The crunch

If God is Love, if his desire really is to allow man to become part of himself and part of his circle of Love, if he continues to woo man and pursue him with his Love despite man’s rejection of God, why does the Bible talk so much about sin?

The Bible tells us how sin angers God, how it cuts man off from God and how God punishes sin. If God is Love, why is sin such a big deal? Why does God seem so intolerant of sin? What is it about sin that separates us from him? Can’t he just let it go? Why is the consequence of sin death?  If sin has to have a consequence, could God not have invented a different one? It all seems rather harsh for a God of Love.

I grew up believing (and I dare say it is a fairly prevalent view) that sin is the sum of all the bad things we do. The wrong things we do are bad because they don’t match up to God’s yardstick of perfection. As God is the Creator, it is his yardstick that counts and everything is measured against his perfect and blameless standards. I grew up believing that God is a perfect and pure God and that God therefore cannot be in relationship with anyone who is less than perfect or pure. I grew up believing that God can only be in relationship with those who are blameless, or are considered blameless by him. So I grew up believing that sin was like a contaminant which essentially prevented me from coming into the holy (which I understood to mean something like ‘sterile’) presence of God, who was unable to stand any contamination. I grew up believing that sin, those imperfect and therefore wrong things that we do, brings with it punishment, like breaking the law brings punishment. I grew up believing that God’s punishment for doing things that don’t match up to the perfection He requires is death. As no-one is perfect, I grew up believing that therefore God’s punishment on us all for not doing things his way is death. After all, doesn’t the Bible clearly state that we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God? Doesn’t the Bible also indicate that the wages of sin is death, in other words that the consequence of our failure to live up to God’s perfection is death, being cut off from him forever?

Somehow this all seems very harsh for a God of Love. It portrays a God who is more concerned about perfection and particular behaviour than a God who desires relationship above all? Doesn’t the Bible itself tell us that love is patient and kind, that it is not self-seeking, not jealous, not proud and that it doesn’t keep a record of wrongs? Insisting on perfection or else death seems rather self-seeking. Is God not really Love after all? Or could it be that we have misunderstood sin?