Hate Sin? Prove it!
“…as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 5.21).
It’s stock language in the Christian life that we’re to “hate sin” and “kill sin.” Sin is indeed an interloper in the Christian soul, a squatter in the Spirit-indwelled heart. Because of Christ, sin has no rights, privileges or legal claim on the Christian. Therefore, it must be rooted out and put to death. We are strengthened by the Holy Spirit to make progress against particular sins and toward Christlikeness. Though a lifelong process, the mortification of sin is a hopeful process because Jesus has removed its sting (1 Cor 15.55-57). I’m far more empowered to kill something that I’m assured cannot kill me back!
But, as pious as hating and killing sin sounds how do we go about it? What metric do I use to determine how much I hate sin? Is it enough to merely say we categorically hate sin really, really bad? Is our hatred of sin to be measured by how bad we feel after committing it? Does killing sin mean spending our days not sinning in certain ways? Are we to wake up each day trying not to sin as a means of mortifying it?
Jesus taught us to be violently aggressive against sin. We’re to cut out the wandering eye and cut off the offending hand, as it were (Mt 18.8-9). Guerrilla warfare has no rules and sin is our fiercest guerrillero; therefore, killing is rarely easy and often messy. We’re not merely to hate the category of sin, but to kill “the deeds of the body” in the power of the Holy Spirit (Rom 8.13). It’s one thing to hate weeds in my yard while staring at them from the kitchen window, but quite another to get dirty pulling up the particular weeds. We’re called to hate and mortify sin by being done with sins.
That said, I might suggest one metric to measure hatred for sin and a corresponding tactic for killing it. Sin reigns in death, grace reigns through righteousness. The grace that saves is the grace that demonstrates its power (reign) in sin-killing righteousness. In other words, saving grace is not only measured by how much sin we get away with while still remaining God’s children. Grace is measured also by the amount of righteousness that replaces sin. Grace doesn’t reign through licentiousness, but through righteousness.
How can my hatred of sin be measured? By the amount of opposing righteousness demonstrated in my life. For example, I show how much I hate greed or theft by my level of generosity (Eph 4.28). I show how much I hate sarcasm, gossip and slander by how much of an encouragement I am in any conversation (Eph 4.29). I demonstrate how much I hate bitterness, wrath and anger by how kind, tender-hearted and forgiving I am (Eph 4.30; Col 2.8, 12). I demonstrate how much I hate selfishness and conceit by the amount of humble service I offer (Phil 4.3-4).
The tactic, therefore, for killing sin is not simply not sinning. Like trying not to think of a pink elephant immediately causes me to think of a pink elephant, trying so hard to avoid thinking about sin focuses our attention on the sin. Laying aside entangling sin doesn’t mean focusing on sin’s knots, but fixing our eyes on Jesus (Heb 12.1-2). Killing sin means defeating it by grace-reigning righteousness. Sin must be evicted by the soul’s rightful resident: the Spirit of Christ putting Christ’s righteousness on display through us.
Killing sin is not a matter of waiting on God to “zap” the sinful desires out of you. How many times have I prayed, “God, just take the desires away so I can’t be rid of this sin!”? If I had a nickle. God typically doesn’t mysteriously take sin out of us while we sleep like he did Adam’s rib. God has provided means of killing of sin; namely, grace. And grace reigns through righteousness.
Therefore, if I want to kill angry it will be futile to spend every hour trying hard not to get angry. Doing so will probably only make us angrier! We kill anger with tender-hearted compassion. Instead of trying not to be angry, exercise compassion and our anger will run out of food to eat and move on. If I want to kill greed it will be futile to avoid shopping. We kill greed by being generous. Instead of trying hard not to be greedy, give yourself away and greed will slowly shrivel. Killing gossip will take more than lip-zipping. It will take gossip being evicted by Christ-centered encouragement of others. Rather than trying hard not to gossip, try hard to encourage and gossip will become far less gratifying to our selfish soul.
Grace is freedom. Liberty. We don’t wake up each day with the burden of killing sin by sneaking around it or ignoring it or being enslaved to its orbit. That’s like trying to evict a squatter by trying hard not to see him. We wake up each day in the power of God’s grace to pursue righteousness. Christ’s righteousness. We will enjoy far more freedom from sin by pursuing those things that evict sin in the power of the Spirit than we will trying not to sin by our own power. Grace reigns through righteousness. Long live the King.
