Why then would we see this cry of David’s as anything other than a further attempt by his bad conscience to minimize his many sins by rolling them all into one?
A couple of years ago, I submitted an article to a secular philosophy journal. They returned the editor’s copy to me with the happy news that they intended to publish the article in its entirety. They only wished me to accept one small change, involving the removal of two words: “from sin.”
Now, we can assume that the offensive content was not the first word, for the editor himself uses it all the time; but the second word—well, that’s a different matter. It’s a word no one today likes. If you read very widely in secular ethics, you’ll see words like “undesirable,” “unproductive,” “unethical,” “immoral,” and even occasionally “evil” applied to human actions; but you will very rarely, if ever, see the word “sin.” “Sin” is a word that draws our attention to more than the undesirability or impracticality of an action. It goes beyond the question of whether people in general approve or disapprove of that action. It even goes beyond what “decent folk” think. It goes straight to the matter of an action’s significance in the eyes of God. No wonder no one likes it. It is human nature to do everything we can to avoid it, minimize it, or explain it away.
In light of this we might well ask, “What on earth is David talking about?” He had sinned against Bathsheba by taking her. He had sinned against his kingdom by abusing his power. He had sinned against his servants by making them complicit in his crimes. He had sinned against his army by depriving them of a commander. Finally, he had certainly sinned against poor Uriah, first by committing adultery with his wife, then by attempting to deceive him about it, and finally by arranging his murder. Why then would we see this cry of David’s as anything other than a further attempt by his bad conscience to minimize his many sins by rolling them all into one?
But then, the Word of God does not disown these words of David. In fact, they form the heart of a whole Psalm, which not only records them but expands upon them, builds doctrine from them, and even celebrates them. Moreover, these words have come to hold a cherished position in the theology of the church and in the hearts of ordinary Christians. What is there in them that deserves such high esteem? The answer is that they tell the simple, awful truth in a way so plain that no one can mistake it: “Against Thee, Thee only…”
Roy Clouser writes about this with superb clarity:
…it is important to notice that the biblical idea of sin is not primarily that of moral wrongdoing…sin (singular) is the name for the condition of human nature which causes people to fail to recognize the truth of God’s revelation, and thus to fail to love and serve God with their whole being. This religious sense of “sin” is putting something into the place of God…on the biblical view,…sin is only secondarily a matter of moral intentions and behavior. It is first of all a matter of not directing one’s faith and love to the Creator…1
Understanding this takes some thinking. If what Clouser is telling us is correct, then we can begin to understand why there are only two great commandments (Mk. 12:29-31): to love the Lord above all, with all your heart and soul and mind, and to love one’s neighbor as yourself. But of these two, the second is only a product of the first. It is a chief way of acting upon the first commandment (Mk. 12:33), but in cases wherein it comes into conflict with the first commandment, it is the second commandment which must give way (Mt. 10:37; Lk. 14:26). For this reason also, the commandment to love God by giving Him the preeminence is the first of the Ten Commandments. The worst thing that can ever be said about any sin is that it reveals an inner disposition towards self-love in the place of the unquestionable duty to love God.
We need to remember this when we assess sin. The big factor is the failure to love God. In this light, things start to look very different. For one thing, we have a natural tendency to think of sins as ranked, usually with depraved sexuality or mass murder near the bottom, and the more polite and socially acceptable sins such as pride, workaholism, tale-bearing, or indifference to giving at the top. We concern ourselves little with the “lower” sins, since we don’t feel inclined to commit them; and we feel free to express principled disapproval while not bothering to take stock of ourselves (Mt. 7:1-5). But if what we have been saying is true, then the sins at the “top” of our traditional sin-list and those at the “bottom” are equally deplorable and wicked in this respect: that they are all “sin,” the betraying of one’s loyalty to God through a failure to love Him first.
However, the very “lightness” and social acceptability of our favorite sins make them seem less worrisome. The “great” sinner—the adulterer or drunkard—has a greater chance of being shocked by his or her own depravity and repenting. But the “polite” sinner, whose cherished and socially-approved sins (like selfishness, pride, sloth, arrogance, wastefulness, apathy, gossip, evil-speaking, or self-righteousness) hardly disturb his slumbering conscience, is deeply infected with indifference to God and cannot awaken. Indeed, there is more hope for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the person whose favorite sins are coupled with worldly respectability. Yet, as David reminds us, these things are all “Against Thee…”
All this is very sobering indeed. However, if we continue to think about David’s words, we come to some things that are much more encouraging. In some particular ways, they are marvelously liberating to the person of conscience; for in truth, we must acknowledge that it has sometimes been our habit to think of all the choices we face in life as being choices simply between good and evil. Thinking in this way, we can become “evil-hunters,” always looking out for the things that are wrong or bad. Not only is this a fairly depressing way to look at the world, but it’s utterly exhausting to our spirits as well. Sooner or later, we begin to lower our attention. Then perhaps we find ourselves failing again, and this is even more depressing. In the end, this creates a strong motivation for simply giving up.
Not only that, but this focus on evil has shown a tendency to warp our moral perspective on ourselves and on the morality of our personal choices. In regard to ourselves, it has sometimes helped us to imagine that we are already on the side of good, so long as we are not clearly involved in evil; and this allows spiritual pride and self-righteousness to creep into our thinking. Moreover, in regard to our personal choices, it gives birth to a third category of things located between good and evil—the neutral things. The “neutral” category has a tendency to continually get bigger in our thinking, and it readily includes things that don’t seem “really bad.” Eventually, it makes most of our living habits seem morally neutral to us, and we stop thinking morally about them at all.
But if what we have seen is right, then we can have a more positive, helpful perspective. Instead of continually asking ourselves questions like “Is this good?” or “Is this evil?” or even “Is this okay?”, we can start asking ourselves a single new question: “In what way can this situation be used to be an exercise of love for God?” If it can’t be used that way, then whether it is “evil” or simply “neutral” becomes uninteresting; it is a waste of time in achieving the goal we really value—loving God.
This gets us away from condemning others. For if “good” and “evil” are the main categories in our thinking, it’s all too easy to think of ourselves as being in the good position and others as being less good if they differ from us. But if we focus instead on the root objective, putting our actions into loving God, then we are less judgmental of the sacrifices brought by others. Not only that, but we remember that we too, on many occasions, have been guilty of failing to actualize our love for God, and of missing many opportunities to choose God over ourselves; and this recognition makes us humble.
None of this makes the categories “good” and “evil” less important, or justifies moral laxity. It simply reminds us that the Christian life, unlike life under the Law, is not a ceaseless, restless hunt for evil conducted by the self-righteous, but a humble, positive, personal commitment to choosing those things which are expressions of love to God.
Failure to love God is the true sin-of-sins. There is no good for mankind but to love God and do all in the light of that love. There is no evil that does not have at its root a choice to sever one’s affections from God. And after such a severing has been done, it matters very little what the means of the severing was, whether it was something an overt “evil,” something apparently “neutral,” or even something somewhat “good” that was allowed to replace the ultimate good of loving God. Additionally, it does not matter which tool we choose—the obviously wicked ones or the subtly wicked ones; all are simply ways of supplanting God from His rightful place in control of our lives, and of choosing one thing or another as His rival. To choose a subtle idol is not better than to choose a grotesque one. All are, in David’s words, “Against Thee, Thee only…”
What then? Imperious self-righteousness is shown for exactly what it is, and if we think rightly, we fall on our faces and cry out, “God be merciful to me, the sinner.” We return to God, we tear down our idols, we reconstruct our lives so to reflect that in all things our love for God dictates our choices in every practical way, and we remain forever humble and mindful of our own “feet of clay.” Then also we truly know how much we owe, and we cease to look down at our fellows. Instead, we look for ways to lift them up; and no sin is so black that we feel too good to reach down to it. And our worship to God, rather than being the routine duty of uninspired congregants, becomes a passionate returning to the Source of our salvation—for he who has been forgiven much loves much.
Our lives then become a single-minded search for a greater closeness with God, as we joyfully lay aside every weight that entangles us in order to lay greater hold on Christ. Sin no longer has dominion over us because it does not occupy our thoughts. Instead, love for God reigns in our hearts and teaches us to shape our daily lives not simply to avoid sin but to contribute to the consummate goal of life—that we may know Him.
Many of us in the church have lost this understanding of sin. Because of this, we have lost our love for God as well, and with it our love of mankind. Thus our modern refusal to consider the true character of sin has caused us to lose our moral way and to fail to realize that we have left our first love. What David saw, we must rediscover. The sin of all sins, and the thing that makes them all sins, is the failure to love God first.
In what way can a situation be used to be an exercise of love for God?
Endnote
1 Roy Clouser, The Myth of Religious Neutrality (2nd ed.) (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame, 2005), p.54.