God’s own judgment (Genesis 1:31). Yet marred by a choice to reject God’s way. And something happened to our hearts in the process. We took on a predisposition to rebellion so that God’s judgment later acknowledges a marred side to the very good – “the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21).

Born in sin (Psalm 51:5). Wait a minute – that’s not fair.

Practitioners of sin (I John 1:8,10). Okay – busted.

And it is not just those guys over there born on the wrong side of the tracks. “We all like sheep have gone astray” (Isaiah 53:6). 

And it is not just rule breakers. It is us, all people, not living up to our creative purpose – the glory of God. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

And it is all out enmity with God. We reject the Giver of life. We follow the one called a Murderer. People born with a death sentence - dead in trespasses and sins, born as children of wrath, sons of disobedience (Ephesians 2:1-3).

Me? 

ALL. 

Sin is so much a part of me that I am blinded to it. “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?”(Jeremiah 17:9).

Even nice Aunt Mary? See does not have a mean bone in her body. 

ALL. 

“The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who act wisely and seek after God . . . they have all turned aside . . . become corrupt . . . there is none that does good, no not even AUNT MARY” (Psalm 14:1-2).

Whoa Chuck. It is getting gloomy in here. 

No, it is getting real. Denying the gloom does not make it any brighter. It just leaves me oblivious in the gloom.

Those same passages that turn a mirror on my human condition have a solution that involves light.

Psalm 51 – Born in sin . . . but there is God’s mercy and his steadfast love.

Isaiah 53 – Gone astray following our iniquities and transgressions . . . the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

I John 1 – If we say we have no sin . . . deceived. If we confess our sin . . . forgiven and cleansed. Confession – simple agreement with what God says of my condition. 

Ephesians 2 – Dead. BUT GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The condition of sin is severe. Born and sold into slavery.

The cost of liberation was just as severe. Bought and ransomed with the very blood (life) of Jesus.

Jesus frees me from the shame game – I see the evil in my own heart and do not deny it.

Jesus frees me from the blame game – society or the devil made me do it. 

Those two strategies of dealing with sin are quite old. Our humanity parents (Adam and Eve), the ones who gave us this wonderful inheritance of sin, also modeled for us the blame and shame game.

But Jesus! In his love he offers us a better option. The name and claim game. The only valid “name and claim it” theology available to us.

Name it. I am a sinner. I was born in sin. I practice sin. Even in my most spiritual moments I am tainted.

Claim it. I am a saint. I was reborn by blood. The blood of Jesus, his life poured out, secured my pardon. Ransomed. Made new. 

I will never be on exile without first acknowledging that I was born in exile and actually embraced the exile system by my own practice of sin.

On exile with you in a long tradition of exiles.