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May 12, 2013 |
| Sin Personified | ||
We tend to think of sin as either a verb or a noun. As a verb, it might be in a sentence like "He sinned when he did that". As a noun, it might be "He had been carrying around that sin for a long time." But the Bible sometimes talks about sin in another way, as a person or perhaps an animal.
This is called "personification". It is one of many non-literal literary techniques that we see used in the Bible.
An example of personification from our time could be your car. If it fails you at a critical time and causes you to miss something important, you might say, "My car hates me." By saying this, you would be personifying your car - that is, attributing human attributes to it, as though it were a person.
In this lesson we will look at some verses that talk about sin this way and see what we can learn from them.
The first verse we will look at comes early in the Bible, and the personification comes from the mouth of God. Cain and Abel have brought sacrifices to God. But Cain has brought an unacceptable sacrifice to God, and now he is angry because it was rejected. From Genesis 4, we have this.
Then the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it." (Genesis 4:6-7)
Notice how sin is personified as an "it", like an animal, something that can crouch at a door, something that has a desire. When I read this verse I sometimes think of Gollum from Lord of the Rings
God says something important about the nature of sin. You can't banish it and never see it again. Instead you have to rule continuously over it.
Paul uses this personification of sin frequently in Romans 6 and 7. In fact one of the references is very similar to the Genesis 4 reference above.
12 Sin shall not therefore reign in your dead body so that you shall obey its desires. (Romans 6:12)
The word "reign" here means exactly the same thing as "rule" in the Genesis verse. We also see the word "desires" used again, as it was in Genesis. So Paul is making the same point that God did in Genesis, but saying it in reverse. He is saying, "do not let sin rule over you," by which he means that you must rule over sin, because there must be a ruler.
Now we'll look at the full context of that verse.
In this way also consider yourselves that you are dead to sin and that you are living to God in our Lord Yeshua the Messiah. 12 Sin shall not therefore reign in your dead body so that you shall obey its desires, 13 Neither shall you present your members as weapons of evil for sin, but present yourselves to God as people who are alive from the dead and your members shall be weapons for the righteousness of God. (Romans 6:11-13)
We can now see two more personifications. Sin is again personified as wielding our bodies as weapons for evil. There is a new personification. The righteousness of God is personified as wielding our bodies as weapons. Better that than sin wielding them.
Paul's point is that we should think of ourselves as dead to sin. Again he is using this personified sin in his description. By "dead" he means unresponsive; if you poke something dead with a stick, it isn't going to respond. So he pictures sin as poking us, looking for a response. We should be such that even though sin may entice, beguile, charm, appeal, attract, or whatever, it fails to provoke a response. Those things that would have appealed to us and that we would have done when we were alive to sin, we now reject and do not respond to them, as though we are dead to the enticements of sin.
Instead we are now alive to God, through the Messiah, so that his desires rule in our bodies.
But sin is not gone. It hangs around, poking us with that stick, trying to find a soft spot, a spot that we will respond to.
Having said that our "dead" bodies should be unresponsive to sin, Paul goes on to say that the parts of our bodies, the arms, legs, tongue, and so on, should not be weapons that achieve evil. Instead they should be weapons that achieve righteousness. Perhaps visualizing a Zombie would help - a zombie is going to do what a zombie does … but we must be unresponsive, as though dead.
Notice something very important here that is not stated explicitly … choice. We have the freedom to choose who rules in our lives. We can choose to be as though dead to sin or alive to sin.
Earlier in chapter 6 of Romans, Paul first began using this personified sin in his description.
For we know that our old person was crucified with him, that the body of sin would be destroyed, that we shall not again serve sin. 7 For whoever is dead has been freed from sin.
Again we see this personification; it is very artistic and all, but what does it mean in real, practical terms?
Our bodies are sinful in nature. They have wrongful desires and out-of-control desires, and we feel them calling to us. The question is what we will do with them. If we do what those desires demand, then those desires are our master, just as if someone tells you to do something and you do it, then he is your master. We also have a sense of right and wrong in our bodies. If we choose to do what we know is wrong, we are truly slaves. If we say "no", we are free men.
Paul is saying that the person that we were before we became a Christian, that old person who was enslaved, having gone through crucifixion with the Messiah, that body has died.
He is speaking metaphorically of course, but in verse 7, he uses a real-life example. He says that whoever has died physically is free from sin, and this is true. Those bodies that have physically died are no longer enticed by sin.
So Paul is saying that what is true in the physical sense should be true in the spiritual sense. Once we have died with the Messiah, our dead bodies are freed from sin and no longer serve sin.
Paul continues to use this personified sin in his examples.
Do you not know, that to whomever you give yourselves up to serve in bondage, his servants you are, whom you obey, whether you listen to sin or to righteousness? (Romans 6:16)
When he says "listen to" here, his context is the relationship of master and slave. So when he speaks of a slave listening, it would be better understood as a slave hearing and obeying the instructions of his master. Again we see Paul depicting sin as a person, in this case as a master commanding his slave. And again his point is choice, a choice of masters, sin or righteousness.
Later on in chapter 6, Paul says this.
But the product of sin is death and the gift of God is eternal life in our Lord Yeshua the Messiah. (Romans 6:23)
This translation uses "product" instead of the more common "wages." There is very little difference, but I think "product" is a little better. A wage indicates that there is an agreement between an employer and employee, and the wage is what the employee expects to be paid when the work is done. Very few sinners would say that they expect to be tormented eternally because of the life that they live. To say that would be an admission that there is sin, a God, and an afterlife. The word "product" instead infers that death (eternal torment) is produced whether the sinner is aware of it or not.
This verse contains an interesting and important distinction. We understand that sin can only produce death, which is separation from God and eternal torment. Again we are talking about that personified sin who commands his slaves but only produces death. But note that Paul does not say that righteousness produces eternal life. We know that eternal life is a gift from God, not something earned or deserved.
Next in chapter 7, we find sin personified again in the lead-up to one of the great theological discourses.
What therefore shall we say? Is the Written Law sin? God forbid! But I would not have learned sin except by the Written Law, for I would not have known lust, if the Written Law had not said, "Do not lust." 8 In this commandment sin found for itself an occasion and developed in me every lust, for without the Written Law, sin was dead. 9 But I was alive without the Written Law at first, but when the commandment came, sin lived, and I died.
10 And I found that commandment of life to be for death. 11 For sin, in the occasion that it found for itself, seduced me by the commandment, and killed me with it.
12 The Written Law therefore is holy and the commandment is holy, just and good. 13 Was the good therefore death to me? God forbid! But sin, that it might appear to be sin, perfected death in me by the means of the good, that sin would be all the more condemned by the commandment. 14 For we know that the Written Law is spiritual but I am carnal and I am sold to sin. (Romans 7:7-14)
Verse 7 uses sin as a noun, but the rest of the passage uses the personified sin that we have been talking about. We also see other concepts personified, such as "the commandment."
In Verse 8, Paul says that his desire to do evil was dead (had no effect) in him until he came to know the law, that is, what was wrong. Then because of his sinful nature, he desired to do evil even more, and he did. His evil desires, which come from Satan, were able to use that knowledge of what is wrong to kill Paul spiritually. Therefore the law, which was intended to bring life by condemning sin, so people would not do such things, because of the weakness of the flesh to these desires, became a law that killed and brought death.
We've seen Paul make extensive use of personified sin, and we saw God use it in Genesis. But these are just a few of many places where either sin or its parallel "iniquity" is personified. Here are a few more examples.1
Sins prevailed against me, you covered our transgressions. (David - Psalm 65:3)
Righteousness will guard the ones of integrity, but sin will overthrow the wicked. (Solomon- Proverbs 13:6)
Yeshua said to them: "Timeless truth I speak to you: Whoever commits sin is a servant of sin." (Jesus - John 8:34)
But inquire of yourselves every day, until the day that is called today, lest anyone of you should be hardened by the deception of sin. (Unknown author - Hebrew 3:13)
Personifying sin is a literary device used by various authors to emphasize the nature of sin. It does not mean that sin is a literal being. By describing sin this way these authors show the character of sin as we perceive it, that it lies crouched and waiting to pounce on those who are not prepared. It is a master to slaves but produces nothing but death. It is a deceiver and a killer. It is a conqueror.
But what sin is to us is our choice. We can be slaves to sin, or we can be dead to sin and thereby free from it.
1 http://jmsmith.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Sin-as-Conqueror.pdf