I’ve recently started to engage with a recent debate/controversy that has been brewing. I think this has primarily been at an academic level, although London Seminary’s Pastor’s Academy seems to be promoting in conferences around the UK.
It seems that a significant contribution to the debate is through those seeking to insist that there is a historical doctrine of concupiscence, held by the church fathers, classical theologians and the main reformers. There seems to be a form of theological method at work here that starts with creeds, confessions and historical work. This is similar to the nature of the debate over Eternal Functional Subordination.
I have not taken that approach. I believe that doctrine is developed by engaging with Scripture, doing the hard graft of exegeting texts, understanding them in their context and seeing how they contribute to the overall message of God’s Word. I believe that this is the only way to properly do Evangelical Theology. Such an approach is often dismissed as “Biblicist” as though that were an insult. The argument goes that this means we interpret Scripture in isolation from what the church has understood over the past 2000 years and that leads to novelty. So, it is important to state that I don’t think that historical theology is to be ignored. I do want to make sure that I’m in good company when interpreting God’s Word. It is my intention to have a look too at what has been said throughout history. Obviously, I am constrained in this by what I can access as a pastor from my own study rather than a full seminary library. Such an exercise of course requires humility but also confidence in the authority of God’s Word. It is Scripture and not Confessions or historical theologians that is infallible. We should be checking back what they say against Scripture and not the other way around.
It might be helpful at this stage to do two things, first to try and summarise what I think to be the way Scripture teaches on this and to flesh out a bit more my pastoral understanding of the subject and implications. I also will highlight things I’ve not covered yet. I hope to fill in those gaps when I do more detailed work later in the year on the doctrine of sin as part of the work I’m doing on the Doctrine of Humanity. Secondly, I want to highlight a couple of the pastoral questions that the debate might raise. Whilst a lot of the discussion about application seems to have focused narrowly on one aspect of human sexuality, I want to focus things more widely.
First of all, in terms of doctrine, our starting point needs to be a holistic doctrine of humanity which start with what it means to be made in God’s image. This will help us to understand something of what the end goal of salvation is in terms of saving and restoring us. It also has implications for the human life. Because I was just dipping into the debate, I’ve not gone back to these questions yet.
However, Scripture shows that we are created in God’s image, but sin’s consequence is the marring or distortion of that image. We don’t cease to be made in God’s image because we don’t cease to be human. The Doctrine of Total Depravity as opposed to complete depravity helps here. Sin/fallenness affects every aspect of our character. This includes our thoughts, imaginations, desires and not just our actions. We are sinners. The Bible describes us as dead in sin. When thinking about desire, this means that there is a distortion that affects our desire.
When we are saved, we are given new life, we are new creations. I think it is important then to emphasise our status as justified, not condemned. Our identity is not primarily as sinners. This means that sin does not rule our lives and control us. There is a discussion I think to be had here about the link between status and experience. Does being a new creation mean that immediately the distortion to our desires is gone? I would argue not. There is a now and not yet dimension to our personal lives as well as the eschatological age we live in. We look forward to future glorification and in the meantime, there is the work of sanctification.
This means that the believer should not sin in that their life should not be dominated/shaped by sin and that this means there shouldn’t be continued, complacent, habitual sin. However, Christians will at times sin and this should be repented of.
Sin includes actions, words and thoughts omitted as well as committed. In terms of desires, this means that the desire itself is not a sinful act when a believer is resisting sin. However, if we entertain a desire, then that becomes part of our thought life. In fact, there are two sins, there is commission as we entertain greed, lust, covetousness, laziness etc. There is also a sin of omission because we fail to obey the command to put sin to death in us. At its worst, we desert from the fight.
The normal Christian life includes this battle with sin, a battle that is rooted in our thought life. The battle can only be fought on the basis of God’s grace so that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus and only through the Holy Spirit. The Christian cannot resort back to the Law in a legalistic manner because the law only has power to warn and condemn not to free or change us. This is why we preach the Gospel to believers not just unbelievers.
I think it is helpful to think of our desires as coming in bundles.[1] In fact the baseline desires are for comfort, security and identity but these may be further developed as desires for connection, intimacy and recognition from peers, parents and partners. Then there will be specific desires for food, fathers, mothers, children, friends, a spouse, sex, knowledge, entertainment etc. We can see how desires can become distorted, so that things that should be good in themselves become dangerous and ugly. Furthermore, I would suggest that desires can become confused, muddled up together, particularly because they come bundled up. Think of how hunger and thirst can be confused. Consider too how it is possible to have an adrenaline rush due to fear and confuse that with excitement. Or think about how a child can seek attention at school through bad behaviour because even being told off means that they are seen.
I think that this helps us to see how we can then load expectations onto things and people so that we seek things in the wrong place. For example, we might look to others as replacement father/mother figures. This raises an interesting point because whilst, for example attraction to your spouse is a good thing and not to be repented of, it is possible that you might load expectations on them that are distorted and so to be resisted.
I said that there were some questions arising. One question concerns mental health. How do we treat the emotions and wants that go for example with depression? I think that some treatments of concupiscence might suggest that the emotions experienced by someone who is depressed would be considered as sin. My view is that yes, depression can be caused or exacerbated by sin, it is also possible to be sinful in your depression. However, I do not believe that depression is itself sinful. I believe that it is possible for the depressed to resist sin and be holy in their depression.
Another question concerns addiction. Is an addicted person sinning when they indulge in drugs whether alcohol, tobacco or something else? What about when they are tempted to light up a cigarette or reach for another bottle. My answer would be that if they resist the urge they are not sinning, they are fighting temptation. I would however also note that it might be possible for them to continue to savour the desired feelings that the drug gives in their mind whilst not actually taking it.
One area of sin that I think we tend to pay attention to is how we treat other believers. There might be a number of desires that cause us to verbally attack someone through slander, gossip or gossip. Yet the words we say out loud or type on social media start out as thoughts. We must also consider that there is a point where what we think of another becomes sin even before we say it.
It might be helpful to pursue conversations about these examples of desire, temptation and sin.
[1] I’m grateful to Stefan Cantore for making this point in personal correspondence.
Faithroots 