Today's readings are Genesis 4.1-26 and mark 2.18-28.
Where does evil come from? The answer of pietists throughout the ages has been that we become evil by doing bad things. If we can just prevent people from engaging in evil activities we will see that people are really good. If we can prevent children from playing violent video games they will not be violent themselves. This point of view is backwards. Take Cain as our example. How many video games did he play before he killed his brother? None. He was engaged in crop-raising activity, so, for that matter, he probably engaged in less violent behavior, such as killing animals, than did his brother Abel, who worked with sheep. Yet in their dispute, Cain killed Abel.
How do we become evil? Not by doing bad things, but by being born as heirs to Adam's sin. Can we desensitize ourselves to evil? Certainly we can. We should try not to do that, rather attuning ourselves to goodness and kindness. Yet this kind of sensitivity does not make us more or less evil. It simply makes the evil in us more or less obvious. There's an important distinction in this. We do evil things because we are evil. We sin because we are sinners. This is the opposite of the view held in pietism.
What is God's attitude toward our evil? First, we are entirely responsible for that evil. In Genesis 4.6 God confronts Cain very clearly with his evil. He is responsible to overcome evil. Yet what is God's attitude toward the weakness of our sinful humanity? He knows we are not able to combat and overcome evil. As he puts a seal of protection on Cain, so in Christ he puts a seal of protection on all who believe him. We are not immune from the attempts of our fellow humans to find us and kill us. But in Christ we are not held liable for our sin, which we also cannot escape. In Christ we are delivered from the curse of sin, taking on the righteousness of our Lord and Savior instead. This is God's ultimate protection for his people.
No comments:
Post a Comment