Creativity, Writing
Rev Gav
Hate the sin, love the sinner?
If there’s one phrase that I hear Christians say that makes me cringe, it’s this one:
“Hate the sin, love the sinner.”
This is because this phrase is nearly always used when referring to gender issues — particularly homosexuality.
I once heard a vicar use this phrase while speaking at the front of a church worship gathering and I could tangibly feel the pain of my gay brothers and sisters sitting in the pews next to me. I wanted to stand up and say, “You know what? You are not a sinner because of your gender or sexuality!”
No, the phrase, “Hate the sin, love the sinner” is not in the Bible. Jesus never said it, and the apostles Peter and Paul never said it.
But us evangelicals bang on a lot about sin. So what is sin?
A particular set of evangelical Christians define sin as the failure to obey a set of laws that Jesus laid down for us in order to be ‘in’ rather than ‘out’. But let me be clear, this is not the case. Jesus did not come to set down a whole new set of laws that need to be obeyed to be ‘in’.
The truth is that Jesus Christ came to fulfil the law. He ‘is’ the law, and I trust, as the apostle Paul writes, that NOTHING can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus — not our money, not our actions, not our thinking, and certainly not our gender or sexuality.
We are not under the law but under grace. This is why I have a problem with Christians wagging the finger at other people telling them that they are not obeying the law (and why it comes across as rather Pharisaical).
The problem with sin — as defined as ‘not obeying God’s moral law’ — is that all of us are in a constant state of sin all the time. All of us. All the time. There is no perfect set of moral laws that we can obey constantly that will free us from this constant state of sinfulness. Thank GOD for Jesus Christ who has lived, died, and been resurrected — that all our ‘sins’ have been dealt with once and for all time. Thank GOD that my own sin does not separate me from God (because if it did I’d be stuffed and there would be no hope for me).
But, as the Apostle Paul asks, surely we can’t go on doing the acts of sinning? No, of course not, vut if sin is dealt with, 100%, for all time, through Jesus. i.e. if sin no longer separates us from GOD then what is sinning? And Jesus did say that if we love him we will do what he commands. So what did Jesus command? Really?
It is the Spirit of God in us that guides us, moves us, and leads us. It is the Spirit of Jesus that shows us how to live and behave. We do not live under the law but live by the Spirit.
And I’m sorry, but when a sister in Christ says, “The Spirit is moving me to tell you and the world that you are a sinner and separating yourself from God because of your gender,” I do not believe that this is the Spirit of Christ at all. No.
So the question is for each of us to ask ourselves — through the Holy Spirit — “Today, God, what are you calling me to think, say, and do that will join in with your mission and purpose in your world?”
And my prayer is that you will be Jesus to those you encounter, that you will obey his commands to love, to not judge, and to be his healing presence wherever you play, work or rest.
Amen.
and then