Sin, Righteousness, and Judgment

Marie and I were in Texas this year on Pentecost Sunday, so here is the sermon I preached three years ago at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Pentecost Sunday.

Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104:24-34, 35b
Romans 8:22-27
John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

Sin, righteousness, and judgment, that’s quite a mouthful. The title of this sermon should rightfully remind us of every crime drama books, movies, and television have ever given us. These terms themselves, sin, righteousness, and judgment, were legal words in the first century. These are the words of the courts yesterday and today.

Before we explore the big three, sin, righteousness, and judgment, we need to consider the legalistic format of the beginning of the verse. In the version we read from today, “When he, the Holy Spirit, comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin, righteousness and judgment.” Instead of “prove the world wrong,” other translations say convict the world instead. The nuance what these phrases mean to us is quite different. The word used here, translated as “convict,” or “prove” can mean a number of things. It can mean examine carefully, or recognize wrongdoing, or express strong disapproval, or even penalize for wrongdoing. In the possible range of translation, the Spirit can do all manner of things in relation to sin, righteousness and judgment in the world. From a simple pointing out to administering discipline, there is a broad range in how the spirit exposes the world to the big three of sin, righteousness, and judgment. How we use this phrase says much about how we discern the role of the Holy Spirit.

Sin, I’m not sure if there is a stickier word in theology than sin. People tend to think of sin in two main categories: first, those thoughts, words, and deeds that are horrendous and dramatically outside of the norms of society and second, those we commit ourselves. As horrible as this is to stereotype people, based on information from groups of Presbyterians trying to vie for our attention before the General Assembly meets, this point of view is not wholly inaccurate. Horrifying, yet there is a grain of truth. This oversimplification of mine is another way of saying that people tend to forget that sin is the reality which determines the nature of the world.[1] If placed in relative terms, if horrible sin sits in the very depths of Death Valley and the least of all sins sits on the summit of Mount Everest, then one sin seems to be far graver than the other. Based on how our culture’s views of height and depth, while sin is found in all parts of the world, the sins of the summit might not seem as bad as those in the depths. What is neglected in this little example is that the sun is still 93 million miles away. There may be thousands of feet difference here on earth, but there are still millions of miles to the light of the world. Because of all sin, humanity is millions of miles from the light of God. Redemption is summed up in remission of sins, all sins regardless of their relative shame and horror. This feature is distinctly Christian. Since any sin is a rejection of God’s claim on our life all sin must be confessed and turned from.

Righteousness is based on just judgment and rule—right conduct before God.[2] According to John’s gospel and epistles, all right action must be linked to Christ.[3] John’s gospel tells us that without Christ, we can do nothing; this is never more obvious than in pursuit of righteousness. His resurrection and ascension declare his righteous being. Compared to these works of God, our righteousness is just a shadow. Yes there are some who think they know all that God knows. This sort of esteem is dangerous because it is rooted in nothing more than who we are, what we know, and what we do. Instead, all true righteousness is based on who we are in God. In Acts, we saw a beginning of this when the Apostles began to testify in the native tongues of all in attendance. They did not speak in the language of angels. Angelically, they spoke in the languages of other peoples. And when the people heard, they were amazed, they were utterly astonished. Pentecost allows us a glimpse, a touch of this righteousness. Through the Holy Spirit, God completely transformed the cowering disciples who changed the world.[4] Amazing! And yes, the ability of the Holy Spirit to transform individual people, collections of people and the world are still in effect.

Judgment in the ancient world looks an awful lot like an episode of Law and Order or CSI, starting with discovery and ending with discipline, there is a procedure to judgment. In the ancient Mid East, judgment can come from either divine or human sources. Often it is penal in nature. But in John, judgment comes from Christ. And as seen in Matthew’s gospel, judgment of the world always involves separation.[5] From the parable of the vine, John 15:6, Jesus threatens judgment on the world when he says that vines that are not fruitful will be pruned and burned. Yet one of the most famous pieces of scripture ever quoted comes to us from John 12:48 where Jesus says he comes not to judge the world, but to save it. This may be explained in John 16:11 where Jesus says (literally) the ruler of the world will be judged. This judgment took place the hour when the Son of God resolved to sacrifice himself to the Glory of the Father and God promised to glorify him.[6] Both sides of judgment, discovery and discipline, are present in this single motion. This form of judgment is unique to John’s gospel: the world is judged and the sacrifice is made in one fell swoop. This judgment and offering were made outside of our world in the eternity of the relationship between Jesus and his father, a relationship we talked about last week. A relationship we are invited to join into.

So there is the formula, when the Spirit comes he will prove the world wrong about sin, righteousness and judgment. Because of how humanity responds to the world and to one another, we must be proven wrong, corrected, about the big three. The scripture says “we will be proven wrong about sin because we do not believe in Jesus.” Sin permeates our beings to the core, there is no way we can know of the depth of sin without the leading of the Spirit. Righteousness only comes with the return of the Son to the Father. While Jesus, God walking the earth, God with us, is the perfect teacher—there is one more step needed on our development, the coming and conviction of the Holy Spirit. Finally, judgment comes in the eternal judgment of the ruler of this world. Since before the beginning of time, from the hour when the Son of God resolved to sacrifice himself, the world was judged.

So when the Spirit of truth comes, the Spirit will guide us into all truth. This guide, this advocate, counselor, helper, is the one called alongside us to guide us into the way of all truth. This advocate walks beside us on earth by the guidance of what he hears. This advocate indwells us with the truth of life and life eternal with the words of God the author of creation. This advocate is the one who is called to be alongside humanity as a source of the light of God. This concept of the advocate is exclusive to John’s gospel. From the Greek word, often this person is called “the Paraclete,” the one who is called alongside.

The Presbyterian Church USA has been held for years under a cloud of uncertainty and mistrust because of one particular issue, the ordination of gays and lesbians. I cannot tell you how long this has been an issue in the church. I can only say it has been a hot button issue for as long as I remember. This year, the General Assembly in Birmingham will vote on the recommendations contained in a report called “A Season for Discernment: The Final Report of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Purity, and Unity of the Church.” Much of the discussion about the task force has been on two of its recommendations. One allows ordination standards to remain as they are today, excluding practicing homosexuals from ordination in the church. The other would allow ordaining and installing bodies the responsibility to determine their membership by applying these standards to those elected to office. In a report that is to help the church with its striving toward peace, purity, and unity, I must admit a guilty pleasure. What I like about this report because it has something to make everybody at the church’s theological extremes upset. Those who seek a repeal of sexually based ordination standards will not be satisfied, and those who seek strong and swift disciplinary action in the event of violation of these standards will not be satisfied either.

It is all too easy to see how stereotyping and demeaning others hurts those who receive these slings and arrows. But because of the sins of human judgment against one another humanity hurts not only the opponents, but the whole church as well. The task force sees this and says in its report:

It is not possible for us to claim that we recognize all the ways the church and its members hurt one another. Nor can we claim that we have amended our lives adequately to signal full repentance for the harm we have done. What we can report is that as we became more deeply acquainted with one another’s thinking and life situations, we were chastened and humbled by the recognition that insofar as the body of Christ in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) is broken, we have all played a part in betraying and denying our Savior and in inflicting the damage from which the church, as His body, is suffering today. The recognition that the travail of the church is our fault as much as it is others’ sobered and saddened our task force but also brought us closer together.[7]

The Task Force, twenty people from all walks and political inclinations of the church, came together and through a covenant of worship, celebration of the Lord’s Supper, and prayer. In the end, they did not “find the solution” to the problems of “peace, purity, and unity” in the church. This was not their charge. Instead, what they found in their faith journey with one another in discerning peace, purity, and unity in the church, is that they needed the Paraclete, the one who walks beside all of us to come back into the life of the church. It is time for fresh listening to the tongues of the advocate in the words of those who share the pew and the world with us. It is a very difficult, very challenging call we have been given by the task force and by God. But we have the advocate who walks beside us here on earth in the Holy Spirit and the advocate who stood on the cross for us in Jesus Christ.

There is an old saying, if you are not a part of the solution; you are a part of the problem. We must reject the notion. Because of sin, we are all a part of the problem. We are unable to achieve righteousness, the solution, on our own. Our judgment against one another will always be clouded by our imperfect human nature. When we try to assert a sense of self rignteousness, the Holy Spirit is with us to prove us wrong about our sins and judgments against others. Jesus’ and his redemptive work in life and death and resurrection is the solution. He is the one who sends the Paraclete who stands beside us on earth and he is the Paraclete who stands beside us in eternity. This is the solution. When we try to be the solution, we will eternally fail because what we do is fully infused with sin, we are a part of the problem regardless of how hard we may try. God in three persons is the solution. Yes, this sounds like a platitude and it probably is being offered like one. But we need to take it at full face value. Let us give up our attempts to live into our own solutions and seek the source of the power of the true solution, just like the apostles did on that fateful day two thousand years ago.

[1] Theological Dictionary of the New Testament v. I p. 305
[2] TDNT, v. II, p. 198
[3] Ibid. p. 200
[4] PC (USA) Mission Yearbook, Day of Pentecost entry
[5] Matthew 25:31-46
[6] Interpretation Commentary, John, p 193
[7] PUP Report, lines 340-349