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On sin
An essay regarding the concept of sin.
Point 1
The 'fruit' was not the cause of the fall, but the effect(s) of the misapplication of knowledge.
Point 2
Original Sin; is the misapplication of knowledge, and the acceptance and pursuance of the fruits of such misapplication.
The story of the 'fall of Adam' in Genesis is an example of cause and effect.
In the church, we have been constantly reminded of our sin nature, and our need for salvation. Our faith in this salvation
is sealed with esoteric words such as; Redemption, repentance, grace, etc. However, few enough people know the intended purpose
and meaning of this concept.
Sin is something of an unknown element when it comes to our understanding of it. We know the basics;
1.It is bad,
2.we all have it,
3.Jesus saves us from it.
In the church, the emphasis of our need for Christ is that he will save us from ourselves (i.e. Our sin nature), however,
I will attempt to portray another way of understanding sin and our role in overcoming it.
From our post-fall viewpoint, (largely based on HRC doctrine), believers worldwide subscribe to the belief that mankind is
inherently evil, and that when we are saved, it is salvation from our own nature. This belief is partially correct, but it
is also dangerous to the psyche of the believer. Many people tend to display this belief with weak statements of self-degradation
such as; “I don't know why God loves a sinner like me, but he does.”
This is a blatantly ignorant behavior which is expressive of a misunderstanding of the sin nature.
Today, according to most denominations, mankind is fallen, degraded, and enslaved. In actuality, this is true. The problem
arises in the way this concept is displayed. Teachers begin the story of sin in the middle of the story, rather than at the
beginning.
We understand that in the end, the righteous shall see God, and no sinner will. We all have been raised to desire an afterlife
in Heaven. So our entire lives are spent trying to secure our ticket in.
Sometimes we reserve great fear of sin and our sinful tendencies. We shut down our brains to higher knowledge because it may
lead us to hell. Many poor believers are caught in sins' headlights, fearful of the moment that temptation strikes.
This mentality is harmful, and often leads the believer into a frivolous lifestyle of moral rectitude and do-&-don't lists
of how to behave. Essentially, at this point, the believer has infused a spirit of fear into the gospel, leaving him impotent
and powerless, a dreg of religion to be swept aside by critical people. Having been attacked by non-believers, the fearful
person sinks into a mind binding religious-self-defense mode of dogma, doctrines, and useless mantras. Our understanding of
sin is pathetic if it leads us into a sick and depraved mindset of quasi-religion.
Take a few hours and scour the gospels and Acts to see that even in super-godly-religious Israel, sin was grossly misunderstood.
So, what then, is sin. Is it spelled with a capital 'S', should I fear it, or can it be avoided?
Aside from the HRC version of the dictionary definition, sin itself has little to do with actions and deeds. It stems from
a place much deeper. It is a mentality and an essence of fallen man, which leads to improper conduct and 'sinful' acts.
Let's start at the beginning.
Adam and Eve, in the moment that they seriously accepted that they should “eat of the fruit” and mentally accepted
for themselves what had been forbidden, lost something.
I want to ask you to set aside the Sunday school pictures of the couple picking an apple in the garden, and consider that
the tree is a metaphor, and that the fruit is the result of a cause & effect scheme. (Much like the “fruit of the spirit
is love, joy. . .”)
Most people believe that mankind took on a curse at the fall; that sin is a thing that actually exists. However, I present
that sin is a no-thing that actually is-not. Sin nature is an absence, a without-ness. Mankind did not receive something,
but lost it.
That something is exactly what the church needs in these times. Jesus taught it every day, and we can quote the scriptures
that present it, but we somehow have managed to ignore and neglect it. Yes, we can read about the curse in Genesis. It has
been improperly labeled, for in the scripture, the inference is that God is explaining the fallout of their sin, not actually
adding to the horrific pain they had already experienced.
Let's move further back into the beginning.
In the beginning, God said, let there be light; Let there be a firmament, etc. When God spoke, a certain perfect rhythm and
energy was placed into creation. Everything was in perfect balance, with electro-magnetic wavelengths traveling throughout
the entire, and everything God placed on earth was also in balance with that energy. Nothing was in contrast to the original
'vibration' of the entire.
The senses; sight, sound, feeling, thoughts, etc, are all partial interpretations of electro-magnetic wavelengths. We have
separate tools to interpret the signals. Adam and Eve received these signals in clarity, and knew their environment. They
did not have the same relationship to their environment that we do. As it says; “take dominion,” they did. They
were not stewards, but completely potent rulers and untouchable by the rest of creation. In ancient times alone the atmospheric
pressure, as revealed from air pockets in amber fragments, was at least doubled, giving ancient people three times the oxygen
absorption, which enabled them to use much more of their brain. The potential for cell reproduction allowed for gigantic animals,
such as a dragonfly with a five foot wingspan, and also for taller, larger people. The atmosphere around the earth was designed
to allow people to actually hear the 'music' (sounds) coming in from the planets during sunset and sunrise. The earth was
perfect and did not strive against the lives of Adam and Eve. The bodies of the couple were perfectly in tune with, and also
protected from their environment. It is also correct to assume that they used 100% of their brain, in contrast with the few
minuscule percent that we use today. They were formed in perfection, and when God “breathed into him the breath of life,”
Adam was not just clay, but also wind and fire. Adam and Eve were all elements of creation, and they were the only creatures
that were. They were made to dominate, physically and spiritually.
Genesis states that God created man in the image of God. This means that Adam was God-like. However, without an ego complex,
this only made Adam who he was. The fact that he was god-like did not give Adam reason to believe that he could be God.
What was lost to Adam and Eve was the Imago Deo, the image of God.
Wait: stop. Do not assume that I am saying that we are all gods, or that we are all like God. Most Christians get really
scared when they think something sounds like it might be sorta new-age. Please don't be scared. The words I am using, and
the order they are in, have been around longer than the new-age movement.
Adam and Eve were already like God, in image and perfection. No, they were not gods, and did not have the power that God has,
but they certainly were more powerful than any other thing on earth. They were tempted by the serpent because he said “you
will be as gods, having the knowledge of good and evil.” The sin was the desire to be as gods. This desire alone altered
their state of mind and actualized a significant rift in their relation to their environment and to God. Partaking of the
fruit was only the effect of their actions. To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, in this case, Adam and
Eve were trying to activate their desire to be as gods, and the reaction was that they lost their connection to their creator.
They lost their dominance to their environment.
They did not hide in the bushes because they were merely naked, but because they lost their former glory that protected them
from harm. They were afraid, probably in a significant amount of pain, and were only part of what they originally were created
as. So when God asked, “Where are you?” He wasn't looking for their physical location, He was giving voice to
what they already knew: They screwed up.
The root of sin is a beginning of a regression to the attitude present in the garden. Adam and Eve desired to alter their
destiny, though they were already potent, to gain something they did not need. They acted in ignorance, and as a result, disobeyed.
Their action did not only upset their lives and minds, but also all of creation. They were now out of balance, and sending
out vibrations of energy divergent from the energy of creation. They created a 'bad note' in the music of creation.
Why is sin misunderstood? Why is it given its own power in the mind of believers? Because that is the nature of it. Sin nature
is active ignorance. To know both good and evil without being in alignment with God is a very confusing and debilitating mindset.
Sin is synonymous with incomplete, or misaligned.
This is where Christ and redemption come into play. The sacrifice of the Son of God was necessary for several reasons.
If a mere man lived a perfect life and was sacrificed to God for our sins, he would not have provided us with the power to
overcome the sin nature ourselves. He would have only given us what human power he had. Christ came from eternity to this
planet with the power to add. Since mankind was in a state of depravity, or incompleteness, Christ was able to bring completion.
In other words, if a society is missing something, no one from that society can come up with the missing something. Someone
needs to come from somewhere else, and bring into that society what is missing. This is what Christ did. The very nature of
man that Adam and Eve were created with is available in the knowledge of Christ. The divergent vibrations, incorrect thinking,
improper desires, and various derelict insufficiencies of humanity are now correctable, not by changing lifestyle, but by
adding the knowledge of Christ.
Believing in Christ brings a man to a state of reconciliation to God, by re-placing what was missing and invigorating the
spirit. Once the misapplication of knowledge and the misalignment with God are corrected, a man is brought from darkness to
light, from blindness to sight. Transformation begins in the spirit and the mind, and is fulfilled after the resurrection
when we receive our glory in bodily form. “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Once begun, the new creature
will find the disciplines of the apostles very rewarding.
The sin nature is the nature of man in contrast to the nature God intends man to have. Sin is life without completeness.
Christ is life as God intends. Like Galatians 2:20, “. . .it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. .
.”
Christ restores us to our original, pre-womb state. The difficulty is that we have become so accustomed to our divergent
vibrations, that we have a hard time transforming. So in dying to ourselves we provide our minds the freedom to be added to
and reformatted without mental fear of losing who we are. We are not actually dying to our true self, but to our false self;
the self we have grown accustomed to during our incomplete mindset. By acknowledging that the old ways of thinking and relating
are incomplete, I enable my mind to accept new input from God through the knowledge of Christ.
The question is no longer, 'Will I sin?' but is now 'Since I sin, what am I missing?'
In myself I find questions to the meaning of life. In Christ I find Life in the meaning of questions.
8/20/05 the Riven
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