• Originally published July 4, 2008 at 1:09 a.m., updated July 4, 2008 at 1:09 a.m.

People tend to think of sin in legal terms, as the breaking of God’s law. We violate one of His rules and are, therefore, guilty and liable to punishment. This view, while somewhat oversimplified, does summarize the way Western Christian theology looks at sin.

This idea, looking at sin in legal terms, is not entirely wrong; our Lord Himself speaks of judgment (Matthews 19:28; 25:31-46). From an Orthodox viewpoint, however, the image is very incomplete. We must be careful not to carry the idea too far in our spiritual life. Doing so leads to a number of problems.

For one thing, we do as many guilty law-breakers do: We try to arrange a plea-bargain. In other words, we try to rationalize and excuse our sin, denying its seriousness or contending it wasn’t really our fault. Or we point to our virtues and good works, as if they might outweigh the bad. Along with this goes a tendency to split hairs about what we’ve done. We ask ourselves if our action was really an infraction. If so, was it a serious one, a real sin, or was it just a petty foible which God really doesn’t care about? Needless to say, we usually decide that it was the latter.

On the other hand, instead of making excuses, some people acknowledge their sins only to become trapped by them, held captive by feelings of guilt. After all, if you have violated a rule you are guilty, and that’s all there is to it. Some become mired in remorse for their sins and are unable to appreciate God’s mercy and forgiveness.

Finally, if we view sin in legal terms, we tend to see our actions as either right or wrong. If we feel guilty, then we may acknowledge that we committed a sin. If we do not, then what we did must be right and good. Courts find defendants either guilty or innocent (except in Scotland). Looking at sin strictly in legal terms encourages us to see our actions as good or bad, white or black, with no thought to possible shades of gray. In this connection we also notice that we are concentrating strictly on what we do, forgetting the motive behind what we say and do.

The Orthodox view of sin is much richer and deeper. The Fathers see sin as due more to error and weakness than a crime. They stress that what God wants with us is a relationship of love and service. Sin is a disruption of that relationship, the result of our beguilement by spiritual delusion or our inability to live up to the demands of that relationship through the weakness of our will or understanding. We act as if we had never heard all that Christ says about our true nature and our proper way of life. Instead we follow the illusions provide for us by Satan, generated from our pride and moral insolence. Even when we realize that we should do, we often lack the will or the courage to do it; when faced with temptation, we often find it easier to coast into sin rather than struggle against its allurements. Even St. Paul confessed to this failing (Romans 7:15). All these things interfere with the bond between us and our God. They obscure the light, the strength, and the grace which come only from God and which we must have to live spiritually.

The Orthodox understanding of sin means that we must overcome the limitations of the legal view. On the negative side, we must recognize that even our good deeds spring from mixed motives, from fear of discovery, from the desire for praise, from self-congratulation. We cannot plea-bargain with God or excuse and minimize our misdeeds. We must acknowledge that our “good deeds” are really only the lesser of evils, that they exist in an area of moral gray and seem good only in comparison to worse sins.

On the positive side, we must remember that God, in His love and mercy, desires “all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (I Timothy 2:4). He has proven that this is His desire by His incarnation, His death on the cross, and His glorious Resurrection. Nothing in law can account for the coming of Jesus Christ. No prosecutor has ever willingly accepted the role of defendant; no judge has ever had the power not just to acquit but to restore the guilty to true innocence.

Therefore, the Orthodox Christian should never become ensnared by guilt or despair. We know God deplores our sins, but we also know that He holds out forgiveness and reconciliation to the penitent. He only asks that we regret our lack of love, acknowledge our sins, and accept our responsibility for them. He asks that we rely upon His power and mercy alone to restore us to life and that we receive the cleansing that flows from His love.

Thus, when we repent, we do not ask merely for forgiveness, but like St. David the King we pray, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right sprit within me” (Psalm 50:10). If we approach with repentance, humility, and love, we receive something greater than mere acquittal by a judge. We, like the prodigal son, are restored to a full relationship with our Father in this world and to our rightful inheritance in His Kingdom which is to come.

The Very Rev. Father Dimitri Cozby of All Saints Orthodox Mission in Victoria, is a guest columnist.

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