SIN > Unmasked: Tree and Fruit

Sin is both Tree and Fruit

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Unfortunately for many many people the world over, sin is defined as bad behaviour; immorality; evil actions. Why ‘unfortunately’? Because, apart from its being a serious misunderstanding (and highly stereotypical), it actually works against the whole process of the good news of Jesus and against the very reasons we invoke the word in our language. Most often we use the word within a context of wanting to change behaviour – to reform actions, situations, laws, etc. But when we use an extremely limited definition like this, people very often respond in one or both of two ways: scorn the people and the ideas they are trying to communicate; retreat into a position of comparing: ‘but I’m not as bad as him or her.’

From a theological standpoint, when we define sin this way, it makes a mockery of the biblical concept that “all have sinned and fall short of God’s intent”.  All it does is take us to a place of judging and finger-pointing – both of which are specifically forbidden as acceptable pursuits for Jesus’ people.  So, when ‘christians’ measure people against this false definition of sin, they will most probably be sinning themselves by either judging or pointing the finger, or both.  Apostle Paul once said, “When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise” (2 Corinthians 10:12).  Is it any wonder ‘hypocrite’ is a common tag used to describe some who call themselves christians? And some such people actually wear the tag ‘hypocrite’ as a badge of honour.

Again unfortunately, this approach is mostly due to serious laziness on the part of people who seem to think they have a God-given right to be presumptuous, arrogant, obnoxious and belligerent.  Anyway, enough with the arrogant laziness!  Let me invite us all to a pause.  An old Jewish word comes to us in English as ‘SELAH’.  In poetic writing, it is used to draw the reader into a pause; to stop for however long it takes to meditate on what was written before the pause and reflect on its life implications for the reader him/herself.  Pause and consider!

So, before we waste any more time, effort and money proverbially ‘putting our foot in our mouth’, let us pause and consider.  The laziness I am talking about is the fact that many of us are far too ready to buy into someone else’s bad ideas and start preaching them because they sound appealing to us.  Indeed, they are appealing: they appeal to our lower nature; our poor self; our tendency to buy a ‘canned’ product instead of making our own.

At the root of all of this is one of the horrible traits of our human nature: to divide between ‘us’ and ‘them’.  It is the opposite of an inferiority complex – it is a superiority complex.  The words may not be there, but the attitude is: ‘I am better than you.’  There is little recognition or ownership of a ‘common humanity’: ‘I know your struggles; I am, in some ways, like you.’  Whether we want to admit it or not, the superior attitude is pride, pure and simple. Could it not be that this is an even greater ‘sin’ than judging and pointing the finger?

How do we come upon an answer to that?  My suggestion is that, when we bother to ‘SELAH’ a bit, we will not only be changed by what we discover, we will find answers to this question and much more.

And since many who use this false definition of sin go by the name ‘christian’ and call on the bible to back themselves up, I will refer to the treasured bible.

First, in the words of Jesus recorded by Matthew (chapter 7), Jesus plainly believed and taught that the actions in a person’s life are like grapes on a vine and like fruit on a tree.  You know the nature and quality of the tree or the vine by the fruit it produces.  Many Westerners do not think like this.  Instead, they insist that the tree or vine is perfectly fine (somebody told me it was ‘perfectly fine’); if it bears bad or inappropriate fruit, the fault lies somewhere else besides the host plant.  There are many applications of what Jesus was saying, but one point in particular is this: a grape vine produces grapes, not passionfruit; an apple tree produces apples, not oranges.  Likewise, evil actions come from a fractured person – despite how much the person protests their innocence.  Sin actions are the ‘fruit’ of a sin ‘tree’.  Consequently, while the actions may be nasty, the real problem is the fractured life from which they come.

Second, Paul the great apostle taught the principles of Jesus like this: “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like ...” (Galatians 5:19-21, emphasis added).  Behind every sin is, in fact, a sinful nature, just as behind every grape is a grape vine and behind every apple is an apple tree.  It is a law of nature.  And Paul didn’t stop there.  He then went on to apply the same principle of this ‘law of nature’ in the positive: what are the actions of an UN-sinful nature?  He describes the ‘un-sinful nature’ as a person pulsating with the life and the DNA of the Spirit of God: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).  When the life of God is truly present, this is the fruit – emphatically!  Then he adds a couple extra truths for good measure: 1) the fruit of the sinful nature disqualifies a person from the Kingdom of God; 2) there is no law against the fruit of the Spirit.  Have a good look around: are there laws against joy, peace, patience, kindness etc?

And what about James, the brother of Jesus?  In his words: “My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs?  Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water” (James 3: 12). By implication, the presence of salt water indicates a salt spring; the presence of olives indicates an olive tree; the presence of figs indicates a fig tree; and the presence of grapes indicates a grape vine.

My point is that the popular definition of sin focuses almost exclusively on the bad visible actions of people. While this might be popular, it is profoundly counter-productive.  First, it produces little positive response from ‘them’; second, it draws ‘us’ into a position of self-righteousness on the one hand and judgement and pointing the finger and pride on the other. Nobody is better off; and ‘we’ are all worse off.

So, let’s all just stop being lazy.  Search the scriptures you say you believe and follow; and when you do, you will find another way.  A biblical definition of sin, consistent with the notion of the tree that bears corresponding fruit, informs us that there are three basic ideas involved: crossing a line; missing the mark; and living by sight.

Human nature is such that there is not a single person alive or dead who is not marked in some way by one or more of these ideas of sin.  ‘We’ are all tarnished in one way or another. Some of us have a strong tendency to ‘cross the line’.  Even when we don’t particularly want to, we find ourselves drawn to ‘break the law’; sometimes just because the law is there.  We often hear it said, ‘‘the law was made to be broken” and “the law is an ass”.

Others of us have a strong tendency to failure; we disappoint people either because we cannot believe that we have any right to succeed or because we think that success brings responsibilities we do not want or feel we are not ready for.  We ‘fall short’ so often.  We often hear it said: “that’s not good enough” or ‘‘you don’t measure up”.

And others of us regularly find ourselves asking ourselves, ‘‘why did I do that?”; ‘‘where did that come from?”  We might hear it said (or we might say it ourselves), “Jeez, you’re a real jerk!” (or something far worse).  Things in our lives come from a ‘dark place’ we didn’t know existed and do not know much about.

We have no right to be judging and condemning one another’s behaviour, yet we do it so often.  And we do it despite Jesus’ question, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”  By contrast, even though God is the one who has the right to judge and condemn, He is understanding and tender and patient and allows us the space to be honest with ourselves and admit that, on at least one of these points, we are guilty.

Whether we like it or not, we all have a ‘plank in our own eye’ but prefer to focus on the ‘speck of sawdust’ in someone else’s eye.  If we are brutally honest, we are probably guilty on all points.  Of course, some of us are truly narcissistic – which really means we have some serious blind-spots; but, as is the nature of blind-spots, other people see them but we don’t.  Are these ‘unknown knowns’?  Furthermore, we have a creeping virus in Australia: something is only “wrong” if you get caught; and its flip-side – if you can manage things to not get caught, you are a “success”.

There is no ‘us’ and ‘them’; there is only ‘we all’.

And that is precisely what our precious bibles tell us, isn’t it: “All have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God” (Paul writing to the Romans, chapter 3:23).  All: not just some. All: not just those who cannot find what it takes to ‘think positively’ about oneself or who don’t have the wherewithal to buy their righteousness.

The judging, condemning, pointing the finger, proud attitude of many who say they are christians just proves them wrong – very, very wrong.

Am I saying then that we should not talk about sin?  By no means; what I am saying is that ‘we all’ need a SELAH so that God can poke His word in amongst our noise and teach us what sin really is, because ‘we all’ need that redefinition.  And whoever we are, we need to be brutally honest with ourselves (but without condemnation) if we are to be sound, sane, functional people.

Next: God as “wise parent”.