II. Christian morality
Sin
In Christian moral teaching, the concept of sin is of great importance.
The word “sin” does not mean a criminal offense or other violation of civil law. Sin is any deviation of a person from the divinely established moral law, from the purpose for which God intended him91.
Sin separates man from God and leads to spiritual death. According to the Apostle James, “everyone is tempted, being drawn away and enticed by his own lust; But lust, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin when it is committed gives birth to death” (James 1:14-15).
The sins of people are diverse and cannot be exhaustively classified. In early Christian literature, there was an opinion that all sins can be reduced to eight basic ones, stemming from sinful passions: gluttony, fornication, love of money, anger, sadness, despondency, vanity, pride92. In the Western tradition, the doctrine has developed that sins are divided into mortal, that is, the most serious, and non-mortal, less serious. Sometimes sins are divided into three categories: against God, against one's neighbor, against oneself.
Sins can be voluntary or involuntary. A sin that a person does consciously is called voluntary: when he understands that this or that act is contrary to the law of God, and nevertheless commits it. Involuntary sin is a sin committed by a person against his own desire, against his will.
Christ says that “everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin” (John 8:34). Sin enslaves people to itself, makes them dependent on sinful habits, inclinations, on “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16). In modern medical lexicon, the term “addiction” refers to a person’s obsessive need for something: they talk about drug addiction, alcohol addiction, addiction to computer games, etc. Some forms of addiction are associated with mental disorders, but very often the basis of addiction is an ingrained a person's habit of sin. For example, alcoholism and drug addiction are sinful from the point of view of the Church, since they can lead to complete degradation of the individual93.
Fight. Adrian van Ostade. Netherlands. 1637
Different forms of addiction are often interrelated: liberation from one addiction by purely mechanical means can lead to a person falling into another addiction. In the same way, sins are interconnected, and one sin often leads to another. For example, the Apostle Paul emphasizes the connection between excessive drinking and fornication (Eph. 5:18). Saint Cyprian of Carthage (3rd century) writes: “If the love of money is cast down, then lust arises; if lust is suppressed, ambition arises; if ambition is defeated, anger embitters us, pride inflates us, we are attracted to drunkenness, enmity upsets harmony, jealousy destroys friendship.”94
Sins cannot be overcome solely through one’s own volitional efforts or through self-hypnosis. In the fight against sins, you cannot rely only on yourself: you must call on God for help and draw strength from faith and the Holy Scriptures. The Apostle Paul says: “Stand therefore, having your loins girded with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; and above all, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery arrows of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God” (Eph. 5:14-17).
In Christianity, sin is perceived as a disease. Sin, as a spiritual illness, often has a direct consequence of physical illness. Accordingly, spiritual recovery affects the entire spiritual and physical composition of a person. The Lord Jesus Christ pointed out this when, while healing a paralytic, he said to him: “Be of good cheer, child! Your sins are forgiven you” (Matthew 9:2). To another paralytic who received healing from Him, Jesus said: “Behold, you are made whole; Sin no more, lest anything worse happen to you” (John 5:14).
Repentance
The Church is not called upon to accuse a person of sins, but to help him realize them and heal them. The cure for sin is repentance.
There are no sins that cannot be healed by repentance. The Lord Jesus Christ says: “All sin and blasphemy will be forgiven to men, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven to men” (Matthew 12:31). Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit usually means persistent rejection of the will of God, conscious conflict with God, and unwillingness to repent of sins and reform.
Repentance is not the same as repentance. Repentance as regret for a sin committed may be useless. Judas, who betrayed the Savior for thirty pieces of silver, repented and returned the money to the high priests and elders, saying: “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood” (Matthew 27:3-4). At the same time, he did not repent, did not return to the community of Christ’s disciples, but committed a grave sin, which only aggravated his guilt: suicide. On the contrary, the Apostle Peter, who renounced Christ, bitterly mourned his renunciation (Matthew 26:69-75), confessed his love for Him and proved it with all the feats of his subsequent life and martyrdom (John 21:15-19).
Peter's denial. Duccio di Buoninsegna. Italy. 13th century
Repentance is not limited to stating the fact of a sinful act and repenting of it. Repentance is a whole spiritual system that includes daily self-analysis, regret for sins committed and sinful thoughts, the desire, as far as possible, to correct the evil caused, constant work on oneself for the purpose of spiritual correction. To repent means to change your mind and way of life95, to replace sinful acts with their opposites, to accept the Christian system of moral values, to fulfill the commandments of God, to constantly strive for good not only in actions, but also in thoughts and feelings.
The Apostle Paul called on Christians to “put off this old self, which is corrupted by its deceitful lusts, but to be renewed in the spirit of the mind... and to put on the new man, created according to God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4:22-24). Internal spiritual renewal through repentance leads to a complete moral rebirth of a person96.
God Forgiving Sins
Repentance returns a person to God, who loves every person and expects him to turn away from a sinful lifestyle and return to Him. In the Old Testament, God says: “I do not want the sinner to die, but that the sinner should turn from his way and live” (Ezek. 33:11).
In the New Testament, the parable of the prodigal son, spoken by Jesus on the way to Jerusalem, is devoted to the theme of repentance: “A certain man had two sons; and the youngest of them said to his father: Father! give me the next part of the estate. And the father divided the estate for them. After a few days, the youngest son, having collected everything, went to a far side and there squandered his property, living dissolutely. When he had lived through everything, a great famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need; and he went and accosted one of the inhabitants of that country, and he sent him to his fields to graze pigs; and he was glad to fill his belly with the horns that the pigs ate, but no one gave it to him. When he came to his senses, he said, “How many of my father’s hired servants have an abundance of bread, but I am dying of hunger; I will get up and go to my father and say to him: Father! I have sinned against heaven and before you and am no longer worthy to be called your son; accept me as one of your hired servants. He got up and went to his father. And while he was still far away, his father saw him and had compassion; and, running, fell on his neck and kissed him. The son said to him: Father! I have sinned against heaven and before you and am no longer worthy to be called your son. And the father said to his servants: Bring the best robe and dress him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet; and bring the fatted calf, and kill it; Let's eat and have fun! For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found” (Luke 15:11-24).
Prodigal Son (Traveler). Hieronymus Bosch. Netherlands. 1510
In this parable, repentance is presented as a gradual process, beginning with the prodigal son coming to his senses, remembering his father, and deciding to return to him. Then he moves from words to actions. However, the main character of the parable is not the son, but the father, symbolizing God. When a person returns to God and repents, God does not condemn him, but accepts him with open arms.
The parable shows that repentance is always a counter-movement between man and God. The father in the parable does not simply wait patiently for his son to approach Him: when he sees him, he runs to meet him. Not a single word of condemnation or reproach was heard from the father’s lips.
The Lord Jesus Christ says about Himself: “I came not to judge the world, but to save the world” (John 12:47). To the woman caught in adultery, Jesus said, “Woman! where are your accusers? no one condemned you?.. And I do not condemn you; Go and sin no more” (John 8:10–11). When the Pharisee expected Jesus to condemn the sinful woman who had anointed His feet with the precious ointment, Jesus instead of condemning her said, “Your sins are forgiven... Your faith has saved you; go in peace” (Luke 7:48, 50). About those who repented thanks to the preaching of John the Baptist, Jesus said, turning to the Pharisees: “Truly I say to you, publicans and harlots go ahead of you into the kingdom of God, for John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the publicans and the harlots believed him; But even when you saw this, you did not repent afterward to believe him” (Matthew 21:31-32).
Return of the Prodigal Son. Rembrandt Harmens van Rijn. Sketch
It's never too late to repent
It is never too late to repent, and even the most inveterate criminal can bring repentance at the end of his life and receive forgiveness from God. This is shown by the example of a prudent thief who, having been crucified with Jesus, realized the sinfulness of his former way of life and turned to Him with the words: “Remember me, Lord, when you come into Your Kingdom!” To this Jesus replied: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:42-43).
At the same time, repentance cannot be postponed until the future, because death can overtake a person suddenly. In response to a question about the Galileans killed by Pilate, Jesus said: “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the Galileans, that they suffered so much? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all perish in the same way” (Luke 13:1-3).
A person’s destiny in eternity depends on how he lived his life on earth, how he built his relationship with God. Unlike civil legislation, according to which a crime must necessarily be followed by an appropriate punishment, God has a different law: God frees a person from punishment for sins if the person sincerely repents of them, turns from the path of evil and takes the path of good.
