The eye represents what we see. The hand represents what we do. What I think Jesus is saying here in Matt. 5:27-32 is, “Deal radically with what you expose your eyes to. Deal radically with what you handle and do, the places you go, and what you touch.”
I appreciate the ministry of the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation (CCEF) and have often found their resources to be helpful. This recent article by Ed Welch, counselor and faculty member at CCEF, hits the nail on the head when it comes to dealing with the sin of anger in our lives.
I’ve been asked about sinless perfectionism, the belief that once someone becomes a Christian, they are no longer capable of sinning. Because they are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, because they are a new creation in Christ, therefore, just as Christ cannot sin, they cannot sin.
This teaching has, at various times, had considerable prominence. There are some branches of Wesleyan, Pentecostal and Keswick thought that teach this. There are several passages of Scripture we can look at that I think make clear this doctrine of sinless perfectionism is incorrect. I believe it to be a false doctrine.
I appreciate Tim Challies and his blog, and I liked what he had to say a week ago about Tiger Woods. I recommend that you check it out.
The lesson is, do not mask your sin behind a false front. Do not construct elaborate falsehoods to mask your sin and your shame. These false fronts cannot stand forever. And the shame and pain of the ruin of a life lived out behind false pretenses will be far worse than the shame and pain of just dealing with sin immediately and properly. The temptation to mask your sin is nearly as strong as the temptation to sin in the first place. But to mask it is just to compound sin upon sin. It is merely to delay the inevitable.
This photo is of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Tegel prison, prior to his move to the notorious concentration camp of Buchenwald. Though visits weren’t frequent or long, at Tegel his parents and his fiancé Maria were sometimes allowed to bring him books, such as the one in his hand.
One of the great joys of Christmas for Nanci and me, and many of you, is being with family. Dietrich knew that most of his family and his Maria were gathering for Christmas, while he couldn’t. He wrote from prison this thought about Christmas:
A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes… and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.
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