Probably between ad 85 and 95, John [1] wrote to the believers near Ephesus, in present-day Turkey.[2] The persecution under Nero had come and gone, killing even Paul and Peter. John was the last apostle, looking back at what had been happening in the early church.
1 John 1:1-7
We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us— we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship (koinonia) with us; and truly our fellowship (koinonia) is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our[3] joy may be complete.
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship (koinonia) with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship (koinonia) with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
In his opening, John seems to be responding to the Gnostics, who thought there was no way Jesus was incarnate (“in the flesh”) because matter was evil. John makes it clear that he was. The incarnate Jesus could be seen, heard, and touched.
Then he explains how our relationship with Christ brings us into the family of God. We can have genuine fellowship with other followers of Jesus because our fellowship is grounded in our fellowship with God (1 John 1:3). The result is joy.
Fellowship flows from knowing God, who is “light.” In God there is “no darkness at all” (1:5) Light suggests purity, honest, goodness, righteousness, truth. There are no shadows or dark sides to God (James 1:17); he is perfect and free of sin (Psalms 145:17; Matthew 5:48).[4] Jesus said, “I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness”(Matthew 12:46). So if genuine fellowship comes from being in the light, the breaking of our fellowship comes from walking in darkness (1 John 1:6).
Our profession of faith must be backed up by our practice (1:6). Children of the light walk in it (see John 8:12; Eph. 5:8; Col. 1:13; 1 Pet. 2:9.[5]
For John, fellowship with others follows faith in God and displays itself in works that build fellowship with God and others. Life from Christ exhibits characteristics of life of Christ. This is how we know we are ‘in the light’ with Him (1 John 2:5–6): we will increasing resemble Jesus.”[6]
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“God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship (koinonia) with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true.”
I've been hearing a lot of discussion about Christians should be responding to recent scandals among Christian leaders. I want to walk into this with fear and trembling, because I am well aware that when sinners talk about other sinners there is a danger of unrighteous judgment and pride. And yet we can’t shy away from this. We must wrestle with how it is that professing Christians leave the light and head toward the dark, and how we get back out. Our fellowship with God and others is on the line. So I offer some (imperfect) thoughts meant to inspire us to wrestle with this. A lot of the discussion centers around some version of two common phrases:
· “There but for the grace of God go I.”
· “We are all sinners saved by grace, and so we are all in need of God's forgiveness.”
There is truth in both of these, but it's a truth that can be misunderstood or misapplied. While it’s an important part of a broader biblical truth, they need to be situation within that broader biblical truth. #context That's what I would like to explore today.
I think the foundational question is this: are all sins equal in the eyes of God? My question is: Equal how? In eternal consequence? In impact to humanity? In affecting my sanctification? From that follows other questions:
· Do we all walk in the same kind of darkness?
· Are some in shadows while some are in inky, blinding darkness, and does that distinction even matter?
· Do all sins have an equal impact on our fellowship with God and others?
Let’s start to build a framework.
First, the unholiness of all sin is incompatible with the holiness of God. All sin happens in and contributes to the same darkness of evil’ all sins do something negative to our fellowship with God and others. All sin at minimum “misses the mark” (hamartia) of our holy calling, and at maximum just wreaks sinful havoc in the world (asebeia, parabasis).[7] In Christianity, every sin is fatal to us. That isn't intended to minimize the impact on victims, but to maximize the responsibility of perpetrators - and to remind us that, to vary degrees, we are all perpetrators.
All sin leads to spiritual death; all sin requires a price to be paid that we cannot pay ourselves; all sin requires repentance the leads to forgivenss that will be an act of God’s grace through Christ.
“ But if you show favoritism… you’ll be sinning and condemned by the law. For if a person could keep all of the laws and yet break just one; it would be like breaking them all. The same God who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also says, “Do not murder.” If you break either of these commands, you’re a lawbreaker, no matter how you look at it. So live your life in such a way that acknowledges that one day you will be judged.”
(James 2:9-12)
“The wages of sin (hamartia – “missing the mark”) is death.” (Romans 6:23)
Just as “the love of God, which builds up the City of God,” is the source and root of all virtues, so too “the love of self, which builds up the City of Babylon,” is the root of all sins. (Augustine in De Civitate Dei)
We all walk into the same kind of darkness. The sinner pays either with his own life or Christ's, but death is due. There is a death my sin brings to me, as it ripples out to others: death of relationship, death of trust, death of innocence. These are not the same death kind of death, but they are real burdens borne by those around me. It requires the blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse us from the penalty of sin and the impact of sin, and move both perpetrators and victims into the same kind of light.
So in that sense, when we say that the ground is level at the foot of the cross, that's what we mean. All of us kneel there. That is the great humbler in Christian theology. We all kneel. We are all dead in our sins without the life of Christ (Ephesians 2; Romans 6). We all require the grace of God given through Jesus, who paid the eternal penalty of death so we can have eternal life.
But the temporal implications of sin are handled in a different way biblically than the eternal implications of sin. In other words, the great leveling in the spiritual realm stands arm-in-arm with a gradation of the wickedness and severity of sin in the physical realm.
Starting at the Old Testament we see that God establishes a system of responses to sinful behavior that does not treat all sin the same. There is a principle of sowing and reaping. If you sow a lot, you reap a lot. That’s true of doing good and doing evil. And God will not be mocked. We will sow what we reap.
· Genesis 18:20 states that the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were unusually grievous.
· Jeremiah 16:12 tells the Israelites they have done worse than their fathers.
· Exodus 32:30-31 “Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great[8] sin…and have made them gods of gold.”
· 2 Kings 17:21 “Jeroboam drove Israel from following the LORD, and made them sin a great sin.”
· God revealed the sins of Israel in three stages to Ezekiel. And in each stage Israel’s sins were “more detestable” (Ezekiel 8:6-16) than the previous ones.
· In Numbers 15, the Bible contrasts sin done unintentionally and sin done “with a high hand,” meaning sin done willingly while shaking one’s fist at God.
· Scripture also speaks of “sins that cry out” that God himself will execute judgment because humans and government officials have acted unjustly towards others (e.g., Gen. 4:10; 18:20; 19:13; Ex. 3:7-10; Deut. 24:14-15).
In the Old Testament, there were escalating temporal responses to violations against others and against God, from escalating fines to being cut off from the people (exile) or being put to death. God applied different temporal penalties to different sins. A thief paid restitution; an occult practitioner was cut off from Israel; one who committed premeditated murder was sentenced to death. In addition,
“Distinctions are made between different levels of clean and uncleanness requiring different sacrifices (Lev. 11-15, cf. chs. 1-8), and especially between “unintentional” and “intentional” sins (Num. 15:22-30). Unintentional sin can be atoned for (e.g., Lev. 4), but certain intentional sins, specifically “high handed” sins are so grievous that they cannot be atoned for and they require the death penalty (Num. 15:30). This kind of distinction makes no sense unless we think in terms of degrees of sin.”[9]
So while everyone went to the temple to offer a sacrifice for the forgiveness of their sins, great or small, not everything played out the same in their community life. Even Jesus talks about greater and lesser sins.[10]
· Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above [higher up – from Rome]. Therefore he who delivered Me over to you has the greater sin.” Matthew 23:14
· Jesus, speaking to the Pharisees and scribes, said they shall receive greater damnation because of their hypocrisy. Some sins are called gnats, others camels (Matthew 23:24).
The New Testament writers felt the same way.
· 1 John 5:16-16 “6 In this regard, if you notice a brother or sister in faith making moral missteps and blunders, disregarding and disobeying God even to the point of God removing this one from the body by death, then pray for that person; and God will grant him life on this journey. But to be clear, there is a sin that is ultimately fatal and leads to death. I am not talking about praying for that fatal sin, 17 but I am talking about all those wrongs and sins that plague God’s family that don’t lead to death.”
The Catholic tradition makes a distinction between venial and mortal sins,[11] but we are not Catholic, so let’s see what the Reformers thought –which is that there is a difference between lesser sins and what they called gross and heinous sins.
“The Reformers did not deny degrees of sin, but they did reject the mortal-venial distinction, especially as it was worked out in Rome’s sacramental theology. For them, all sin is “mortal” before God, and our only hope is that we are united to Christ in saving faith and declared justified in him. For fallen creatures to stand before God, we need Christ’s perfect righteousness imputed to us and all of our sin completely paid for by his substitutionary death.
Also, for the believer who is born of the Spirit and united to Christ as our covenant head, since our justification is complete in Christ, there is no sin that removes our justification, and ultimately thwarts the sanctifying work of the Spirit by the loss of our salvation. Yet, although we should reject the mortal-venial distinction as taught by Rome, this does not entail that we should reject a distinction between all sin as equal before God and various degrees of sin in terms of their overall effects on the person, others, and the world.”[12]
But what about this?
“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment… You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:21-28)
Both scenarios reflect a dark heart that God sees; both are sins that have eternal implications. Both deserve judgment. Both require repentance. But they do not land in the world temporally in the same way. Jesus himself has other teachings that make that distinction. Not all sins have the same impact on the image-bearers around the sinner the same way. The sins of the heart deserve condemnation; the sins of the hand deserve a greater condemnation. Think of it this way:
· If sins were in every sense equal, in every sense not different, the person thinking about killing someone they hate might as well just do it, if these sins are not in some sense different, because Jesus says someone who wishes someone else dead is as guilty as if they had murdered them.
· If someone would say to me, “I might as well go ahead and commit adultery because I’m already guilty of lust. I can’t be in any worse shape in the sight of God, so I might as well finish the deed.” My answer? “Oh yes, you can be in much worse shape in the eyes of God and others.” The “sowing and reaping” judgment of actual adultery will be much greater than the harvest from internal lust.
· If abusers would restrain unrepentant lust in their minds, the people around them might be creeped out when they are around them (“Something’s not right with that guy”), but they would not be abused. It’s a foolish thing for a person who has committed a misdemeanor to say, “I’m already guilty; I might as well make it a felony.” God forbid that we should think like that.[13]
I was watching Knives Out, and there is scene where the villian, who had killed two people, tries to kill a third. “In for a penny, in for a pound.” This is a terrible idea. Killing three people is worse than killing two, and actually killing them was worse than if he had just thought about killing them.
Both the Bible and our experience make a distinction between the severity of things. We can simultaneously recognize that all of them are bad – all of them are a walk into the valley of the shadows of spiritual death at minimum - without having to level the impact that they clearly have on the world and on others. It's like cleaning up after a heavy wind storm versus a heavy hurricane. Both are storms; one leaves of disaster unlike the other.
There's a temporal difference between taking one step off the path and having taken a hundred. All the steps must be dealt with, surrendered, and repented for because they all traffic in darkness. But some of them rock the world and ways that other ones don't. I think we ignore that difference at our spiritual and relational peril.
Justin Bieber[14] and Shawn Mendez sing a song in which they ask, “What if I trip? What if I fall? Then am I the monster?” Well, no, but if you land where monsters grow, you’d best get out. If you don’t, you will be. That’s how monsters start. If you track their lives back far enough, all monsters at one point looked a lot like us.
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I don’t make this point so that we can look at our sin and say, “It’s just a step into the shadows. I’m not like THAT person, who sprinted there and made a home there.” If that’s where your mind is going, you are missing the point and are further in darkness right now than you realize.[15] If you use the temporal severity of someone else’s sin to give yourself a pass, you need a serious revival in your heart.
I read a book once that talked about the ripple effect of our sin. It’s like the Butterfly Effect. We see huge sin and the immediate temporal impact and think, “Terrible sin!” and that’s a correct judgment. But we don’t realize our smaller sins are stones cast in the water that ripple out and lead to sins we will never know about but may well be devestating. We need to get over ourselves and our self -righteousness. It’s like filthy rags if we could see it.[16]
I make the point about the temporal gradation of sin for two reasons. You need to hear both reasons before you react to my first reason.
The first point: if we are not careful, saying, “We are all sinners in need of forgiveness” can sound like a minimization of the terrible impact of what happened, as if stealing a pencil the same as rape. It can make fail to pass a righteous judgment on what happened.
Please. Pass a biblically appropriate judgment on all sin. We are allowed to weigh in on fruit. Please, don’t let the fact that we are all sinners stop us from lamenting the horrible nature of escalated sin. Don’t refuse to condemn sexual abuse because you have had lustful thoughts. Repent of your lustful thoughts, and then echo the OT prophets, who were certainly not perfect, and who had no problem calling out the abuse of God’s image-bearers, especially when the sin was committed by those who claimed to be God’s people.
The second point: we must take seriously the truth that “We are all sinners in need of forgiveness,” and “There but for the grace of God go I.” I don’t mean we all would inevitably end up where some people have. I mean we all have the capacity to step into the shadows and keep going. We know this already in our own ways in our own lives. Even if we didn’t go so far as to become monsters, we know what it is like to at least explore lands of darkness where the monters looked attractive.
People don't wake up one morning and think, “I'll be a serial sexual predator, or a mass shooter, or start Enron.” I suspect it was something much, much smaller, something that might even feel insignificant in the overall scheme of things but which was a step down a path that veered off the path of righteousness.
Unless I am intentional and lean on God's grace, I will wade into the water of sin until a point that I am taken terrible places by the relentless undertow I helped create – and I will surely take others with me. It doesn't matter what the sin is - we can all drown accidentally because we went wading on purpose.
I read a book once by the lead detective in the Jon Benet Ramsey case. Something that has stuck with me is that from a police perspective they are not worried about the person who snaps and kills someone else. That person always confesses because their conscience can't handle it. It's the person who is slowly become more violent that they worry about, because by the time they get to killing people they just don't care, they're conscious doesn't bother them, they're not haunted by their sin.
“Sin is of an encroaching nature; it creeps on the soul by degrees, step by step, till it hath the soul to the very height of sin. ...By all this we see, that the yielding to lesser sins, draws the soul to the committing of greater… Ecclesiastes [says] ‘The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness, and the end of his talking is mischievous madness.’ ...” Thomas Brooks
That's applicable to all of us. There, but for the grace of God. we take that first step and keep going, and eventually we end up somewhere very, very dark. So, what do those steps look like?
· It's entertaining rather than fighting those lustful thoughts because hey, nobody will know.
· It's not reporting that one source of income because it can't be that big of a deal and it's not that much taxes and it's not worth the hassle.
· It's clicking on that link because it's just one picture that will get my adrenaline pumping.
· It's making demeaning jokes about the opposite sex because they're funny, right?
· It's accepting that Facebook friend request from someone who likes to post racy pictures and who has no mutual friends with you because hey, why not?
· It's sharing that meme that yeah, it's a little harsh and maybe even a little unfair, but this is the time for it.
· It's listening to angry people on podcasts, TV shows and YouTube videos and thinking that they're probably too angry, but this is entertaining.
· It’s sharing prayer requests that are gossip.
· It's slowly moving from generosity to greed in just the smallest of ways.
· It’s telling a slight untruth about someone else because it makes us look better.
· It’s hiding that small sin from the accountability of others because it’s not that big of a deal.
There is the start of a path that, but for the grace of God, we go. And but for the grace of God, we'll keep going. I don't think it's fair to say that we would all end up at the same place with the same kind of sin. What is fair to say is that we will all walk to terrible places of some sort if we do not deal with each step that is taking us there.
But if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
That which is hidden must come to the light. This is the only way we have fellowship with God and others. We must walk in the light as Jesus was in the light.
We don't usually sprint to sin, at least not at first. We usually wander or walk. The speed comes when momentum is built over time. I remember once when I went skiing and I was feeling really confident at the end of the day, so I went up to one of the larger hills. I started down and it only took about 10 feet before I just threw myself to the ground and stopped all of my momentum because I knew it was not going to end well. I took off my skis and crawled back up while everyone on the ski lift watched me. It was humiliating, but it was better than the alternative. That momentum was going to break a leg, or crash me into people.
This is why it is so crucial to stop the momentum. The grace of God has given us his Word, his spirit, and his people. These are all meant to stop this momentum and move us back into the light. Part of the grace that God gives us are means of sanctifaction that are right in front of us. Things like accountability and community. Things like honesty and transparency.
I'd like us to think and pray about a few things this week.
· Do I have a trajectory that is taking me toward darkness or light?
· Am I already in deep darkness in need of a blinding light?
· How much of my life is hidden? Particularly, what am I hiding?
· Am I being honest before God and others about what is happening?
· What does it look like to turn around?
· How will repentance benefit my fellowship with God and others?
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[1] John was the one “whom Jesus loved” (John 13:23). He wrote five books in the New Testament: three letters, a gospel, and the book of Revelation.
[2] “His special vocabulary tells the whole story: To remain/continue/abide (24x) in the truth (9x) means to believe in (9x) or confess (5x) the Son (22x), to whom the Father (14x) and Spirit (8x) bear witness (12x); it means further to be born of God (10x), so as to walk (5x) in the light (6x), to hear (14x) and to know (40x) God, to keep (7x) the commandment (14x) to love (46x) the brothers and sisters (15x), and thus to have life (13x), which is from the beginning (8x), and finally to overcome (6x) the world. All of this is in contrast to the lie (7x), deceit (4x), denying Christ (3x), having a false spirit (4x), thus being antichrist (4x), walking in darkness (6x), hating (5x) one’s brothers and sisters but loving the world (23x), thus being in sin (27x), which leads to death (6x).” (How To Read The Bible Book By Book, Gordon Fee)
[3] Other oldest manuscripts and versions read "OUR joy," namely, that our joy may be filled full by bringing you also into fellowship with the Father and Son. (Compare Joh 4:36, end; Php 2:2, "Fulfil ye my joy," Php 2:16; 4:1; 2Jo 8). It is possible that "your" may be a correction of transcribers to make this verse harmonize with Joh 15:11; 16:24; however, as John often repeats favorite phrases, he may do so here, so "your" may be from himself. So 2Jo 12, "your" in oldest manuscripts. The authority of manuscripts and versions on both sides here is almost evenly balanced. (Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary)
[4] “1:5 God is light. The connection between God and light begins in the opening verses of Genesis (see Ge 1:3) and continues in the Psalms (see Ps 27:1; 36:9; 104:2) and the Prophets (see Isa 49:6; Mic 7:8). The coming Messiah was also thought to bring God’s light (see note on Jn 1:4–13). Matthew and Luke used Isaiah’s image (Isa 9:2) that the coming Messiah would bring light to those in darkness to point to Jesus (Mt 4:16; Lk 1:79). There are numerous references to light and darkness in the Gospel of John (Jn 1:4–5, 9; 3:19–21; 8:12; 9:5; 12:35–36, 46). Outside of the New Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls community called themselves the “sons of light,” playing on the same theme of God as light (see note on Lk 16:8).” (NIV First Century Study Bible)
[5] Vines Expository Bible Study Notes
[6] “John challenges us to find in the mirror of our everyday lives clearer reflections of Jesus and to disregard the teachings of those who, like vampires, have no reflection at all and seek to suck the life from those who do.” How To Read The Bible Through The Jesus Lens
[7] https://www.theopedia.com/greek-and-hebrew-words-for-sin
[8] This particular word has to do with orders of magnitude greater. https://biblehub.com/hebrew/1419.htm
[9] https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/degrees-of-sin/
[10] Some common markers theologians use to talk about what makes a sin “greater”: Awareness of breaking God’s law; rebellious motivation; puposeful intent to do harm to others; habitual revisiting of that sin; degree of impactful on others.
[11] https://catholicstraightanswers.com/what-is-the-difference-between-mortal-and-venial-sin/
[12] https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/degrees-of-sin/
[13] https://www.ligonier.org/blog/are-there-degrees-sin/
[14] That’s right. I quoted Justin Bieber.
[15] You may be wondering if this leads to the kind of judgment the Bible warns against. The Bible is clear that it is not our place to judge the thoughts and intents of the heart. That's what God sees. But what the Bible does make clear is that we can know people by their fruits. What people do is something that is an outward expression of something inside and yes, we can reach conclusions about whether what things people do are holy or unholy, whether they are steps in the path of righteousness into the light or steps away from the path of righteousness into the darkness. Ravi has already had conversations with God about the state of his heart. That's not mine to figure out. What I can do is figure out how what he did aligns with what God calls us to do. And that was a pretty easy one to figure out.
[16] Isaiah 64:6
