When I lived in Kentucky, our next door neighbor was a woman in her eighties who had raised her children, raised her grandchildren, and was now in the process of raising her great-grandchildren, two scrappy boys; eight and ten-years-old. Their faces were often covered with Cheetos dust; her’s were lined with decades of care and woes. The rope of her family had frayed through the successive generations: drugs, gangs, and prostitution had pulled all of the mothers and fathers away. This old matron alone was willing to stay around to raise the babies. But she was barely capable of taking care of herself, let alone these boys. They lived solely off her social security, doing all of their grocery shopping at the dollar store down the street, barely eeking out any kind of living. Many times she didn’t buy the medication needed to keep her heart working because she chose to buy food instead. There were literal holes in their roof that let the water in whenever it rained.
The boys’ behavior was, understandably, monstrous. They had no positive role models in their life (both were born from different fathers: one had died in a shooting, the other in prison), no stability, and both had suffered abuse—physical and sexual. They were often violent, cruel, and dishonest. Several times when we had these boys over to our home they would steal things from us. The oldest was expelled from his school for preying upon younger girls, both sexually and violently. By the time we had moved away, he was being placed by the state in a special home for violent youths where he would be regularly sedated to keep him from hurting others and himself. Trying to apply Jesus’ command of love of neighbor to this family was heartbreaking and overwhelming, like carrying dixie cups of water to a house fire. It was also devastating to consider the sharp contrast between my own sons and these boys. My boys did not have the kind of generational trauma and material deprivation these boys had. Just by having a father and mother in the home, my children have dramatically better chances at a stable future.
Now, imagine—if you can—that someone were to look at the neighbor boys, and then look at my own and sau: Well, those boys are just as responsible for their life choices as your boys are, Marc. While that person is saying something that is technically true, it is so misleading that it is functionally false.
There has been an emphasis in some Evangelical circles recently towards speaking about sin and guilt with the language of therapy. We are not wretched sinners, we are broken and hurting. God is not holy and righteous, He is understanding and kind. You are not a villain perpetrating wrong, you are victim who has been wronged. And, if you are from a certain church background, you may be quick to criticize or praise this shift.
But I think the real life example of my neighbors helps demonstrate the complexity of the issue. Those precious young boys should not feel guilty for the abuse that they suffered at the hands of predators. We often told them that God is a healer, and He could put back together the broken pieces of their life if they would give their lives to Him. We wanted them to feel the welcome of Jesus, not condemnation for what wasn’t their fault.
But what should those boys feel when they begin to perpetrate abuse to others?
How would you counsel them?
Or, to think about it slightly differently: How would you feel if you were the parent of the six-year-old girl who has sexually assaulted by them?
Life is complicated; Lord, have mercy.
Two Things True At Once
We must be able to admit two things to be true at the same time:
One: we are affected by the sins of others, by our environment, by our upbringing. These influences have real consequence for inclining ourselves towards certain behaviors and proclivities—we are not responsible for those inclinations and proclivities. If you were violently battered by a drunk father, you will have unique temptations in your life that the child of a loving, stable father will not face. You are not responsible for those temptations.
Two: we are responsible for acting upon those inclinations and proclivities. When we choose to indulge that appetite, we bear responsibility and guilt for our action. That action can be explained by our previous influences, but they cannot be absolved by our previous influences. The child with the drunk father who grows up to similarly batter his children is not excused by his past. You are responsible for acting upon your temptations.
To quote the pithy proverb regarding the distinction between temptation and sin, made popular by Martin Luther:
You cannot prevent the birds from flying in the air over your head, but you can certainly prevent them from building a nest in your hair.
And that may lead you to think: But, that isn’t fair! Why do some people experience temptations that others don’t? And you would be right. It isn’t fair. My children will not face the same kind of temptations my neighbors experienced. But, as the old adage goes, life isn’t fair. The question we have to answer is: what do we do in response to it?
And here is where the gospel of Jesus Christ has incomparable resources for broken, sinful people like us. Regardless of the kind of upbringing you had, the Christian doctrine of sin affirms that all human beings are both victims and villains simultaneously. We have inherited a sin-nature from Adam, through no decision of our own. Yet, we have perpetrated sin ourselves and confirmed our guilt. We are sinners by nature and by choice, victims and villains.
To illuminate how God responds to victim-villains, consider Jesus’ encounter with two notorious sinful women in John 4 and John 8.
Sin No More
In John 4 and John 8 Jesus encounters two women who were known to be sexual sinners. The woman in John 4 had five different husbands and was living with a man who was not her husband (John 4:17-18). The woman in John 8 is caught in the act of adultery. You are likely familiar with these two stories precisely because of Jesus’ surprising response to them.
On the one hand, Jesus does not skewer them with shame. By even speaking to these women, Jesus was throwing all cultural customs of respectability in the wind (John 4:7-9). Today, we have a soft-spot for these women—for all outsiders and misfits in general. But in Jesus’ day, these women would have been seen as villains, not victims. To put it more bluntly: If you were living in Jesus’ day, you would expect a reputable rabbi like Jesus to pick up rocks and threw them at these women, spit in their face, and shake the dust from his sandals. Instead, Jesus leans down, looks them in the eye, and sees more than their sin. Neither do I condemn you.
But, on the other hand, Jesus does not minimize their sin. He identifies their sexual immorality as sin. After speaking a word of “no condemnation” to the woman in John 8, Jesus than bluntly tells her: sin no more (John 8:11). He doesn’t tell them that their feelings of guilt are misplaced, that they are victims caught up in the machinations of powers beyond their control. Jesus treats them like morally responsible adults; He doesn’t infantilize them. Notice that He doesn’t identify their past as an excuse for their sin. Who knows what circumstances and experiences these women had in their past that led them to this life. Few women of their own accord choose a lifestyle of promiscuity, but resign themselves to it usually out of necessity. Yet, in both Jesus gently, but directly, confronts their sin as sin.
Jesus doesn’t throw stones, nor offer false niceties. What does He offer these women? Forgiveness. The pre-condition for receiving the solid joy of forgiveness is to know yourself to be an undeserving, guilty sinner.
But we recoil, we defend, we excuse. We hate to admit our own sin. And is it not possible that some of our attraction towards the therapeutic categories of “brokenness” could be a subtle way we side-step fully owning our sin as sin?
But, what if our reticence to own our sin has less to do with our willingness to take responsibility and is more about how we have minimized the scope of God’s grace? We assume God forgives a few feet of sin, not a mile; He overlooks a puddle, not the sea. And the Accuser points to miles and miles, oceans of sin within us. And if we were we to fully accept that—that no one else is to blame for our violence, for our dishonesty, for our wretchedness…what then? Perhaps you fear that Jesus may pick up a rock and throw it at you: get away from me!
But He won’t. He has shown us what He is like. He is the friend of sinners who will confront you, will expose your darkness, but who will then atone for your guilt because of His bottomless love for you. Be rid of your dark suspicions of God! His grace doesn’t extend to what you imagine it will, but to what He has said it will. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities (Ps 103:10).
We should admit how our childhood, our environment, and the sins of others may affect us, may generate opportunities for temptation that others may not face. And we should not feel false guilt for experiencing those temptations. But when we give in?Well, then don’t be afraid to own up to your sin, to admit you’re a villain—not just the victim. God is far more gracious and merciful and wonderful and patient and loving than you could ever imagine. God saves bad guys.
And if you are never able to hang yourself on the hook of “sinner,” if you can never see yourself as a villain, then you’ll be less amazed at the Savior who hung there in your place.
Marc Sims 