Sin and Temptation

I read this book (Sin and Temptation) by John Owen, a puritan when I was about 19. When I applied to study theology, they asked me what my top 5 most influential books were, and that was well up there on the list.

This week I've been thinking a lot about sin and temptation, and what it means to be (as Luther put it) 'always a sinner and always a saint' at the same time. And I've been wading through the carnage of other peoples' sins, realising from that how damaging sin is, even my own, often excused sin.

Not a cheery week.

But I keep remembering stuff I discovered all those years ago while reading that book: That you don't trust yourself, and specifically you learn yourself and your sinfulness well enough to know when to definitely not trust yourself. That you ask God to teach you yourself because your own heart is going to lie to you and pretend that things are a whole lot better than they actually are. That you work out how you get to a big crisis point of temptation - what does the path look like for you? What are the micro-choices on the path? That when you've done this hard thinking and praying, you learn to put alarm bells at various points for yourself. That you learn to be almost savage with yourself on certain issues, because you've seen something of your own wickedness (though - and I always liked this bit - God is so kind that he doesn't let you see the full extent of your own wickedness).

And you realise that there really are tendencies within you that are so bad they need to be dealt with that harshly.
I am a bad person.
I am not the good person I wish others to see.
I am a sinner, and a sinner is a walking timebomb, always either just finished or on the verge of creating pain for myself or others. Yes, in Christ I am made holy, and by his grace that work is not my own labour, but I am called on to co-operate with his Spirit as he works in me towards a goal which stands outside of this world.

But you do all this knowing that in the here and now you'll fail, and that the grace of God in Christ is utterly sufficient for each and every failure. And you know that in Christ, you are being transformed into this 'saint', this person who despite this rotten sinfulness is able to demonstrate God's grace and holiness in action. So you are aware of failure, but you don't do it with any sense that giving into temptation is an acceptable outcome. It's a paradox that is tricky to live with sometimes.

I remember when I first read this book I felt so liberated. I had never been able to understand what people meant when they talked about 'turning away from sin'. I felt like I was trying to do that all the time, and sin just kept following me. But reading S&T helped me realise that the Bible shows us that sin is absolutely awful, and that I couldn't get away from my own sins without drastic action. That I was never going to do an action that was completely sinless (which took enormous pressure off!) That when we are changed by Jesus to new and living creatures, sins aren't just abberations (in one sense of course they are), they're ingrained. And repentance is actually fiercely hard work. It's not just accidental or easy. And in Christ, God is on my side, giving me so much to help me to be holy and showing me what holiness was and getting me there, having (paradoxically) already made me holy in Christ.

Whenever we talk about grace we are really talking about sin, because without sin there is no need for grace. That's why Christians talk about how great grace is ad nauseum, because they've gotten a sense of how bad they actually are and are really, really grateful for this grace held out to us all in Christ Jesus. We can't live without it.