Face to Face, Pt. 3: Human Failures

Readings:

Psalms: Psalm 130:1-8 (ESV)

OT: Isaiah 52:13–53:12 (ESV) 

NT: Romans 5:6-17 (NLT)

Gospel: Mark 10:35-45 (ESV)

Quick Recap

Humans as God’s Image: Representation and Rule in partnership (with God and each other)

Human turn away from God — broken relationship, partnership = sin, evil, & death

The Dilemma: (God wants to bless and rule the world through humans.) How does a  holy, good God resolve sin (personal) and destroy evil (environmental) without destroying the sinful and evil humans he loves?

But God’s “Face” remains steadfast (“hesed”) toward humans, but also remains holy (good)

Exodus 34:6-7

6 “Yahweh, Yahweh,

a God compassionate and gracious,

slow to anger,

and abundant of loyal-love and faithfulness;

7 keeper of loyal-love for thousands,

forgiver of iniquity, transgression and sin;

yet he will surely not clear the guilty

visitor of the iniquity of father upon sons and upon the sons of sons

upon the third and the fourth

Human Failures: Sin, Transgression, and Iniquity

Sin — Khata, Harmartia

• SIN — (Heb. Khata (n) / Gk. harmartia) — to fail or miss the mark, a failure to fulfill a goal
• What is the goal? All humans are made in the image of God, made to live in relationship with God and each other in a partnership to represent Him into all creation and rule on His behalf. Sin is a failure to be truly human, loving God and others in a way that represents Him and honors how He called us to rule on HIs behalf.
• Joseph refusing to sleep with Potiphar’s wife, “How could I sin against God?” (Genesis 37:9)
• Most of the time in Scripture, when humans are sinning (failing), they either don’t know it, or even worse, they think they are succeeding (calling evil good) (1 Samuel 26:21, Isaiah 5:20-23). So sin is about more than doing bad things. It describes how easily we deceive ourselves and spin illusions to redefine our bad decisions as good ones.
• Khata’s first mention (again)— Genesis 4:7b (ESV) “…if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.” So in these stories, sin, or moral failure, is depicted as this wild, hungry animal that wants to consume humans. The Bible is trying to tell us that failed human behavior, our tendency towards self-deception, it’s deeply rooted in our desires and selfish urges that compel us to act for our own benefit at the expense of others. And it leads to this chain reaction of relational breakdown.
• In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul describes hamartia as a power or a force that rules humans (Romans 5:21 — “as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”), making us “slaves to sin” (Romans 6:6 — “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin”). He includes that because of how “sin lives in us,” so that (Romans 7:15) “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”

• “So with the word sin, the biblical authors are offering a robust description of the human condition. It’s a failure to be humans who fully love God and others. It’s our inability to judge whether we’re succeeding or failing. And it’s that deep selfish impulse that drives much of our behavior.”

Transgression — Pesha, Paraptoma

• TRANSGRESSION — (Heb. Pesha (n) / pasha (v) / Gk. Paraptoma) (“transgression, rebellion, trespass”) — it refers to ways people violate trust with others, like the betrayal of a relationship. Breaking a treaty — 2 Kings 1:1 “rebelled against” or “pasha with”; theft from a neighbor is pesha, vs someone else is robbery.
• So pesha involves one person or group violating a relationship of trust with another. And this is a really common word in the Bible because it’s one long story about a broken relationship between God and the Israelites. At Mount Sinai, they agreed to worship only their God and to care for the poor among them, but they didn’t. And so God raised up prophets to confront them, like Micah who said…

Micah 3:8 (ESV) “But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.”

• Amos — accusing Israel of idolatry and injustice (Amos 2:6), Tyre for military domination and slavery (Amos 1:9), and Ammon for murdering the innocent to enlarge their borders (Amos 1:13); all acts of pesha, violating the trust humans should have with each other, and the weak and vulnerable should have with their leaders. Also using “treachery” (Isaiah 59:12-13), and “falsehood” (Hosea 7:13).

• Paul develops Adam’s paraptoma (humanity’s trespass) as breaking trust with God and subsequently with each other, and the result is the broken relationships, violence, and death that has marked humanity since.

Romans 5:17a …because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man…

Iniquity — Avon

• Iniquity — (Heb. avon (n) / avah (v) / Gk. anomia) (“wickedness, guilt, sin”) — avah (v), “to be bent” or “crooked” (Psalm 98:6, Lamentations 3:9); Gk. anomia
• This image is used as a metaphor for peoples behavior: Jeremiah 3:21 “[Israel has] avah’d (perverted) their way”; Job 33:27 a person sins by having “avah’d what is right” or morally failing. These are examples of something that is supposed to be level or even, like your choices or conscience, has become bent out of shape, or distorted.

Isaiah 59:12–14 (ESV) 12  For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities: 13  transgressing, and denying the Lord, and turning back from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart lying words. 14  Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away; for truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter.

• Things were so morally distorted in Jerusalem that crooked was the new straight.
• Avon refers not only to distorted behavior but also to the crooked consequences––the hurt people, the broken relationships, the cycles of retaliation. You find this idea in the biblical phrase “to punish,” which in biblical Hebrew is to “visit someone’s avon upon them,” that is, to let them sit in the consequences of their crooked choices: Babylon — Jeremiah 25:12, “I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation…for their iniquity…” And so Babylon’s divine punishment would be having to live in a disfigured world of its own making.

• This is actually the main way biblical authors talk about God’s response to human avon––letting people experience the crooked consequences of their choices. This is the meaning of the common biblical phrase “to bear your iniquity,” or in Hebrew, “to carry your avon.” God gives people the dignity of carrying the consequences of their bad decisions. (Leviticus and Numbers) (Leviticus 16:21-22, The Day of Atonement)

Summary

• SIN — to fail or miss the mark, a failure to fulfill a goal
• TRANSGRESSION (“rebellion, trespass”) — violate trust, to betray a relationship
• INIQUITY (“wickedness, guilt, sin”) — to be bent or crooked

God’s Response

Again, in many Biblical cases, God gives people the dignity of carrying the consequences of their bad decisions, or “to carry your avon (iniquity).” But that’s not the only way God responds to avon. He also offers to carry the avon of corrupt people as an act of sheer generosity. In fact, “carrying avon” is the most common Hebrew phrase for God’s forgiveness, like Psalm 32 where the poet says, “I did not hide my avon, but confessed it… and you carried the avon of my sin.” (Psalm 32:5)

Psalm 32:5 (ESV) I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.

God forgives people by taking responsibility for their avon. This idea reaches its high point in the book of Isaiah, where God appoints a figure called “the servant.” He will embody God’s forgiving love by “carrying the avon of many” and allowing it to crush him.

Isaiah 53:9–12 (ESV) 9 And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. 10  Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. 11  Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. 12  Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

This servant will absorb humanity’s crookedness (iniquity / avon), letting it overwhelm and destroy him. Instead of letting humanity destroy itself in treachery (pesha / transgression), God would raise up a human (his “Suffering Servant”) who would allow our pasha to do its worst to him (Isaiah 53:11-12). But that’s not the end of the story. The servant will emerge out the other  side of death, alive and well, so he can offer his life to others.

Mark 10:45 (ESV) “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

The apostles carry the idea of God  “bearing our avon / iniquity” forward, using the Greek word anomia, which has a similar meaning. Like Paul the apostle, he identifies the servant as Jesus, and he said, “Our great God and savior, Jesus the Messiah, gave his life on our behalf, in order to redeem us from all of our anomia,” (Titus 2:13-14) our crooked behavior and its consequences.

Titus 2:11-14 (ESV) For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

Not only did God become part of humanity, revealing humanity the way He intended, He also took upon Himself the weight of our sin, our turning away, and our corrupting His world by dying on a cross for us.

The apostles claim that, in Jesus, God took responsibility for our betrayal, so that he could open up a new future and a new way to be human, the way of faithfulness, trustworthiness, and integrity.

Romans 5:8-12, 15-17 (NLT) But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God. 12 When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned. … 15 But there is a great difference between Adam’s sin and God’s gracious gift. For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of forgiveness to many through this other man, Jesus Christ. 16 And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins. 17 For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 2:22–25 (ESV) 22 He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. 23 When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. 25 For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

And so the whole biblical story is about God’s desire to take crooked people and the twisted world that we’ve created and to make everything right. Through Jesus, God invites us to become whole humans once again, people who can walk upright with God and with each other.

Humanity gets the choice: do I believe in Jesus, God in the flesh, and receive a restored relationship with God, reconnected to eternal life? Or will I not believe in Him, and remain turned away in my sin?

Now, in a restored relationship with God, we are “in Christ,” our identity as image bearing creatures is restored in Him and we live out of that relationship with Him.

Conclusion

We now have an open invitation to turn away from our sin and shame, and turn to Jesus, who loved us and gave His life for us.

Acts 3:19-21 (ESV) Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.

Acts 3:22–26 (ESV) 22 Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. 23 And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.’ 24 And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days. 25 You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ 26 God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.”