What About PHYSICAL SIN?
Jamie McNab
www.t-cog.net
It
is good to be back with you again after our short vacation. When we last spoke two weeks ago we were just
finishing off our study on the book of James, you may remember. During that Bible Study we turned to James,
chapter five, and you might want to open your Bibles there for just a moment.
You may still have your fifty dollar bill tucked in there as a bookmark from
the last time we talked? You will
remember that we were looking at the subject of healing and we are going to
return to that today.
In
verse 14 of chapter 5, we read these words: Is anyone among you sick? If anyone
among you is sick...That is an interesting challenge there. Let him call for the elders of
the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of
the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save (or, we said, heal) the sick
... The prayer of faith will
heal the sick. The Greek word can mean
“heal” and is often translated “heal.”
So ...the prayer of faith will heal
the sick, and the Lord will raise him
up. And ... (This was the
interesting part that we had to hurry over) ... if he has committed sins, he
will be forgiven.
I
think at the time I said, “Well, of course, that is clearly referring to
physical sins.” Then I realized when I
said that, that “oops,” that could be a slightly controversial item, certainly
one that isn’t always well understood, but we were running short of time, so I
just mentioned it in passing, and we carried on. You may recollect, those of you who were
online after the study finished, that
So
that is precisely what I am going to do in today’s Bible Study. If you would like a title for this Bible
Study, it would be, “What About Physical Sin?”
Is
it important to know? Because, really,
when you are doing any Bible Study, you want to look at something that is going
to be fairly useful in some way to us, to extend our understanding, to give us
instruction in how to live differently, some information that would be of
practical use to us. I think that this
topic should fit in those categories because, first of all, it is related to
the subject of healing and health and well-being, and I would think that all of
us are quite interested and concerned about our healing and our health and our
well-being, so that sounds like it is fairly practical.
Also, as you look through the topic of
physical sin, as linked to sickness and healing, it gives us a greater insight
into God’s nature - how He has a concern for us, physically, you and me, and
our well-being, and what He has done about it.
So it shows us more of God’s mind toward us. Also, as if that is not enough, it ties in,
as you will see, hopefully, to Jesus’ crucifixion and His death. Bearing in mind that Passover is not too far away, it’s not a bad topic to
cover, and, of course, it will help us to perhaps understand more clearly, or
reaffirm, what we already know about the meaning of Passover.
Lastly,
and probably of least importance in many ways, it might just help us be
conscious of the debates between Mr. Herbert Armstrong, now deceased, and Mr.
Tkach, the Worldwide Church of God, and a number of other well-known churches
of God, because most of us probably feel a certain amount of loyalty toward Mr.
Herbert Armstrong. We recognize that he
gave us a tremendous legacy of what he believed to be truth, and I think we are
aware that many people criticize, condemn and tear him apart. The Worldwide Church of God certainly did and
pretty much threw out everything Mr. Armstrong taught and stood for (and the
subject of physical sin, strangely enough, was one of the earliest topics that
they took objection to).
So
as a little bit of background, I will read two or three, maybe four or five
paragraphs from Mr. Armstrong “versus” Worldwide Church of God and some of the
others of the Churches of God, so you can see that there is actually a little
bit of a controversy here, a debate; and we are not going to look at it for the
purpose of proving Mr. Armstrong right.
We will look at it for the purpose of seeing what the Bible teaches, and
hopefully we will see that Mr. Armstrong, as so often was the case, was more
right than the rest.
For
example, here are some of the comments made by the Worldwide Church of God in
its booklet, “The Plain Truth about Healing.”
Strangely enough, Mr. Armstrong’s booklet had the same name, but it had
a totally opposite point of view, which is rather strange, so somebody’s “plain
truth” doesn’t appear to be plain or truthful!
Mr. Tkach and, I think, Mr. Bernie Schnippert
both collaborated on this book. It came
out around about 1988, about two years after Mr. Armstrong’s death, so that is
pretty soon, you have to say. This is
what they said about physical sin:
“The physical sin concept leads to worry,
depression, self-righteousness, judging, confusion, guilt and inordinate fear
of doctors. Its fruit is not good
because it is not true.”
Okay. That is quite blunt. The physical sin concept is “not true,” and
amazingly, apparently, leads to worry and depression and all that sort of
stuff. Carrying on, they say:
“The concepts of physical sin and
spiritual sin are based on the false idea that sin can be divided into two
neatly separated planes of physical and
spiritual.”
So
the whole idea of there being two types of sin is a false idea! I wonder where
the idea came from?
Then they carry on in their next chapter of the book:
“Now that we have seen illness in these simple
terms, unencumbered by erroneous concepts of physical sin which the previous
chapter showed
to be incorrect...”
Then
they carry on. So, in other words, they
say that physical sin is an erroneous concept, is incorrect, is not true, and
is a false idea.
Thankfully
for them, they are quite plain there. I
wouldn’t say it is plain “truth,” but it certainly is plain. They say the idea, basically, is nonsense.
You would have to be an idiot to believe in physical sin, essentially. So if you believe in physical sin, they would
say that you are lacking in brain power.
You are deceived; you are foolish.
Okay. What did Mr. Armstrong say? He says, in his booklet by the same title:
“How does Jesus’ broken body make
our healing possible?” (A very good question.) “It is
important that you understand the answer to this - because some
have been FALSELY TEACHING there is no such thing as physical sin.”
So,
Mr. Armstrong says that people who say there is no physical sin are giving you
false teaching. Mr. Armstrong continues,
and I would say this is probably one of the bluntest portions of his writing, I
think, perhaps, that most of us have come across:
“To say there is no such thing as physical sin, as has been said by self-professing
intellectuals, is not intellectual - it is RANK STUPIDITY, ignorance, or
WILLFUL PERVERSION of plain, simple truth!”
Now
there is really no meeting ground between these two concepts is there?
Mr.
Tkach, Mr.Schnippert, the Worldwide Church of God, and, I won’t name them, but
several others of the Churches of God that you would come across, believe that
physical sin does not exist. It is a
“dangerous concept” that will make you worried and depressed and so on. Mr. Armstrong says that people who teach that are guilty of rank stupidity,
ignorance, or willful perversion (that means deliberate perversion) of plain,
simple truth.
Okay. I think that sets the ground work in the sense
that we will look to the Bible for the answers and just see which of the two
camps was the more accurate with their views.
Let’s look at James chapter five, verses 14
and 15 more closely, mostly verse 15. And the prayer of faith will save
(or heal) the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. Now here is the “interesting” portion of that
verse. And if he has committed sins, he will
be forgiven. If he has committed sins he will be
forgiven?? Pray tell me, which of us hasn’t committed sins? Which person calling for the elders of the
church for anointing hasn’t committed sins?
Everybody who calls for the
elders of the church, when they are sick, is a person who sins, every single
one of us! If one of you hasn’t sinned
in the last ten years, tell me afterwards and I will congratulate you. You and I know that we sin pretty much on a
daily basis, I would think. Sometimes we
manage it quite a few times in a day, so what does it mean here, “if he has
committed sins?” That is clearly
suggesting that there will be healings involved where no sins need to be forgiven.
“If he has committed sins...” Now let’s just check out that we are correct
here Biblically. Let’s just make sure we
understand that everybody sins outside the church and inside the church. Romans
Let’s
turn to I John, chapter 1, and start in verse 8. If we (and we is “us,” us
Christians, us redeemed, us the called, us the elect) say that we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.9 If we confess our sins, (which
obviously we must) He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness.10 If we say that we
have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.
So
John is being quite blunt. He says,
frankly, that you, out there, sin — that you are sinners. You break God’s law; you sin. So then again, when you look at James as we
did a few moments ago and it says if any
man has sinned ...you think, “What on earth is James talking about, because all of us has sinned? People in the world sin, and John tells us
those of us even in the church, who have been called and baptized and have
God’s Spirit, we sin!”
So
without even going that much further, almost immediately you are left thinking
that James is talking about something different here than spiritual sin. He has to be!
If that inspired sentence, inspired under the inspiration of God,
written by James, has any real meaning, and God means what He says and says
what He means, then that meaning has to be something other than spiritual sin.
Okay,
so we will be coming back to that a bit later.
You and I tend to think of sin as being very much “spiritual.” I was brought up in the Catholic Church and I
know a great deal about sin; you learn a lot about being a sinner if you are a
Catholic. We know that sins are all
sorts of things like lying; that is clearly a sin. Stealing is clearly a sin. There are many sins, like adultery is a sin,
but the subject of sin is something that we tend to always limit to being
something “spiritual.” In that case we
think, “Well, in what way could those spiritual sins, if that’s how we think of
them, ever lead to sickness and have to be forgiven to be healed?”
For
example, if your sin, and I am not suggesting that it
is, but if your sin was, say, falsifying tax returns, that would be stealing
because that is a sin. Would you expect
falsifying your tax return and exaggerating your expenses, or understating your
business turnover, to lead to sickness?
Well it’s possible, rarely, but, by-and-large, stealing doesn’t make you
sick.
What
about breaking the Sabbath commandment?
Would you expect that to lead to sickness? Breaking the Sabbath is certainly sin; it
goes contrary to the Fourth Commandment.
If you break the Sabbath commandment and don’t honor God on the Sabbath
Day, you are sinning. Is that what James
had in mind - that Sabbath breaking might somehow make you sick and that you
would have to be forgiven?
What
about, for example, idolatry? We don’t,
of course, do that ourselves do we? But just suppose you had a little hankering
for a set of rosary beads to help you with your prayer life, you know, “our
Fathers” and “hail Marys” and so on. Well it’s clear enough that that would be
idolatry. That would be breaking the
First and Second commandments, pretty much.
Would that make you sick? The
answer is that spiritual sin, really, isn’t connected very much to
sickness! And yet, from what James said,
it seems that healing has to do with some sort of forgiveness of sin. Yet it just doesn’t seem right, does it, that
“sin” as you and I tend to think about it leads to sickness?
So
then, what do we mean by sin? This is
really where we start to look at the fact that God, and the Bible, and the
Bible’s writers had a slightly different view of sin than we tend to have in
our twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
For example, we know that stealing is sin and murder is sin, and
breaking the Ten Commandments is sin. If
you are Catholic, not going to Mass on Sunday is also sin. You are a bit lazy; you couldn’t get out of
bed in the morning; Mass was at
What
about other people’s struggle with things like, say - is dancing sin? Is it a sin to go dancing? Some churches teach that, yes, dancing is a
carnal pleasure and it is sin. Is it
sin? What about drinking alcohol? Is drinking alcohol a sin? Perhaps drinking far too much you might agree
is sinful, but is a glass of sherry sin?
You would probably say no, but some people would say that it is. There are people who are complete
teetotalers, who won’t touch any alcohol ever, and believe that anybody who
does is a sinner. Their understanding of
sin is that drinking alcohol constitutes sin.
We
had a number of Ladies’ Nights at the Spokesman’s Club years and years ago in
the Church, and I remember that some of the single men, bachelors, would invite
some of the Church ladies to come along who were themselves unattached, and due
to the shortage of ladies, sometimes ladies of all sorts and shapes and sizes
were invited along. On one occasion I
know, a lady who had just started attending a few months earlier was invited by
one of the men to come to the Ladies’ Night and hear the men speak and
participate in the social atmosphere, and so on. And at the social atmosphere, during and
after the Club, there was wine and sherry being served.
This
lady, who had been attending six or nine months, something like that, was in
her early eighties, and her background for eighty-odd years, was that alcohol
is “of the devil.” Alcohol is sin, and
she could not tolerate being in the room with these “sinful men” in the Church,
including the minister, drinking wine and sherry. She sat outside for that portion of the
Ladies’ Night because she was convinced in her own mind that drinking alcohol
was sin.
Okay,
so, in looking at this topic, “What is Physical Sin?” we had better make sure
that we understand, really, what “sin” is.
Is it drinking? Is it
dancing? Is it playing cards? Is it stealing? What was James referring to when he said that
sin could be forgiven when you are being healed?
Let’s
turn to I John, chapter 3, and another well-known memory verse, verse 4. I am reading from the New King James
version. It is slightly different from
the King James. The King James says that
sin is the transgression of the law. The
New King James says: Whoever commits sin also commits
lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.
Definition: Sin IS
lawlessness. That’s sin defined by John,
who knew a thing or two. Sin IS lawlessness.
The King James Version says that sin is the
transgression of “the” law. That is
really not completely accurate, because there is no word for “the” in the
Greek. Most modern translations say that
sin “is lawlessness.” It doesn’t matter
what the law is. Applied to God’s laws,
not man’s codes of conduct, sin is breaking any of God’s laws. That’s
how it is defined there. It is not
talking specifically about the Ten Commandments. It doesn’t say, “Sin is Commandment
breaking.” It says, “Sin is
lawlessness.” I think that the
We
will see later that there are many laws that aren’t just the “spiritual”
laws. For example, Mr. Armstrong,
referring to this verse in his booklet on The Plain Truth about Healing, says:
“It
is referring to the laws instituted by God, not to the transgressing of
man-made codes.”
So
all the laws that God put in place are being referred to here, and it is sin in
its widest sense to break any of God’s laws. For example, Mr. Armstrong points out that if
you pollute your lungs with tobacco smoke...and maybe some of us do that. Certainly I’ve met a few people, in the church,
sometimes in the church and baptized for a number of years, who have smoked
cigarettes. Sometimes you can smell it
on them, and sometimes they conceal it with mints and other devices, and
sometimes they are quite open and will tell you quietly that they really are
struggling. They have baptized now for
five years and still can’t do without ten “ciggies” a
day. That’s fine. I don’t have an issue with that. That is their problem to work out with God’s
help.
But
certainly smoking pollutes the lungs, damages the lungs and the blood chemistry
and causes all sorts of problems and can cause lung cancer. Mr. Armstrong says:
“Polluting
the lungs with tobacco smoke definitely is transgressed physical law. This transgression of law, according to God’s
definition, is physical sin! Its penalty
is sickness, disease or debility.”
So
Mr. Armstrong, in explaining I John 3:4, says that that includes broken
physical laws such as smoking. We will
see, as we carry on, that the word “sin” is much broader and more comprehensive
than our twentieth, twenty-first century religious interpretation.
Let’s
turn, for example, to Romans, chapter 14.
We will see another definition of sin which is considerably wider. It goes into the subject of people who won’t
eat meat; people who are vegetarian. We
will start in verse one. Receive one who is weak in the faith, but
not to disputes over doubtful things.
If somebody is perceived to be, in some areas, some aspect, a little bit
weak in the faith, let’s not get into an argumentative debate over it 2 For
one believes he may eat all thing ...
That doesn’t mean snakes and octopus and shrimps and prawns and
lobsters. It is talking of someone in
the church who knows the laws of clean and unclean foods, which are physical
laws. But this person believes that he
can eat all things, meat and non-meat ... but he who is weak eats only vegetables. Okay, so you have a simple differentiation
here. One person will only eat
vegetables and fruits and herbs. Another
person likes a nice T-bone steak with
their vegetables.
Verse 3: Let not him who eats (everything) despise
him who does not eat (meat), and let not him who does not eat (meat)
judge him who eats (meat); for
God has received him (meaning both of them). Okay, so let not the meat-eater sit in judgment and start condemning and jumping up and down
over the person who doesn’t want to eat meat.
And, equally, don’t let vegetarians jump up and down and start pushing
around the person who does like
their steak. It is not an issue as far
as God is concerned.
Dropping
down to verse 21, Paul takes us quite a bit further. He says here, It is good neither to eat
meat nor drink wine nor do anything by which your brother
stumbles or is offended or is made weak. So Paul says, “I’ll tell you what; if you
have somebody in your congregation who would be offended by your wine-drinking
or your meat-eating, don’t do it in front of them.” It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or in fact do anything that causes a weaker person to
stumble, if they stumble at it. They
might not. They might be quite happy
that you eat meat but they are quite happy not to.
Verse
22: Do
you have faith (that you can eat meat)? Have it to yourself before God.
That
is not talking of lawlessness. That is
not saying that sin is lawlessness. That
was a different definition. We
understand, I think, that sin is lawlessness, but here it is saying that
whatever is not done “out of faith” is sin.
I have seen a very, very bad example or two of the abuse of some of
God’s people over the question of meat-eating.
I remember a young woman, going back perhaps twenty-five years or so,
who was attending church for, I guess, a year, maybe a couple years, and she
was a vegetarian. I never did ask her in
particular why. Perhaps she didn’t like
the idea of animals being killed.
Perhaps she didn’t like the idea of antibiotics and hormones and the
numerous drugs that keep the animals alive long enough to get to the slaughter
house, being in her system. Perhaps she
didn’t like the taste or the smell. I
don’t know, but the point was that she did not like meat, and she chose to eat
only vegetarian foods, which to me was fine.
What’s the problem?
But
it was really quite offensive to watch the way the minister at that time dealt
with her, because she was counseling for baptism and he categorically told her,
“I will not baptize you until you start eating meat.” To me that was an absolute, utter disgrace
and abuse of a young lambkin in the congregation of God. She wanted to be baptized. She wanted God’s Holy Spirit. She wanted to go God’s way. She had this resistance to meat-eating and
the minister just pressed her into eating meat.
There is no question in my mind that she fell into verse 23. I am sure that she doubted and was most
uncomfortable but did it to satisfy the minister and get baptized.
For
example, I don’t eat cheese. I have never
eaten cheese. I think that at the age of
eight years, my Mum put a slab of cheese in front of me and, frankly, the
smell, the appearance of cheese I find obnoxious. I have never eaten cheese. When I watch people with melted cheese all
over their pizzas, and pastas and things of that nature, the smell and the sight of it I find just revolting! But my family eats cheese. Nobody said to me, “You had better eat cheese
or we won’t baptize you,” because, frankly, cheese-eating or not cheese-eating
has no impact at all on my Christian life.
And, frankly, neither does whether you eat meat or not.
So
it is an interesting point, but notice carefully there that, on the topic of
what sin is, sin, frankly, is going against your conscience, as in this case with
meat or with wine. That lady who I
mentioned earlier, frankly, if she in her heart believed that wine-drinking was
sin, and she had taken a sip of sherry or a small glass of wine, well, whatever
is not from faith is sin. Interesting, isn’t it? So if wine-drinking is sin to you, then it is sin.
If meat-eating is sin to you, then it is. If card-playing is sin to you, then it
is. Now, each of us may grow in
maturity, see things differently, our faith may develop, but sin is certainly
much wider than just the Ten Commandments,
A
problem we have in the English language, and also French and Spanish, is that
we tend to equate sin with “religious” fault, with breaking some “religious”
rule. Sin is always to do with a “moral
failure,” but in Hebrew and in Greek, sin doesn’t automatically have that
limited, moral, religious aspect to it.
The word “sin” in Hebrew and in Greek is much, much wider than
that. For example, taking Hebrew first
of all, the most common word for sin, chata, is translated “sin” over four hundred times, so it
is, I think, the most common word for “sin,” and it simply means “to miss, to
err from the mark, speaking of an archer.”
So, if you can imagine an archer with his bow and arrow firing at the
target and he misses — that’s sin … the target is a long way off and he takes
good aim, and off goes the arrow straight toward the target, but it ends up
five feet away from the bull’s eye. He
has missed the mark. He has erred. He has actually “sinned,” in Hebrew, but
there is no moral problem. There is no “religious” involvement
here. Nothing says that the man is
“guilty” of any problem, but he has missed the mark. He has, in Hebrew, “sinned.” So the meaning is “to miss, to err from the
mark, speaking of an archer, to stumble, or simply, to make a mistake and
wander out of the way” - no religious significance necessarily.
In the Greek, the word would be “hamartia.” That
appears a number of times in the New Testament.
Thayer’s Lexicon says, “to miss the mark, to err,
to be mistaken, to miss or wander from the path of uprightness and honor, to do
or to go wrong.” So, to miss the mark,
to be mistaken, is sin, but it does not, does not, does not, does
not imply necessarily any moral
guilt. For example, if you wanted to
drive from, say,
In Hebrew and Greek, you could say that you
“sinned.” You might be stupid, but there
is no moral guilt involved. But you
have, nonetheless, sinned. So, let’s be
careful. The word “sin” doesn’t
necessarily, in every situation, refer to moral, religious guilt. Its primary meaning, as used in adventure
stories written by the Greeks and so on, is just “to miss the mark” like
somebody with a bow and arrow would miss the mark. They have sinned.
For
example, if you smoke cigarettes and you pollute your lungs and restrict your
blood vessels and get heart disease and cancer, you erred from the path of good
health. You missed the mark, so therefore, it is quite right, in terms of Hebrew
and Greek, to say that smoking is a sin, because you are missing the mark of
good health. You are wandering from the
pathway of good health, and that is all that sin is.
You might remember, some of you who have been
around a good while, Mr. Armstrong’s headline once in the Worldwide News, Smoking is Sin. Some people scoffed at that, but that is
precisely what the Hebrew and Greek mean.
Smoking is sin because smoking is wandering off the right path of good
health. Of course, there are often two
levels here. Smoking because you just
happen to like, somehow, the taste of cigarettes is just a physical thing and,
of course, it becomes a little bit addictive and so you have to smoke to stop
from getting all bad tempered, and so on.
That is largely physical, but if you knew that you should not smoke, and
you knew that was something that God did not like, and
you lusted and coveted for something you shouldn’t have, of course that would
create a different type of sin, a spiritual sin of lusting and coveting.
In
the Bible, in the main, you and I are mostly concerned about our
salvation. Frankly, God is mostly
concerned about our salvation as well.
So, in the Bible, most references to sin are talking about turning away,
wandering off God’s ways into Satan’s ways. So when we read about sin in the Bible it is
true that, most of the time, because God is dealing with us at that level, most
of the references to sin are to the fact that you are erring from God’s way,
you are missing the mark from God’s standards, you are sinning. Of course, the wages of those sins, wandering
off God’s way of life, is death. The
wages of sin is death. So, most of the time the scriptures talk of sin in the sense of
spiritual sin and spiritual salvation and spiritual death. But keep in mind that sin simply means to
miss the mark. It may be doing it
spiritually, but it could be other types of missing the mark.
For
example, I mentioned smoking. What about
excess alcohol? Okay. What if you want to drink, let’s say, fifteen
bottles of wine a day? What if you were
to drink, let’s say, two, three, four bottles of Jack Daniels a day? I am not sure how long you would be among us,
but if you were among us more than a few months, you would have, I think, a
pickled liver. You would have liver
disease, bad time, big time.
There
is a well-known soccer player here in
His
pickled liver, resulting from his alcohol addiction, was taken out and a brand
new liver was put in its place. Suddenly
he has nice rosy cheeks, and he can walk, and he is able to breathe properly,
and he is fit and well, and, unfortunately, he is back on the booze again, and probably heading this time for an end with no
further chances. So, yes, excess alcohol
is wandering from the path of good health.
It is missing the mark. It is
erring from what you should do to enjoy good health, so therefore, physically, it is missing the mark, or sin — “physical
sin.”
What
about lack of sleep? The body requires a
certain amount of sleep to be fit and well and to recuperate and if you don’t
give it that sleep, you are erring, missing the mark, or committing physical sin, because you are erring from one
of the laws that were designed to keep your body in good health.
What
about being over-weight? Most of us know
the weight that we should be, what is deemed to be an acceptable weight level,
and if we eat entirely the wrong foods and entirely too much of them, and weigh
entirely too much, then we are erring from the path. We are wandering from the path that would be
best for our health. We are missing the
mark, and, not surprisingly, if we carry too much weight for too long, then
sickness is a consequence, very often.
What
about sugar consumption? We eat far too much sugar as a nation!
Most
of these things that I have just mentioned are really down to our choices. In other words, it’s up to you and me. We tend to choose the foods we eat, and how
much we want to eat, and we choose whether to smoke or not smoke. We decide whether to drink a pint of Jack
Daniels a day or just a small tipple. We
decide whether we want sugar in everything and perhaps ten, twelve or fifteen
bottles of Coca Cola a day, or to choose nice fresh spring water – it’s our
choice. That choice, of course, can be
wrong because of ignorance; someone just doesn’t know the difference, isn’t
educated in these areas. It could be
just a wrong preference, or it could be a lack of self discipline. It could be that we just don’t do what we
ought to do because we haven’t quite “got the character” there yet.
But
occasionally the sins which are committed aren’t caused by us. Sometimes the missing of the mark is because
of somebody else’s behavior. For
example, car fumes, car exhausts, can cause respiratory problems. Frankly, that is all around us. It is not something that we necessarily do
ourselves. The foods that we eat very
often are stuffed full of additives and preservatives and they have been
denatured in the processing so there is hardly anything good left in them. Again, it is not really us that do that so
much, but we are the end of the chain.
What about the noise in factories? That can cause hearing loss and
deafness. Again, we are subject to that. It is not really our choice, very often. Or take asbestos. Many construction workers are exposed to
substances that injure or damage their health.
They contract asbestosis and various lung cancers from asbestos.
What
about the one thousand children who die every day of Aids? That is not their sin. That is almost
certainly because others who are sinning somewhere else, but those one thousand
children die every day from Aids because physical laws have been broken and the
consequence of those erring, missing the mark, wandering from the path is that
these little kids die by one thousand every day. In fact, the figures are that forty thousand
children die every day of disease. I
don’t for a moment imagine that it is their fault. It is just that physical laws are broken and
they suffer the consequences.
God
has set in motion many laws that govern our health and well-being, and when we
err, when we miss the mark, when we stray from those laws, we are sinning,
physically. But there is no spiritual
guilt involved here, and that is an important point to realize. Having too many potatoes and too many Coca
Colas might be erring, missing the mark, or physical sin, but there is no
spiritual guilt, there is no moral failure on our part. It is just poor choices; simple, plain error
on our part. Yet, we are accountable,
aren’t we? Nobody, as a rule, opens our
mouth and shovels down all the stuff that we eat. If we want to sit in front of the TV for ten
hours a night with a six-pack beside us, that’s our choice. So for many of our health problems,
consequent upon physical sin, frankly we are often ourselves
quite accountable. We need to take that
fairly seriously.
Let’s
turn to I Corinthians, chapter 6. God
set these laws for our benefit, for our good, so it shouldn’t surprise us,
really, that when we stray away from them, miss the mark, err, sin physically,
that there is a consequence. We need to
be careful not to try to wriggle out of our responsibility and try and blame
the whole “system,” as if we are completely innocent of our health problems. Sometimes, not always, of course, I think we
all realize that, but sometimes, and you know the difference, our problems are
caused by our own choices. In verse 19,
just taking the principle here, Paul is actually talking about immorality,
sexual sin. Let’s look at what underlies
it. 19 Or do you not know that your body is
the temple of the Holy Spirit which is
in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
So
Paul is saying, “Look, you ought not to be out there engaging in immorality
with your bodies because your body is the
20 For you were bought at a price;
therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. Some of the old manuscripts don’t actually
have the words “and in your spirit.” So
the phrase, bluntly, is “glorify God in your body, which is God’s.” Therefore, you and I need to be careful that
we do aim to glorify God in our bodies - the way we use them and perhaps also the way we look after them.
Let’s
turn to Luke, chapter 5, and get down to the question of physical sin a bit
more. 17 ¶ Now it happened on a
certain day, as He (Jesus) was teaching, that there were Pharisees and
teachers of the law sitting by, who had come out of every town of Galilee,
Judea, and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was present to heal them. It is interesting that it actually says “to
heal them,” so perhaps many of them
missed out on an opportunity here because only one man actually did get healed,
but carrying on in verse 18, Then behold, men brought on a bed a man who
was paralyzed, whom they sought to bring in and lay before Him. I think one of the other Gospels tells us
that there were four men helping to carry the one man who was paralyzed on this
little stretcher.
19 And when they could not find how they might
bring him in, because of the crowd,...Because when they arrived down the
street, lo and behold, here was Jesus’ house, because that is where this was
taking place, in Capernaum, and there was a whole crowd around the door. The house was filled to overflowing with
people standing in the street jumping up and down trying to look in the windows
and, frankly, they thought, “What can we do?”
This man is on a stretcher and he wants to be healed. He is paralyzed and the four men are with
him. “Oh dear, John, we can’t seem to
get any farther because, well, I guess it wasn’t God’s will for you to be
healed. If it was God’s will, the crowds
would part and we would just go straight through. Let’s go home.” But they weren’t put off. They had a desire. They wanted to achieve something and they
were going to keep on pushing until they got it done.
Because
they could not find how they might bring him in because of the crowd, they
went up on the housetop and let him down with his bed through the tiling (of
the roof) into the midst before Jesus.
That’s really an incredible example of the men’s faith because nothing
was going to stop these guys. They
pulled him up there. They laid their
friend down on the side of the roof somewhere and then they pried off the tiles
and pushed them out of their way. You
can imagine Jesus in the middle of His talking and teaching to the Pharisees
and Scribes and all the others there, and suddenly there were particles of dust
and plaster falling off the ceiling.
Jesus
looks up and, “What’s this? What is
happening up there?” More dust and
plaster falls down and Jesus has to move out of the way and something tumbles
down. Suddenly there is a bit of light
up there and a little face looks down, “Yeah, Yeah, we are in the right
place. We are in the right room.” They dig a bigger hole and everybody is
watching, in complete silence, I would imagine, by now. Everybody in the room sitting there, just
looking up and astonished, stunned! “What
is going on?” Then, of course, the man
gets lowered down on ropes right in front of Jesus. A fantastic thing to have witnessed!
20 When
He saw their faith ... Jesus saw the faith of
several people. Certainly the four men who had fought to get up to the roof and
torn the roof half apart and lowered their friend down, certainly they had
faith, because they obviously were expecting a healing. They were believing
for a miracle. That was absolutely,
totally evident. One assumes that the
man on the stretcher had faith as well, that allowed all this to take place, so
between them there was a lot of faith being displayed here.
When He
saw their faith, He said to him (That’s the sick man.),
"Man, your sins are forgiven you." Remember we are looking at - “Is there such a
thing as physical sin? What about
it? Is it important?” Your sins are forgiven you? Now, what sins is Jesus talking about
here? He says, “Your sins are forgiven
you.” Spiritual sins? In that case, why just forgive this man his
spiritual sins? Was it his lying, his
cheating, his false tax returns, playing cards and not being honest and
cheating with those? Had he been guilty
of running around with loose women? What
sins did Jesus forgive him? Why just
forgive this man? The four friends had
spiritual sins, too, and the Pharisees most certainly had spiritual sins. That’s pretty clear.
Why just forgive one man’s sins? If it is spiritual sins, it becomes a bit
odd. What’s going on here? If it is physical sins, then it becomes,
perhaps, a bit more clear. 21 And the scribes and the Pharisees
began to reason, saying, "Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can
forgive sins but God alone?"
22 But when Jesus perceived
their thoughts, (Their “thoughts,” by the way. They hadn’t said this. They were just
busy debating “internally.”) He answered and said to them, "Why are
you reasoning in your hearts? 23 "Which is easier, to say, `Your sins are
forgiven you,' or to say, `Rise up and walk'?
24 "But that you may know (You unconverted,
carnal, hard-headed, hostile audience) that
the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins" ----He said to the man
who was paralyzed, "I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your
house." 25
Immediately he rose up before them, took up what he had been
lying on, and departed to his own house, glorifying God.
26 And they were all
amazed, and they glorified God and were filled with fear, saying, "We have
seen strange things today!"
But
notice, verse 24, “So that you unconverted people might know and be convinced that I can forgive sins, I say to the man,
`You are healed.`”
Now, how could that prove that Jesus could forgive sins unless the healing was the forgiveness of sin.
Because making a man rise up and take his bed home couldn’t prove
anything about forgiving a man’s adulteries if he has done any of those, or forgiving
a man’s idolatry if he has done any of that.
There is no way that Pharisees and Scribes and
these people who didn’t believe Jesus could know that sins had been
forgiven. How could they know? It is impossible. There is no way to know that unless healing
itself was the forgiveness of sin.
The
Weymouth New Testament translates this verse as, “But to prove to you that the son of man has the authority to forgive
sins...”, then He raised a man up from his bed.
You will notice here that there is no evidence that the man repented, is
there? He is laid down on this little
stretcher, he is lowered to the ground, his faith for healing is obvious, but
there is no record there of the man saying, “Bless me Jesus, for I have
sinned. It has been nineteen years since
my last confession. I have been guilty
of telling lies a hundred and fourteen times ...” There is no reference at all
to repentance, and yet you know that you don’t get forgiveness of spiritual
sins without repentance.
Let’s
turn to I John, chapter 1. One of the
distinctions between spiritual sin and physical sin is that you must repent if it is spiritual sin. Verse 9, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and
just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. How do we get forgiven? If we confess.
If we confess our sins.
If we don’t confess our sins, there is no promise whatsoever of
forgiveness. If we confess our
sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness. I said before,
when we do sin, and we do, including
you, and even me ... when we sin we
should run to God.
I
John was talking to the converted brethren.
Acts
Let’s
turn to Luke, chapter 7, and try to reaffirm that repentance is something that
must be there if we are talking about the forgiveness of spiritual sin.
36 ¶ Then
one of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him. And He went to the Pharisee's
house, and sat down to eat.
37 And behold, a woman in the
city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the
Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil,
38 and stood at His feet behind Him weeping; and
she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her
head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil. 39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw
this, he spoke to himself (not out loud), saying, "This man, if He were
a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she
is a sinner." This was a
well-known lady sinner. I think we can all imagine what type of sin she was
well known for.
40 And Jesus answered and
said to him,(Bear in mind that the man had said nothing, just in his
thoughts.) "Simon, I have something to say to
you." So he said, "Teacher, say it." “
Okay,” says Jesus, 41
"There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five
hundred denarii, and the other (only)
fifty. 42 "And
when they had nothing with which to repay ,(neither of them) he
freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him
more?" 43 Simon
answered and said, "I suppose the one whom he forgave more." And He
said to him, "You have rightly judged."
44 Then He turned to the woman
and said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her
tears ...That suggests that there were a lot of tears there ...
and wiped them with the hair of her head. Very humble. 45 "You gave Me no kiss, but this
woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in.
46 "You did not anoint My
head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil.
So
what do we know about this woman? She
was broken hearted, utterly repentant, tears flowing as she kissed the feet of
the Lord Jesus. Humility, repentance
clearly demonstrated. Words weren’t
necessary. 47 "Therefore I say to you, her sins,
which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little."48 Then He said to
her, "Your sins are forgiven."49 And those who sat at the table with
Him began to say to themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?"50 Then He said to
the woman, "Your faith has saved you. Go in peace."
So,
it is pretty obvious, I think.
Repentance is required for forgiveness.
But notice that when He forgave this woman, He did not say, “Go and sin
no more.” He saw that she was repentant
and He knew that she would try to live properly thereafter. She had a change of heart and Jesus had the
confidence and trust that she would do better in the future, so He just said,
“Go in peace. You are forgiven.”
Let’s
turn to John, chapter 8, about the lady taken in adultery. I am just trying to establish, still, that if
we are talking spiritual sin, repentance is necessary for forgiveness. No repentance, no forgiveness. 1 ¶ But Jesus went to the
2 Now early in the morning
He came again into the temple, and all the people came to Him; and He sat down
and taught them.
3 Then the scribes and
Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. I wonder how they caught her? And when they had set her in the midst, 4 they said to Him,
"Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Okay.
I am not quite sure how that came about, or where the man was.
5 "Now Moses, in the law, commanded
us that such should be stoned. But what do You
say?" 6 This
they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him.
But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He
did not hear. Time passed. 7 So when
they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, "Okay. He who is without sin among you, let him
throw a stone at her first."
Of course, everybody sins. We have proven that already, so perhaps Jesus
meant, “Any of you who is without sexual sin.” Perhaps that is what He implied here. “Let him throw the stone at her first.” 8 And
again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. We can speculate what He was writing. Was it the names of illicit liaisons or
partners? We don’t know. 9
Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by
one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and
the woman standing in the midst.
Still surrounded I guess by the audience of people that Jesus had been
teaching earlier.
10 When
Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her,
"Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned
you?"11 She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said to her, "Okay. Neither
do I condemn you; go and sin no more." Now look at this absence here. There is no reference to the woman being
“repentant.” Jesus does not talk about
“forgiving” her. She stood there, her
accusers disappeared, and Jesus said, “Have they gone? They’re not condemning you? Okay.
Neither am I.” But then He gave
her a strong admonition, “Go away. Do not sin again. Sin no
more.” But no
reference to forgiveness. Was the lady repentant? It doesn’t say. Did she have a lucky escape and carry on to do
the same again? We don’t know. Jesus simply said, “I am not going to condemn
you, but I’ll tell you what, lady: You
had better stop sinning.
Let’s
turn to John, chapter 5. We are in the
book already and we will begin in verse 1. (We seem to be once again dawdling
slightly. I talked earlier about the struggle to get enough material for a one
hour message. I am thinking it might be
a struggle now to get it done in less than two hours! But let’s move on).
1 ¶ After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up
to
2 Now there is in
3 In these lay a great
multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the
water.
4 For an angel went down at
a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in
first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he
had.
5 Now a certain man was
there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years....Now that is a long time
to be ill. 6
When Jesus saw him lying there ...So I
guess he was so disabled that he had to lie down all the time or could only
move very slowly ... and knew that he already had
been in that condition a long time, He said to him, "Do you want
to be made well?" It sounds
like a strange question, really. “Yes,
of course I do!” But maybe after all
those years he had lost heart, maybe become apathetic and who knows what. Jesus said, “Do you want, do you desire to be
made well?” He wanted some sort of
commitment from the man. 7 The sick man answered Him, "Sir,
I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I
am coming, (I’m kind of slow, and infirm, and disabled and so on.) another steps down before me.” “ I’m always second, or third, or
tenth or hundredth.” 8 Jesus
said to him, " Okay. Rise,
take up your bed and walk."
9 And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. And that day was the Sabb