Rotten to the Core

DateLine (6/7/07 – Nanuet, NY)

Six million European Jews died as part of a program of deliberate extermination planned and executed by the National Socialist regime in Germany led by Adolf Hitler. It is likely that the number of deaths for the current conflict in Greater Darfur is higher than 200,000 individuals, and it is possible that the death toll is much higher. Estimates vary as to how many people were killed by the Khmer Rouge regime in the Killing Fields of Cambodia. Depending on whether or not one includes deaths from starvation and subsequent deaths in refugee camps, estimates range anywhere from 1.7 million to 3 million. Rwanda is a country well known to the outside world for the infamous 1994 genocide that resulted in the deaths of up to 800,000 people. Columbine, Virginia Tech; once idyllic islands of academia, now symbols of unbridled evil. December 6, September 11; once unremarkable dates on the calendar, now burned in the psyche of living generations. WWI, WWII, Desert Storm; wars that resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths.

“In order to define sin, one of the most frequently used terms in the New Testament is the Greek word hamartia, literally translated ‘to miss the mark’. It suggests that humans have missed the mark that God has intended for them.” (www.comparativereligion.com) While mankind has many admiral qualities and noteworthy accomplishments, it’s easy to grasp the Biblical concept of missing the mark when one contemplates the checkered history of mankind through the examples listed above. In spite of such a history, some people would deny that sin resides deep within the human soul. What motivates a human to foist such unspeakable acts upon fellow humans? There is nothing that satisfies the question like that Biblical concept of sin. We tend to characterize sin as acts; ranking them by priority; some even priding themselves that their sin is not as bad as others. God has revealed that there is no hierarchy of sin. In a sense God is saying that sin is not necessarily the act, it is a state; our nature.

“We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.” Romans 7:14-21.

Is there hope? Fortunately we are not doomed to a dark existence. While we do suffer this malady there is a cure. God, our original creator, has made a way for us to be recreated (i.e. re-birthed) and this time with a pure nature. It is a curious thing that while we live on earth after our rebirth we continue to behave like the old nature is still within us. That’s clear from the scripture quoted from Romans above. But here’s the clincher. When God looks at us after our rebirth He only sees the new nature not the old sin habits that still linger. By the time we catch up with Him when we move into His place (i.e. heaven) all that nasty stuff will be stripped away leaving nothing but a shiny new core. Now that’s something worth looking forward to.