In the garden of sin

How do we talk about sin? How do we understand what it is?

Some do not speak of it at all. If sin is a part of their theology at all, it is a vague thing that can probably be rooted out by good thoughts and education.

Others take sin quite seriously. They understand fallen humanity to be the basic condition of our lives. But they speak of this falleness – this sinfulness – in different ways. There are many metaphors for sin.

The classic Reformation view – which John Wesley clearly shared – starts with a righteous God and an unworthy humanity. It seeks to convict us and cut us to the heart. We deserve nothing at God’s hand. If God were to drop us into the pit this very moment that would not only be within God’s power, but it would be justified. We have so tarnished and damaged the wonderful gifts God has given us, that we deserve – indeed justice demands – we be punished.

More widespread in the mainline Protestant church is a view – if not derived from then at least shared by Eastern Christianity – that sees sin more as a disease of the soul in need of healing than a willful corruption and rebellion against God. Randy Maddox has argued that John Wesley was also influenced by this view. In it, the response to sin is much more therapeutic than judicial. God is the healer rather than the judge. And while we may be condemned if we refuse the healing, it is a tragedy rather than justice when that happens.

Just yesterday, I was reading Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline and he offered two metaphors in two paragraphs.

Sin is slavery and sin is a soul like a tossing sea. I particularly liked his metaphor of the tossing sea taken from Isaiah 57:20, “The wicked are like the tossing sea; for it cannot rest, and its waters toss up mire and dirt.”

Foster elaborates:

The sea does not need to do anything special to produce mire and dirt; that is the result of its natural motions. This is also true of us when we are under the condition of sin. The natural motions of our lives produce mire and dirt. Sin is part of the internal structure of our lives. No special effort is needed to produce it. No wonder we feel trapped.

These four metaphors – crime, disease, slavery, sea – are just the beginning. Scripture gives us many more. Literary imagination and our own experience suggest a wide range of ways to describe sin.

I’m fascinated by how many ways we try to understand the nature and meaning of sin and how the image or metaphor we use changes not just our sense of sin, but even our understanding of salvation and the gracious work of God.

The poet in me wants to preserve as many of these different understandings and images as we can. I see such a loss when we collapse it down to one in the name of clarity. But that goes for all these views. We all have understandings we want to throw out, but doing so impoverishes our faith and pushes us one step closer to iron and lifeless legalism.

When it comes to sin – just as with God – we need a full garden of metaphors to help us see what the world and its ruler would blind us to.