Freedom From Sin's Oppression Rock of Offence Commentary One thing that always puzzled me was the way the institutional church handles the subject of sin. If Jesus died for our sins why does it still remain such a problem? Why is it discussed Sunday after Sunday to such an extent that we get preoccupied with it? The Bible calls it "sin consciousness", and it isn't something that should dominate a Christian's life. There is a good reason for this fixation on sin. However, the explanation will cause criticism from the religious community. In this article, we are going to cover a topic that will set Christians free if they dare to believe it. The spiritual blessings we enjoy as Christians are possible because of what Jesus accomplished on our behalf. Our salvation benefits are the result of our heavenly Father taking the works of Jesus Christ and "imputing" them to our account. To "impute" in this sense means to credit a person with the work or sacrifice of another. The "imputing" of the life of Christ to the believer is a divine "exchange" that takes place as a result of the New Covenant. But, the "imputing" process taught by the Bible works in two directions. If we understand how God works through this process, it will forever settle to question of sin for the Christian. SIN'S POWER SOURCE IS REVEALED Romans 7: 1-8 "Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. FOR WITHOUT THE LAW SIN WAS DEAD." Galatians 2:20-21 "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do no frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." Colossians 3:2-4 "Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. FOR YE ARE DEAD, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." Romans 6:11 "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." When you read the Scripture references above a powerful truth can be seen that can be illustrated in four incredible facts: As a Christian, your old life was "imputed" to Jesus Christ. You have been "crucified with Christ"--In God's mind you died on the cross with him. God's law only has dominion over a person as long as he lives. The law loses it's power when death occurs. Sin gets its authority to condemn you from the law. Without the law--sin is dead. Christ's life was "imputed" back to you. You now live by the faith of the Son of God. God considers you alive in Christ. When you initially put your trust in Jesus Christ, your old life was judged by God and condemned to die on the cross. God crucified you with Christ. God's perspective is the only one that counts in eternity. As far as He is concerned you have already paid the price for your sins even though someone else experienced the agony of the execution. God "imputed" the punishment of the cross, to your account as if you had actually been condemned to die there. God considers all the sins you've committed and all the sins you will commit in the future as "paid for." You have already died, once--and that was enough to terminate the law's dominance over your life. Therefore, sin and the law that empowers it no longer has dominion over your life! In Romans chapter 7, Paul states that the law of God is good. The law hasn't disappeared just because the Christian has died to it. It remains in full authority over the unbeliever and all those who are under the bondage of religion. Freedom from the law and from the dominion of sin does not mean that the Christian never commits sin. It means that a Christian's sin no longer carries condemnation or eternal consequences. Sin no longer has the power to condemn (Romans 8:1-4)--it no longer has the power to project guilt when you know the truth. The only thing God requires from a Christian who has committed sin is acknowledgement. I John 1:9 tells us that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. When we sin--we confess it immediately to God, get up and keep going as if the sin never happened. This is the good news of the gospel. However, it takes discipline and a commitment to God's ways. The guilt of sin will prevent us from walking in this liberty if we allow it. Ignorance about sin and its guilt is the secret snare of religion and God wants us to avoid this dangerous trap. If all of that wasn't enough good news, the truth of the believer's freedom from sin is stated even more clearly in Romans 6:14 "For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace." http://www.rockofoffence.com/oppress1.html Atheists usually are of the belief that religion enslaves man and that they pride themselves on their freedom. However, could this understanding be backwards? Could religion actually be the one to create freedom?
If you are told that if you do not follow this religion or that you will be either killed, disliked, thrown out of the community or many other things. So does that sound like "freedom" to you? I say killed because a few centuries ago people were killed for not believing in the Bible.
Here the operative term is not 'sin' but 'institutional church'. This is more a reflection of the radical element of the Protestant Reformation than anything else. Moderate Reformists would call it "priesthood of all men" whereas the radicals would call it "the scourge of institutional religion". It's OK to inquire into the theology but the above section goes against the rules against preaching. That looks more like the subject matter for a Bible forum than of theology. More preaching/ This touches on the departure taken by radical, evangelicals and fundamentalists. It doesn't even sustain the majority view of Christians, which is that grace is not sufficient for salvation; you must also do acts of charity, to reduce the suffering of fellow human beings. Atheism has nothing to do with pride or freedom. It's simply a lack of belief in God. According to what you presented, you should be asking Could Christian Fundamentalism actually be the one to create freedom? In which the case the answer is a resounding No since it imposes the requirement that people disavow key truths like evolution and cosmology. Presumably you are not asking us whether any of the beliefs you would call "pagan" -- shamanism, Wicca, Hinduism, etc. -- are liberating. You've just substituted your personal idea of religion for its universal meaning. My general remark to the reason that western religions are preoccupied with sin is that this was rooted in Hebrew culture, owing to their belief that they were the chosen people, yet their God did not save them from constant massacres, destruction and overlordship by their enemies. Their natural conclusion was that they were guilty of something. The Jesus story is strongly rooted in a crushing Roman police action in Judaea, and it revives all of those same questions of guilt. Where was their God when the Roman legion was leveling their temple, and going door to door butchering people? All you've been considering is the legend of a tragic hero during that holocaust; you've simply chosen to ignore the reason there were crosses in Judaea to begin with. Consequently you've taken away a very narrow understanding of what actually happened, and formed an entire world view around that poorly preserved story. I wouldn't call this liberating at all. To get there you would have to decide to get to the bottom of the documents you hold sacred, to test them at least as rigorously as they test you. Obviously the Jewish people have been victimized far more than any other, and throughout history. And before the Christians became anti-Semitic, they incorporated Judaic tradition and absorbed a lot of that misplaced sense of guilt. It's pretty clearly a psychological phenomenon. Remove all of the abuses and indigities the Jews suffered, enshrine human beings as the highest value in a culture, throw out all of the myths, legends and fables, replace superstition with a minimum education in science -- and what you have left is atheism. Gone is the treatment of thoughtful adults as children. Gone is the misplaced guilt. And therefore the obsession with sin becomes obsolete. That would certainly constitute an increase in freedom.
Excellent post Aqueous. So you believe that Christianity suppresses scientific truths to keep its followers in a state of ignorance? If that's the case then someone should call them on that to prevent worshiping God from excluding scientific epistemology. I hold that religion teaches self-discipline and that a follower can find strength in God. They see evil as yet more evidence for the existence of God because of the fact that they can hold a measuring stick up to it and say "Hey, that's not what my religion teaches, that is not righteous!" You have a rather narrow view of Christianity. For one thing, Christianity brings its most pious followers joy in serving God. To be righteous is to be free from guilt and sin. In your words, gone would be the love for one's brothers. Gone would be charity and generosity. Atheists live in a delusion that they have no responsibility to one's fellow man. They turn their heads to evil and pretend it does not exist so they can sleep better at night and believe that said evil is because man is free to do as they so please.
I'm something of an atheist, I guess. But I don't think that religion enslaves man. Freedom from what?
As atheists, we are also free from sin, since we know there is no such thing. But that is not the same as having no responsibility to one's fellow man. That's the essence of humanism, which is perfectly compatible with atheism. But we are also free from religious delusions, however joyful they seem to make believers feel, the danger of faith is all too real and often deadly.
Religion cannot give freedom in itself, it tells you, it speaks to you, and, basically, it indoctrinates you. It is most commonly a prescribed way of life. (realy, when such way of life stops prescribing things, you 'll have to ask whether it is still religion or, more likely, a form of spirituality) That said, it can be a quickway to deal with morals and bring these morals to society, as we've done plenty in the past, any authority within gets abused quickly though(just like everywhere else) You can only get freedom from yourself, by taking it, and from people who have a mutual interest in your freedom(usually, other free people) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBLugrlPZ2U
I don't feel oppressed by sin, not do I feel much concern about God's condemnation of sinners. I certainly don't feel any need to be freed from either of those things. That's because the ideas of 'God' and 'sin' aren't big parts of my personal belief system. (It's more of a grab-bag than a system, but that's another issue.)
No, not Christianity at large. But within Christianity lies the single largest population of people who deny the age of the Earth, evolution and the effects of CO[sub]2[/sub] on climate. Those people are the ones who perpetuate ignorance. They do it through pseudoscience; in the form of a deliberate sham, and through insidious propaganda. Once they have the hook set, they exploit the base instincts of the believers, inciting in them the phobias against gays and foreigners, and driving them to "covet" the meager assistance given to the poor. Since religion has its basis in mythology and superstition, epistemology is irrelevant. All you need is a little common sense to overcome mythology; a basic education in science is about enough to cure most superstition. By all evidence, that has no bearing on outcomes. People are just as bad, or possibly worse than they would be without it. Christianity has enough war, slavery and genocide to count against it. The other side of this is that there are much more and direct methods of finding that strength you allude to: from education, food and housing assistance to psychological counseling. Fortunately many religious people recognize this simple truth and are good enough to support charity services. There's nothing new or magic about the Christian measuring stick. The ancient Greeks had one that's even better, since there is little or no external shame or guilt involved. The person simply concludes that virtue is the only thing that gives life meaning, so it's better to be dead than to do harm. It seems odd to me that Christians steeped in the Bible would not be aware of this, insofar as the legend of Jesus was transmitted to them in Greek writings, under the influence of the Greek cultural treatment of ethics -- a system that seems far superior to the shame and guilt-centered ethos of the Bible. People are narrow because they get their information from a single source. I'm fortunate not have had that restriction imposed on me, so you'll find me citing a variety of them. This to me is a psychological phenomenon, something similar to catharsis, but often lacking the requisite act of change that seems to bring about the euphoria. If anything it's a proxy experience. After the rush, the person would indeed feel remorse for simply validating the meanness that best defines him. And to be ethical renders religion obsolete, esp. insofar as it claims exclusivity over "righteousness". Quite the opposite, I am generally more outspoken about altruism as it pertains to religion than anything else, except it's relentless attacks on science. Depending on the thread topic you'll notice my actual words contradict your impression of them. Check my posts if you like. No, under my scheme altruism would be the only purpose of religion. Superstition, myth, legend and fable would become obsolete. Consequently the attacks on science would come to a screeching halt. Atheists are merely living outside of the delusions of superstition, myth, legend and fable. There is nothing for or against altrusim per se in atheism. Secular Humanists are groups of atheists dedicated to altruism. The selfish people you are referring to sound more like the KKK, which historically have identified with Christianity, not atheism. That is contradicted by Secular Humanism. Now who is being narrow? Since there is no guilt-tripping in atheism, that would be a false assumption. That sounds something like hedonism which has nothing to do with atheism. As you see atheism owns none of the ideas you ascribe to it.
Actually, that 's pretty much a counter to what i said, as one takes what one needs, one is free. Religion has stopped being dominant in the western world, it's power weakened and weakened and we 're keeping what we can use(what we want).
Of course that's demonstrably so. It's the nature of faith. And they are called on it all the time. So what. People can find strength in almost anything. They can measure anything by any ideology. It doesn't mean it's true. I'm sure it has many benefits, but they aren't dependent on it's essential truth. There has been no society of any religion that didn't recognize some things as evil and some things as good. Christianity has no monopoly on morality.
