Transgressions (Part III)

Author’s note: This contemplation is the final part of three. If you haven't read the first or second part, I highly recommend checking them out before continuing here. Click here to read part one. Click here to read part two.

I sit on a mossy forest floor. As I wait, the ground and trees around me come to life.

A line of ants drags bits of food into an underground home.

Two black birds hunt insects and worms.

A nearby beaver patches up its lodge.

Then the forest falls silent.

I look up, and through the trees I spot the unmistakable silhouette of a red-tailed h awk. Its sharp features cut through the leafy curtain hanging over me as its iconic screech echoes through the undergrowth.

Graceful and deadly, the bird of prey hangs in the air, only its tail twitches from time to time.

Then it dives.

I hear a squeal cut short by talons.

The hawk rises and disappears.

The trees and ground return to their usual busyness.

In the forest, there seems to exist only one command:

Survive!

Every action, every instinct, every squeak heard, every prey spotted … it is all geared toward only one thing: the preservation of life and bloodline.

As I sit here, a new thought occurs to me: I am like this forest.

I do not mean that metaphorically or hyperbolically, but in a very realistic way: I see myself in this forest. I hear that same, singular command which echoes through the leaves and limbs, resonating in my heart. Survive! At all cost, keep the physical alive!

This observation leads me to my hypothesis of this three-part contemplation titled “Transgressions.” With this hypothesis, I aim to introduce a new perspective on the scriptural concept of sin. With it, I hope to open up a discussion that will help followers of Christ better understand Darkness, the enemy of God, allowing us to become more Christ-like in our hearts, intentions, and actions.

This is the hypothesis:

“Sin is, at its core, rebellion against God, and with that it is the attempt to preserve the physical life at the cost of the spiritual one.”

Essentially, sin is an overvaluation of the physical and an undervaluation of the spiritual.

In John 12, Jesus, when talking about his death, says that anyone who loves his life will lose it, while anyone who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. He continues by saying that those who serve Him must follow Him, and the Father will honor those who serve Him.

Darkness wants our spiritual death. God wishes to grant us eternal life.

When we love our earthly lives more than our spiritual ones; when we sacrifice the spiritual to preserve earthly; when we refuse to deny ourselves in order to take up Christ’s cross … we sin. When we do this, we remove God from our lives. We rely on ourselves for salvation instead of trusting God. The logical flaw in this thinking lies in the fact that while we do have some (though very limited) power over the preservation of our physical lives, we cannot save ourselves spiritually at all.

Survival of the physical … what does that mean?

Survival is not just about eating, sleeping, and breathing. It goes much deeper than that. It touches every aspect of our lives. It determines our behavior. It influences our decisions and our feelings. I dare say that everything in our world is designed with the goal of survival.

Consider the following…

We want people to like us … that is based on our will to survive.

We want to have a well-established identity … that is based on our will to survive.

We want to be comfortable, respected, in control … that is all based on our will to survive.

So, what if sin is driven by our will to survive?

What if I told you that fear, greed, pride, lust, selfishness, rage, cowardice, lying, deception, the love of money, the desire for power, the yearning for status, and more all help us stay alive?

I think I hear a warranted question coming …

How does sin preserve our physical life? Did Ajax not kill himself in the previous contemplation due to the sin of pride? It doesn’t seem like his character flaw helped him stay alive very well.

Yes, he did kill himself. And yes, it did not help him to be prideful.

But let me explain…

We have a beautiful English phrase that perfectly demonstrates how sin is the attempt to ensure survival while also being the very thing that causes our death.

The phrase is this: to be blinded by fear.

When fear takes hold of me, it blinds me. I no longer remember my God’s commands. I no longer think of those around me. I no longer try to stay true to my convictions. My vision is reduced to seeing only one thing: What must I do to preserve myself?

Through giving in to fear, I am freed from empathy, love for others, and love for God. Through fear, I have one clear objective and no further considerations.

In this way, fear ensures my survival, but at the same time, I relinquish intentionality, courage, and my ability to make decisions based on my convictions. And so, while I stay alive, I am not actually living.

What about Ajax and his pride?

Pride is what made him one of the greatest Greek warriors. He so strongly believed himself to be superior to others that his pride carried him through the ranks to the front of the battlefield. Without his pride, we would likely not be speaking of him today. His name would be long forgotten. Pride helped him survive, but in the end, it was his hamartia, his fatal flaw.

It is almost a matter of living and dying by the sword.

Those who live by fear die by fear.

Those who live by pride die by pride.

Let’s look at a few of the other examples I listed above:

Greed is a sin. Greed is the insatiable and selfish desire to possess more of something. It is highly conducive to preserving one's physical life. More food, more wealth, more material belongings, more power, more status … if I am greedy for those things, I am far removed from having to ask God for my daily bread. Greed is conducive to survival. He who is selfless helps others at his own cost. He who is greedy helps himself at the cost of others.

But those who live greedily succumb to their greed.

Lust is a sin. Lust is the unbridled desire for sexual fulfilment. It is, again, highly conducive to preserving one’s physical life and, in this case, also that of one’s bloodline. It gives purpose to a purposeless life (which is crucial to its preservation), and it ensures the creation of the next generation.

But those who live lustfully are destroyed by it.

Gluttony ensures survival. We need calories to stay alive. But how many sicknesses and deaths are caused by obesity every year?

Rage ensures survival. It intimidates others and allows one to get his way. But enraged people forfeit their lives to their emotion, becoming puppets in its hands.

Lying ensures survival. It warps one's understanding of reality and helps him avoid the consequences of his actions. However, a person cannot escape reality. He will be forced to pay the debt sometime down the road.

Live by gluttony and die by gluttony.

Live by rage and die by rage.

Live by lies and die by lies.

What does this all mean?

Am I saying that our physical lives are worthless?

Am I saying we should not try to stay alive?

Certainly not!

I am simply highlighting that our spiritual lives are vastly more important than our physical ones. I am emphasizing that our physical lives must bow to our spiritual; and under no circumstances should we sacrifice our spiritual lives to ensure the survival of our physical ones.

The physical is still important, though. It must still be loved and recognized as the gift that it is.

Let’s return to my original question that I opened with two contemplations ago:

Why do we sin?

I believe to now have a more satisfactory answer:

Because we value our physical lives more than our spiritual lives. Because we sacrifice our faith, our convictions, and our Lord’s commands. We sacrifice it to our will to survive, to be accepted, to be a somebody.

Why?

Because we want more money, more approval from the world, more status, more lustful experiences, more power, more comfort, larger houses, bigger egos, faster cars, and more pleasures ... because these things help us stay alive physically.

We try to gain the whole world and yet lose our souls.

We become people who love their lives, and so, as Jesus says, we lose them.

If you take to heart any message from today’s contemplation, let it be this:

Observe yourself.

When you fear something, observe how the fear makes you prioritize your survival over all else.

When you want someone to like you, observe how their approval helps you survive.

When you lie, observe how you are twisting reality to evade consequences.

Our flesh wants to stay alive.

Our animalistic instinct would have us live for survival, procreation, and pleasure.

And if we live only for those things, we forsake God’s higher calling and are left instead as beings scarcely above the animals I observed in the forest.

And if we do not have a spiritual life, what difference is there between man and animal?

Let me share with you my final thought: there are those who embrace their hamartia, their sin, freely and fully. And without guilt, they claim…

My life is both the city and the wall.

I fight to survive, for if I lose my life, I have nothing to defend and nothing with which to defend it.

Then there are those who place their spiritual life above all else and would forfeit their own breath to sustain the spiritual life. They, convicted by the times they missed the mark, whisper…

For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

Source: hollywoodreporter.com