For some time, the typical understanding of "sin" revolved around personal failings, and more recently it means "an irrelevant violation of some arbitrary and frivolous rule." But these understandings of the nature of sin fall far short of the central truth. In simplest and truest terms, sin is separation.
In the deep reality of God's self-existence, relationship (shared life) constitutes His life-blood. His vitality stands inseparable from His communion. The common English theological term devised to describe this living relationship within the wholeness of God is "Trinity." The word remains so small and so limited in its ability to convey the magnitude and majesty of this core truth of God, I hesitate using it here, but a better term yet awaits an author.
I will not attempt a detailed description of the nature of the relationship among the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, since in any such adventure lies vain speculation. Nonetheless, we can safely conclude that this relationship (or these relationships) exist as infinitely rich, unimaginably dynamic, perfect in purity, and powerful enough to birth universes.
God essentially invests in relationship. So much so, that as He created, He determined to fashion something outside His own perfect and complete state that, although external to Himself, could be connected to Him in that same perfect communion that He had always enjoyed from eternity past. He molded this creation into something like an image, or likeness, of Himself– like the Father, the Son, the Spirit– with the ability to commune within itself (Man with Woman), as well as communing with its source, with its Creator.
The opening scenes of Genesis describe an extremely abbreviated view of existence in the paradisiacal Garden. Within that brief snapshot, we see the Man and Woman living in perfect communion with each other (they "were both naked and were not ashamed"). And they knew perfect communion with the perfect One Who had created them, Who had provided all necessary and good things for them, and Who personally walked and talked with them in the Garden.
But something intruded to extinguish that state of perfect delight in relationship. The Man and the Woman decided to step away from complete trust in and pure dependence on their Creator. They started believing there might exist something else, something better than knowing their God and each other. Perhaps, something existed, scarcely outside of that perfection and completeness, that they could yet relish. So they climbed a tree to reach that something just beyond their grasp, and they creeped out onto a limb from which hung something that just might be better than what they already savored. Straining to reach the beautiful prize that captured their imaginations, they lost their hold on the branch, falling to their destruction below.
In those moments of freefall, suspended between heaven and earth, between perfection and degradation, the rest of human history began to unfold. The first to grasp the prize turned it over in her hands, beholding its incredible beauty. With a deep breath, she inhaled its dark and intoxicating fragrance. She quickly followed this by tasting its deceptive sweetness. Not to be left out, her companion, recognizing the expression of profound pleasure and satisfaction on her face, reached out to take the prize from her. She reluctantly offered it to him, and he wrenched it from her grip. Still falling toward earth, he devoured what remained of the fruit, sucking the juice from his lips as the earth rushed toward them and struck them senseless.
Broken, devastated, and bloody, their life leaked out of them, for all of creation and their Creator to see. Not only naked, they were now marred, flawed, and ugly– to themselves, to each other, to the universe. Shame filled them. And shame compelled them to hide, though futile the effort. They fractured their relationship with the One Who communed with them so perfectly, and hiding the fact became impossible.
Sin is separation, plain and simple. The "original sin" (as it has been called) is separation from God. Sin doesn't simply cause separation from God, sin is separation from God. Because God exists in a state of complete and perfect relationship at His core, breaking, or even tainting, relationship with Him will result in the utter ejection of the source and presence of that rupture. Broken relationship simply cannot exist within the totality and wholeness of God.
Before they reached out to grasp the object of their desire, a lack of complete trust in God had already begun fermenting in the hearts of the Man and Woman, betraying the looming inner existence of a dangerous rift from God. The sinful act of taking and tasting the object was simply the external fruit of the split from God already residing in their hearts.
We all experience that original separation from Him. We were conceived, born, and had our existence in that place of division from Him. And that original sin, that fissure in which our lives began, grew like a malignant tumor, unsatisfied and unsatiated, consuming even the life of the host upon which it fed. The separation conceived and birthed yet more separation. Separation from God led to separation of the Man from the Woman, and the Woman from the Man. Now filled with this chasm of sin they were torn even from their initial perfect relationship to the world and nature around them.
Their children became likewise afflicted so they separated from their parents and from each other. Family relationships, intended by God to be characterized by love, sharing, and mutual enjoyment of life, became relationships of envy, bitterness, mistrust, and pain. The final result has been hatred, divorce, murder, and war.
Separation, primarily from God but also from each other, causes sins– specific acts of separation. And those sins result in yet more division– an endless cycle from which we remain without hope of escape. But as that "chief of all sinners" Saul/Paul wrote– "Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?– Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!"
In God's great schema, His grand plan for the cosmos that He set in motion, there would be a rescuer, One Who would step into the ripped fabric of what He created, with the determined intent to set it all right. The Son, would come into the world– the universe He made– and like Atlas carrying the weight of the world upon his shoulders, the Son would instead carry the weight of the sin– the separation– of all humanity upon His heart. And the weight would be so enormous that, though He would not stumble, it would crush Him. It would crush the breath out of Him. It would crush the blood out of Him. It would crush Him lifeless.
But in His being pressed down into the very dust, this act resulted in our being lifted up. We would be lifted up from the dust of death, once again into the true life (the only life!) of relationship with God. God would once again breathe His Spirit into our bodies of death, into the dust from which He formed us. We would live again, in the newness of perfect union– communion– with Him!
In this current state of physical, biological life, with one foot standing on the surface of the earth and the other foot planted on the banks of the eternal river of the waters of life, it is sometimes difficult to apprehend the perfect relationship with which He has imbued us, in His Son, by His Spirit. Yet, it is there; it stands solid more than we can know, and it flows deeper and richer than our most extravagant imaginings.
The Spirit of the Son gave a man named John a tiny glimpse into that final, perfect state of relationship–
"...and I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, 'Behold, the tent of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.' And He who sits on the throne said, 'Behold, I am making all things new.' And He said, 'Write, for these words are faithful and true.'" (Revelation 21.2-5, NASB)John continues to recount in great detail the beauty, magnificence, worth, and perfection of this "Bride" of the Son. This Bride is us– those who the Son bought back by the price of His own life. He calls us His Bride– called into a perfect union of love with Him. It is an exclusive and intimate union. And it is an eternal union, to be enjoyed deeply and forever, by us and by Him. He has given us everything, He has given us all of Him, never to be separated from Him or each other again.
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