Denial and Sin are a Dangerous Combination

Everyone knows toddlers are treated differently than teenagers when it comes to behavior. What is ‘cute’ in a toddler is ‘inappropriate’ for a teenager. If we never teach children about proper behavior, they will grow to become destructive adults.

Today’s blog isn’t about childrearing. Today’s blog is about sin, and the danger of denying sin in our lives. It is one thing to ‘not see’ sin. It is altogether a different thing to deny that behavior is sin. We ‘look the other way’ as children mature, but we never deny the behavior must change.

Take a moment to review today’s lesson from Saint Paul. He often compares spiritual maturity to human development, from child to adult. In this case, I invite you to consider the behaviors in your life you ‘know’ to be sin, but have been ignoring for some time.

Brethren, I am speaking to those who know the law. Do you not know that the law is binding on a person only during his life? Thus a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies she is discharged from the law concerning the husband. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit. What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I should not have known sin. I should not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, wrought in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died; the very commandment which promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and by it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good. Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

Romans 7.1-14

We all have that one (probably more) behavior we would rather ignore than fight to control in our lives. Let’s face it. It would be much easier if the behavior wasn’t a sin in the first place. We may still not want to ‘do’ it, but at least it wouldn’t burden our conscience. So, we just deny it.

This is the idea Saint Paul gives us about the Law. It was the Old Testament Law that revealed sinful behavior. “Do this. Don’t do that.” We all know our ancestors were incapable of living in obedience to the Law. The role of the Prophets of the Old Testament was a call to repentance.

Here’s the good thing about the Law, as revealed by Saint Paul today. When we are baptized, we die to the Law. The Law no longer controls our behavior. Here’s the bad thing about no longer being under the Law. Now, we are under the grace of God.

That may sound better than being under the Law. The problem is when we ignored the Law, there were prescribed penalties meant to correct our behavior. When we ignore the grace of God, the penalties are eternal.

To be sure, the New Testament and the grace of God still include a way of the repentance. The danger now is when we deny our behavior must change, we don’t even try to repent. There is no prescription for denial of sin.

When we remain in our denial, we remain in sin. When we remain in sin, we remain dead to Christ, dead to grace. Alone in the wilderness, outside of God’s mercy. After a life of denial, we risk ‘getting to heaven’ and encountering the shock that our behavior was supposed to end.

Denial of sin is much more dangerous than falling to temptation. God knows we are tempted. He knows we are weak. He knows we will sin. His grace is sufficient for our weakness. He can’t help us repent when we don’t think we need to repent.

So, stop saying “There is nothing wrong with my behavior.” Start saying, “I really struggle to correct my behavior. I need God’s help.” He will always help. He will always forgive. He will always have mercy.

That is the mission of the Church. Like the Old Testament Law, the Church is given to us by God to help correct us, to help prepare us for heaven, to help us learn to love God. When we deny the benefit of the Church and ‘go it alone’ we remain in sin. Nothing is more dangerous.