Eastertide April 17, 2015

Scripture Reading: 1 John 3:1-7 Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. –1 John 3:4-7

How do we explain a definition of sin as lawlessness, when we have previously discussed sin as separation from God? The English word “lawlessness” is rooted truly in being without law*. My perception, and perhaps yours, is that the word “lawless” means breaking laws, but it actually means not having any law. If sin is lawlessness and sin is also being separated from God then being lawless means we are set adrift in the world rather like not having gravity to keep us anchored to the earth. Thus if we are not separated from God, we are not sinning, our lives are grounded in God. It, of course, would be very difficult to function in society without structure and order. It is just easier to function in community when everyone has at least a general idea of what is considered right and wrong. The laws given to Moses provided that structure.

The Greek word for lawlessness, anomia, has the connotation of negative influence on a person’s soul.** Obeying laws or rules in and of themselves is not righteousness. It actually can turn into self-righteousness that separates us from God. Living in community with one another in the spirit of the laws, loving God and loving our neighbors as we love ourselves, is righteousness and protects our souls from being less than whole.

We have been called to be one in Christ that can only happen, if we each are working individually to be whole.

Prayer: Lord, help us to understand the way we are to live out your laws in righteousness. Make us whole so that we can be one. Amen.

*http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/lawlessness

**http://biblehub.com/greek/458.htm

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.