muses

Ever since the fall, God has been active to reverse the effects of sin. He takes action to limit sin’s damage; he calls out a new nation, the Israelites, to mediate his teaching and his grace to others; he promises that one day he will send the promised Davidic king to overthrow sin and death and all their wretched effects. This is what Jesus does: he conquers death, inaugurates the kingdom of righteousness, and calls his followers to live out that righteousness now in prospect of the consummation still to come.

Is there anything wrong with this description of sin? According to D.A. Carson, plenty: It collapses human rebellion, God’s wrath, and assorted disasters into one construct, namely, the degradation of human life, while depersonalizing the wrath of God. It thus fails to wrestle with the fact that from the beginning, sin is an offense against God.

Yes, God takes sin personally. It is an active rebellion against Him. And sin occurs in the church as well because the church is filled with sinners, like me. Problem is, sometimes we try to hide the fact that it’s there.

Sin lives in a costume; that’s why it’s so hard to recognize. The fact that sin looks so good is one of the things that make it so bad. In order for it to do its evil work, it must present itself as something that is anything but evil. Life in a fallen world is like attending the ultimate masquerade party. Impatient yelling wears the costume of a zeal for truth. Lust can masquerade as a love for beauty. Gossip does its evil work by living in the costume of concern and prayer. Craving for power and control wears the mask of biblical leadership. Fear of man gets dressed up as a servant heart. The pride of always being right masquerades as a love for biblical wisdom. Evil simply doesn’t present itself as evil, which is part of its draw. You’ll never understand sin’s sleight of hand until you acknowledge that the DNA of sin is deception. Now, what this means personally is that as sinners we are all very committed and gifted self-swindlers… We’re all too skilled at looking at our own wrong and seeing good.

- Paul David Tripp, Whiter Than Snow: Meditations on Sin and Mercy

Let’s not pretend or think that sin is not in the church because that’s the deceptiveness of sin itself. That’s why we battle to fight it every day. Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick” (Matt 9:12). I am always sick with sin, so I always need to see the Doctor. Every day I need my dosage of forgiveness from God.

Many things in life are amoral, i.e. not involving questions of right or wrong. It’s different from immoral, i.e. violating moral principles. I love watching TV. I love surfing the net. But when I spend too much time on them, dulling my spiritual senses and appetite, than to spend more time with Christ in prayer, reading His word, then they become dangerous. The sin is not in watching TV or surfing the net; the sin is having too little love for God. I suppose growing in spiritual maturity is also knowing how to exercise this God-given freedom and choosing what’s best for my relationship with God. This is aptly explained by Pastor Matt Chandler:

What stirs your affections for Jesus Christ? And what robs you of those affections? Many of the things that stifle growth are morally neutral. They’re not bad things. Facebook is not bad. Television and movies are not bad. I enjoy TV, but it doesn’t take long for me to begin to find humorous on TV what the Lord finds heartbreaking.

The same goes for following sports. It’s not wrong, but if I start watching sports, I begin to care too much. I get stupid. If 19-year-old boys are ruining your day because of what they do with a ball, that’s a problem. These things rob my affections for Christ. I want to fill my life with things that stir my affections for him…

We want our people to think beyond simply what’s right and wrong. We want them to fill their lives with things that stir their affections for Jesus Christ and, as best as they can, to walk away from things that rob those affections—even when they’re not immoral.

I think I can easily answer the question ‘what robs me of my affections for Jesus Christ’, but I would struggle in answering the other question. I’m not sure. I need time to think.

Why is God just to punish Jesus for our sins when doing a similar thing would be so unjust for a human judge to do?

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The above is question someone posed to Pastor John Piper recently. Actually, I’ve had this question for a long time, but I had no fulfilling answers. How can God be just in letting an innocent man, His Son Jesus Christ, die and take the penalty for guilty sinners? I know that death is a must because ‘the wages of sin is death’ (Rom 6:23) - We are all sinners; that’s the price we have to pay. We experience death every day, in our inclination to rebel, in our hurts inflicted by people and from ourselves, and in disappointments and despair; we are already spiritually dead. And we will face physical death at the end of our earthly lives. But why should an innocent Man die just to fulfil the righteous requirement of the law? That’s not the justice that I understand. No legal system in the world would allow a man take the penalty of a guilty party; otherwise, that’s a kangaroo court. So how could a just God let an innocent man die?

Pastor Piper’s answer invoked a deeper thought into the requirements of the law and the purpose of the law. Any violation of the law is against the law-giver, a disregard of authority, be it a state, institution, or person. Sin is not an impersonal evil force or simply, human weakness.  Sin is a rebellion against God, a disobedience of His commandments. And so my focus shifts from the ‘who’ (the perpetuator’) to the ‘against whom’ (the Law). The law is not just to keep people within boundaries and punish those who deviate, but to point us to the Law-giver and restores us to our original state, before there was death. That’s real justice - restorative and life-giving.

Watched an episode of Real Superhumans on Discovery this week, and there’s this man who desires to live very, very old, if possible achieve immortality. He takes 120 different supplements every day, observes a punishing exercise regime and diet, and goes for a whole body check-up annually to analyse his body’s biological age. He may be 60 years old, but his biological age, said the analysis, is only 39. And he finances stem cells research and other research into genetics modification  so that he can benefit from the studies that will add to his longevity.

I really don’t understand why anyone would want to live forever. But of course, when God created man in the Garden of Eden, he was supposed to live forever with God in perfect fellowship. And when Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because they wanted to be like god, they and the subsequent generations of man fell and forever become captives of sin. And the penalty of sin is death. Not only did man experience spiritual death, i.e. separation from God, he also suffered physical death when he’s no longer allowed to eat the fruit from the tree of life.

But you know what? It is actually an act of mercy that God does not allow the fallen man to live forever. Imagine that you will be afflicted by the power of sin. Forever. That you will, from your very first breath, agonise over the loneliness, disappointments, emotional anguish, bitterness, imperfections, weaknesses, and the likes. For eternity.

I don’t want to live forever. In fact, I long to see Jesus, especially when I’m caught up in the tension of sin. I know that one day I will be perfected and delivered from the presence of sin, either after I die or when Jesus returns, whichever is earlier. But I also know that this destiny is for those who believes in Jesus. What about for those who don’t? Then they will continue to be separated from the presence of God. Forever. And all that is of God: love, joy, righteousness, and life - all these will be absent as well.

I didn’t say this. The word of God says so.

Meant to update my blog earlier but my thoughts were very scattered and I didn’t know what to write exactly. In fact, my mind is always full of thoughts. But just because someone’s mind is full of thoughts means that she is intelligent. I’m just a pensive person, but I’m not a deep thinker. Anyway, my mind is usually very noisy. Like when I pray, I would have a million thoughts distracting me, and I’m very frustrated about the absence of stillness and silence. A sister mentioned to me about the practice of silence, and actually, I’m rather interested to find out more. In fact, I think this would be my mini project for foundation class (we were supposed to start examining a certain topic of interest, but I haven’t heard anything about it for weeks..)

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Anyway, a certain incident at work yesterday provoked me to think about submission to civil government. What happened was that my colleague bought someone a music CD for a gift and I joked in front of others in the department about ripping it before giving the CD away. OK, I admit it: I was half-serious about it. But as soon as those words left my mouth, I knew that those words could stumbled my non-Christians colleagues, and I really regretted speaking. What if they think that Christians and non-Christians are the same, that we have no regards for IP laws? In fact, my illegal jaywalking is also considered as rebellion to the civil government. And in my Bible reading, I’ve came across exhortations of submission to authorities (Titus 3:1). And you know what? I think it DOES amount to sin when I jaywalk or rip songs illegally, because it is in direct opposition to the word of God. Even as I’m typing this, I know that it sounds crazy and blown out of proportion. But just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t mean that it’s OK for me to do so. In fact, sin is sin no matter how small the matter is or even if it doesn’t seem to hurt anyone. And the word of God is never meant to just restrict; God said what He said to protect us because He loves us. And this is something that I am discovering as I delve into His word, just one of those bountiful treasures in this deep deep mine.