5: SIN AS THE HINDRANCE TO CHRIST-FORMATION
CHRIST-FORMATION IS BASED ON the premise that people are relational beings who grow and thrive—emotionally and spiritually—within the context of relationships with God and others. These relationships provide the emotional connections that are necessary for healthy human development. Psychologist Henry Cloud explains,
Bonding is one of the most basic and foundational ideas in life and the universe. It is a basic human need. God created us with a hunger for relationship—for relationship with him and with our fellow people. At our very core we are relational beings. Without a solid, bonded relationship, the human soul will become mired in psychological and emotional problems. The soul cannot prosper without being connected to others. No matter what characteristics we possess, or what accomplishments we amass, without solid emotional connectedness, without bonding to God and other humans, we . . . will suffer sickness of the soul.[1]
Therefore, relational connection or bonding is a fundamental human need; this is made evident in the creation account.
People Are Created in the Image of God
God is a relational being who exists in a loving, triune community as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (see, for example, the plural language of Genesis 1:26). Loving relationship is the essence of God’s being. Since God created human beings in his own image and likeness (again, see Genesis 1:26), we know that people are relational beings, requiring loving connection with God and other people in order to thrive. Henry Cloud writes, “Without relationship, without attachment to God and others, we can’t be our true selves. We can’t be truly human.”[2]
Just as loving relationships within the triune community are fundamental to the nature of God, so loving relationships are fundamental to the nature of every person who is created in the image of God. A greater understanding of our relational nature and needs is essential for Christ-formation and the ability to experience the abundant life. The bottom line is this: You cannot grow in Christ and thrive by yourself; you must be connected in an intimate and loving relationship with God and other people. These connections become the very conduits of love that is essential for emotional health and spiritual growth inherent in the Christ-formation process. The first and primary relationship that you need in order to thrive is a relationship with God.
People Need Relationship
When God created Adam, he did so in a unique and personal way: “The LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature” (Genesis 2:7). God lovingly fashioned Adam with personal attention and great care and then intimately breathed life into him. It was as if God knelt over Adam, placed his mouth over Adam’s mouth, and breathed divine life into his body. God demonstrated the same personal and loving approach when he created Eve (Genesis 2:22).
This intimacy between God, Adam, and Eve provides evidence of God’s love and infuses human beings with immense value and worth. God created human beings for relationship—first and foremost—with himself. The primacy of the human relationship with God was made evident when God placed him in the Garden, providing him with food (Genesis 2:9) and companionship (Genesis 2:20).
Yet Adam was not complete without human companionship (Genesis 2:18). God provides us with a variety of human relationships to help us grow and thrive. These relationships begin in our immediate family (Ephesians 6:4), develop further in friendships (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12)—especially within the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12-13)—and reach their ultimate expression in marriage, as husband and wife become one flesh (Genesis 2:24). Anthony Hoekema writes,
The human person is not an isolated being who is complete in himself or herself. . . .
Men and women cannot attain to true humanity in isolation; they need the fellowship and stimulation of others. We are social beings. The very fact that man is told to love his neighbor as himself implies that man needs his neighbor.
Man cannot be truly human apart from others.[3]
The truth is, you matter to God. Christ-formation leads us into a greater quality of intimacy with God—the essence of the abundant life.
The loving care that God demonstrated when creating Adam and Eve means a lot to me because from the time I was a little boy, I have struggled with feelings of insecurity and fear. My early childhood experiences with bullying and the abandonment and rejection I felt as a result of my parents’ divorce planted seeds of shame and fear deep within my heart that I still struggle with today. I have to remind myself—sometimes many times a day—how much God loves me. I struggle to believe at times that I matter to God. I’m guessing that you wonder about that at times too. But let this truth penetrate deeply into your heart: God loves you more than you can possibly imagine, even on your worst day. God’s love is constant; it does not ebb and flow depending on our behavior. The fact is, God loves you and me in this moment as much as he will ever love us.
In fact, God loved us before the creation of the world. Paul writes about this in Ephesians 1:4-6:
Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son.
EPHESIANS 1:4-6, MSG
Knowing, believing, and abiding in God’s love fuels Christ-formation and the abundant life. As you live in the reality of God’s love for you revealed in Scripture, confirmed in your heart by the Holy Spirit, and demonstrated by close friends, you will experience a different quality of life. This is the quality of life that Adam and Eve experienced before the Fall. But tragically, sin changed everything.
Sin Changed Everything
Prior to the Fall, Adam and Eve enjoyed unbroken intimacy with God and each other as they lived in the Garden without shame (Genesis 3:8). After the Fall, instead of enjoying life-giving relationships, Adam and Eve experienced death, resulting in isolation and a foreign, chaotic state of existence characterized by feelings of shame and fear. Robert Saucy wrote,
On the day that man sinned, he experienced personal separation from God resulting in the death of spirit or the inner person. This was immediately evident in his hiding from God in fear (Gen. 3:8, 10). Spiritual death not only signified alienation from God, but also resulted in alienation from his fellow human being (Gen. 3:12). Moreover, it brought disorder to man’s inner being. For the first time he experienced the inner chaos of shame and guilt.[4]
When Adam and Eve sinned, they experienced “heart damage.” Theologians and professors Gordon Lewis and Bruce Demarest comment on Adam and Eve’s damaged inner condition:
Inwardly Adam and Eve were now lawbreakers and rebels against the Lawgiver. Their hearts, the very centers of their natures, had become deceitful and desperately wicked. Instead of being loving creatures in reflecting God’s likeness, they had become insolent.[5]
As a result of sin, the relationships Adam and Eve enjoyed with God and each other were severed. Loving connection was replaced with shame, fear, and the desire to hide (Genesis 3:7-12). Thriving was replaced with striving and pain (Genesis 3:16-19). The former state of inner tranquility was replaced with a chaotic state of the heart that promoted spiritual/emotional conflicts: lies and distortions about God, self, and each other.
The universal effects of the Fall can be summed up in one word: death. In order to make progress in Christ-formation and a greater experience of the abundant life, we must understand the consequences of death.
The Implications of Death
Prior to Creation, “Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss” (Genesis 1:2, MSG). Out of this formless void, God brought order and beauty, culminating in the creation of human beings. The rebellion against God was a choice to return to the chaos. The unexpected consequence of sin was to welcome back the “abyss” of “inky blackness.”
Death as the result of sin informs two aspects that hinder Christ-formation and the abundant life. The first consequence is human isolation due to broken relationships with God and others, and the second consequence is an inner chaotic condition of the heart that promotes lies and feelings of shame, which are inherent in spiritual/emotional conflicts (see Figure 5.1).
FIGURE 5.1
Because human beings thrive in the context of loving relationships, psychologist and author John Townsend writes, “Isolation is our most injurious state. . . . Whatever is cut off tends toward deterioration.”[6] Thus, relational isolation produces inner chaos in the heart. In fact, John Townsend and Henry Cloud boldly assert,
At the emotional level, connection is the sustaining factor for the psyche, the heart, and the spirit. Virtually every emotional and psychological problem, from addictions to depression, has alienation or emotional isolation at its core or close to it. Recovery from these problems always involves helping people to get more connected to each other at deeper and healthier levels than they are.[7]
Prior to the Fall, Adam and Eve “were both naked, and they felt no shame” (Genesis 2:25, NIV). The first couple lived in a state of vulnerability with each other and with God. After the Fall, however, we read an entirely different story. Adam and Eve covered their nakedness with fig leaves and “hid themselves from the presence of the LORD” (Genesis 3:7-8). This state of hiding, or isolation, is a by-product of sin and is often the point of origin of our deceptive thinking that contributes to our spiritual/emotional conflicts. In other words, we are more prone to distorted thinking and more susceptible to the lies of Satan when we are alone.
Thankfully, the aftermath of sin is not the end of the story; God’s loving-kindness prevails as he provides the way of escape from the consequences of sin and death. The good news of the gospel is that death—as a consequence of sin—has been defeated; Jesus’ atoning work on the cross literally removes death as the repercussion for sin. This means that as a Christian, you can be confident that at the moment of salvation your sin is forgiven (Ephesians 1:7; 1 John 1:9). You are a new creation in Christ (Romans 8:1) and a child of God (John 1:12-13). Forgiveness restores your relationship with God, fills you with God’s Holy Spirit, and enables you to love God and others (1 John 4:19). Jesus Christ restores the relational connection that was lost after the Fall and begins an inner transformation of the heart that promotes spiritual/emotional vitality.
And yet, God doesn’t wipe clean our memories of hurt and pain. Many of the spiritual/emotional conflicts produced by sin remain and must be worked out in the context of relationships. In the next chapter, I will discuss the nature of these spiritual/emotional conflicts and show you how they hinder Christ-formation and abundant living.
Restoring My Soul with God
The following five-day exercises are designed to help you internalize the depths of God’s love. Take ten minutes each day to read and reflect on the passage. Circle any words and phrases that jump out at you, then pause for a few minutes to write down whatever God speaks to your heart. Make note of anything you want to share with your group.
DAY 1: God demonstrated his love for me at the cross:
This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.
1 JOHN 4:9-10, MSG
DAY 2: God’s love for me is absolute:
God has made us to be more than conquerors, and his demonstrated love is our glorious victory over everything! So now I live with the confidence that there is nothing in the universe with the power to separate us from God’s love. I’m convinced that his love will triumph over death, life’s troubles, fallen angels, or dark rulers in the heavens. There is nothing in our present or future circumstances that can weaken his love. There is no power above us or beneath us—no power that could ever be found in the universe that can distance us from God’s passionate love, which is lavished upon us through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One!
ROMANS 8:37-39, TPT
DAY 3: God’s love for me is too great to understand:
I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
EPHESIANS 3:16-19, NLT
DAY 4: God’s love for me is perfect and unending:
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.
1 CORINTHIANS 13:4-8
DAY 5: God’s love drives away fear:
God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.
Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. We love each other because he loved us first.
1 JOHN 4:16-19, NLT
Restoring My Soul with Others
- Why are relationships with God and others fundamental to Christ-formation?
- Take turns reading out loud the story about Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz in the Old Testament book of Ruth. List in the space below the principles you notice that support the idea that people need people.
- How does growing in intimacy with God and others contribute to a greater experience of the abundant life?