DOES THE BIBLE REALLY SAY ...

THAT OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD IS BROKEN WHEN WE SIN? - 1

It is commonly assumed by Christians that when they sin a breakdown in their relationship with God occurs.

Because this is such a troubling thought, we need to ask ourselves a few questions:

Just what did Jesus Christ do when he saved us? Did he do it all, or is there a part left for us to do?

Does our relationship with God depend on Jesus Christ or does it depend us?

Are we more accepted when we are not sinning and less accepted when we sin? Are we less a child of God today when we know we have sinned than we were yesterday when (in our perception) we did not sin?

This is something that needs to be clarified, and to clarify it we need to dig at some fairly deep issues.

[1] Our perception of sin.
Are we sinners because we sin? Or, do we sin because we’re sinners? Are we sinners only when we recognize that we are sinning? Or, are we sinners all the time? Are we very bad sinners when we are deliberately disobeying? And not so bad sinners when we are simply choosing not to do good?

Each of these questions indicates that there are differences in the way we can look at sin. We can define sin as individual acts of disobedience, or we can define sin as a basic attitude of rebellion against the right of God to be God. Sin is essentially rebellion against God: rejection of God’s authority over me. This is what happened in the original sin in Genesis 3. All other sins issue from this one sin. Whether the individual sins are ‘big’ ones, or ‘little’ ones, they all have their source in this one sin of wanting to be our own god.

[2] Our perception of God’s holiness.
Our understanding of sin is relative to our understanding of God’s holiness. The larger our concept of God’s holiness is the more intense will be our understanding of sin. The more we know God, the more we will be aware of our own sinfulness. It happened to Isaiah. Confronted by the sheer holiness of God he became immediately and painfully aware of his own sinfulness (Isaiah 6). It happened to Peter in the presence of Jesus (Luke 5:8). It happened to the Jews on the day of Pentecost when Peter affirmed the true identity of Jesus (Acts 2:37).

But this awareness of sin provoked by our knowledge of God, is not a threatening thing for the believer. Indeed the sheer holiness of God makes it obvious that we can never in our own strength find acceptance with him. The more we know him the more we understand how impossible it is for us to satisfy his standard of perfection, for us to either gain or maintain salvation by our own efforts.

He is one hundred per cent holy - perfect, pure, just, good.

His standard for us is equally one hundred percent - ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law’ (Galatians 3:10, quoting Deuteronomy 27:26). This is talking about a 100% keeping of 100% of God’s law 100% of the time.

[3] Our perception of salvation
Too many of us see our salvation as the parody does: ‘pie in the sky when you die’, something more or less to do with the ‘hereafter’, rather than with the here and now. Yes, we will ‘go to heaven when we die’, but that’s not the central issue. The ‘eternal life’ spoken of so often in John’s Gospel is not something that starts after our death, or after the Lord’s return; it is something we have right now. Already, from the point of our conversion when we first believed in Jesus Christ, we have eternal life.

‘Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life...’ John 3:36.
‘He who has the Son has life ...’ 1 John 5:12.

The central issue in salvation is our present relationship with God. Prior to our conversion the Bible describes us as

Alienated from God – Colossians 1:21.
In the dominion of darkness – Colossians 1:13.
Dead in transgressions and sins – Ephesians 2:1, 5.
Captive, enslaved to sin – Romans 6:17.
Condemned – Romans 5:18, John 3:18.
Under the wrath of God – Romans 1:18.
God’s enemies – Romans 5:10.
Cursed – Galatians 3:10.

When we believe in Jesus Christ all of this changes, not because of any meritorious performance of ours (good works, keeping the law, living without any known sin in our lives), but purely and simply because of Jesus Christ. At the initial point of our conversion most of us understand that this changed relationship with God is sheer gift, sheer mercy, undeserved, unmerited, unearned.

The Bible describes this new relationship with God as:

Reconciled to God – Romans 5:10; 2Corinthians 5:18; Colossians 1:20-22.
Not walking in darkness – John 8:12.
Alive – Ephesians 2:5; 1John 5:12.
Set free – Romans 8:2.
Justified (acquitted), no longer condemned – Romans 3:24; 5:1; 8:1; John 3:18; 5:24.
Saved from God’s wrath – Romans 5:9.
God’s children – John 1:12; Ephesians 1:5.
Blessed (set free from sin's curse) – Galatians 3:13,14.

But sooner or later, we seem to forget the truth of this grace-based relationship with God, and start seeing ourselves as relating to God on the basis of law - that is on our ability to keep either the Biblical law, the law of our Christian group, or our own personal standard of morals and ethics, or all of these. We effectively remove ourselves from grace and put ourselves back under law, relating to God as if we have to maintain our relationship with God by our own efforts, relating to him just as we would if Christ had not died.

In doing so, in living as if our present sin separates us from God, we dishonour Christ and his atoning death by which God reconciled us to himself.

(We will look further at this question in subsequent articles.)