Christians often talked about sin in its various forms and flavors, from personal sin to sins of a nation. Even after Paul exhorts to no longer have a sin consciousness or quilt (Heb 10:22)
Heb 10:22 (NIV)
22let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.
But this has fallen on deaf ears of most Christians, to the point where there is such a fear of sinning and sin that most have become slaves to it. There is not a Church goer that has not been reminded of their sin nature and the requirement to be redeemed, cleansed, and saved.
Where did all this start?
Gen 3:1-7 (NIV)
3:1Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”2The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” 4“You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5“For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”6When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Now keep in mind that most Christians really don’t know or agree on what is really meant by Original Sin. Was the original sin, disobedience, eating from the tree and becoming aware of something, or listening to the snake? No one really knows for sure. What most Christians will agree on that whatever it was, it caused the fall of man from grace and the garden. God being compelled to follow through with the threat kicks Adam and Eve out of the garden. The story does not stop there, it continues on; God removes the serpent’s legs and makes him crawl on his belly, Man and Woman get cursed. God then tells Satan that through the woman, he will be crushed. The prevailing Christian thought or what I have been taught, that a covenant was made, one of provision and deliverance by setting up for Jesus to come in restore everything back to its original order; thereby bringing us back to God the Father. We will talk about this in other blogs, but you get the idea of where this is going.
To believe that the serpent, Adam and Eve are literal and real characters is absurd and truly misses the point. In fact, to make this story literal, one has to create more myth that leads to more and more drama. However, this in my opinion is one of the greatest stories ever told. It is filled with great wisdom in that it captures what I believe is the true state of humanity in terms of how we see the world within a formed based reality of the five senses. How else do you explain the stuff that happens to us? Or how all the drama of life that plays out before us? Please understand that the word sin has nothing to do with being wrong, nor is it a moral thing. Rather, it simply means to miss the path or a falling away. I believe the writer is saying to us that once we decided to make a distinction between what is good and what is evil, or call a thing, act or deed, wrong, we created that reality, then became aware of it and judgment entered into our consciousness.We have been judging ourselves and everybody else; Don Miguel Ruiz in his wonderful book The Voice of Knowledge calls this the voice of knowledge.
Once we began to listen to the ego, the false self, we saw ourselves separate from God thus “missing the path” and leading us down a path of pain, suffering, drama and all of the rest. We began to believe that God required of us, what we required of ourselves, sacrifice and judgment. We defined God in our own image vs. being in the Creator’s image; we needed a savior to save us, one that would pay for our sins. This of course required blood, for what other way could we rid ourselves of this curse of duality that is to say, being perfect (As God Made Us) and not perfect (What we saw and made ourselves to be).
In truth, God has never left us; we are the individuation of the Creator Divine and as whole as God. What else could God create say for that of perfection? Searching deep within our core will see this to be true, it will resonate the truth which cannot be put into words but experienced at our being, bypassing the voices of knowledge, fear, quilt and commendation.
Filed under: The Why | Tagged: Christianity, sin, spirituality
Hi Evigilo,
I like your question and your insight.
I think you really hit the nail on the head when you say that the story was not meant to be taken literally.
Just for the sake of argument, I would like to say that I believe that it is possible that some of the fantastic things spoken of in the Bible and other religious texts quite possibly happened. I certainly don’t believe it would be beyond God’s power to do such things. Whether literal or not, however, I believe that there is a message concealed in each story that transcends the actual events.
I see stories such as genesis to be the type of stories that help us to understand the language of God. There are subtle hints and clues for those who are willing to look, that provide insight into other religious texts.
For instance, in the story, God tells Adam and Eve that by eating the fruit they would die, and yet they did not. Was God a liar? I seriously doubt it. So we see that the words life and death often have a symbolic reference in many of the books of the Bible. Interestingly enough, we like to imagine that they have a very literal interpretation. Christ, at one point, says, “Let the dead, bury their dead”. Obviously he is not talking about actual dead people, but instead, spiritually dead people. That’s one reason I find it funny that so many people are waiting for the “dead to rise from their graves” in a literal sense when Christ returns. Any person of insight can see that the dead are rising from their graves right now.
As for original sin, I personally believe that from one point of view, we all have original sin, but this existed long before Adam. If you look at sin as being imperfection, then all human beings are imperfect in the light of God. If God’s justice were not tempered with His grace, mercy and forgiveness, I doubt there would even be a humanity, let alone a creation.
As for Christ dying for our sins, I have a much different perspective on that than the prevailing thought.
To me, the significance of Christ’s death is this.
It is clear that Christ led a life devoted to helping others. It is clear that Christ was decent and honest. It is clear that Christ was not crazy. It seems clear to me that Christ was not “pretending” to be man’s savior just so he could reap some sort of personal rewards. It is clear that Christ knew what his end would be. It is clear that his end was not just.
This is the miracle that affirms to all, whether they were there or not that Christ was who he said he was. I won’t say that there aren’t other men who were righteous, who were devoted to helping others, who were decent and honest, wise and helpful that did not also end up being unjustly persecuted, but none of them made any claims to being the mouthpiece of God.
I seriously don’t believe a man like that would claim to be such a person unless he actually was.
I’m not the only one.
Because of this, the message of Christ was spread and delivered. It is because of this that mankind was made aware of God’s message and truth. Christ taught man how to see sin as not only an outward reality, but as an inward one as well. Christ helped man to see that what he thinks precedes what he does and is indicative of who he is. Armed with this knowledge, mankind was now able to wage war on imperfection from a new front. Their own mind. In addition, Christ armed man with a new understanding of the power they had been given over sin. He showed man that by simply asking God for forgiveness and turning to Him that the mistakes they had made in the past were truly, “in the past.” Don’t get me wrong, I believe that there are still and always will be consequences for various actions. Forgiveness, however, is about unconditional love. It is about seeing seeing sins for exactly what they are, mistakes to learn from. In this way, Christ delivered mankind from sin.
Does it mean that man no longer has sin. LOL. no. It only means that just because we have sinned in the past, we are not bound to repeat the sin in the future. We are not “sinners”, but rather, God’s children who, coincidentally, happen to sin.
Unfortunately, many of the things that Christ has taught have been lost to form. People go through the motions without even knowing why, and worse yet, without even asking.
I believe that faith is a good thing, but to me, “blind” faith is faith without justice, and that is not a good thing.
I hope to talk to you again soon.