Message from Tim

Is sin a parasite?

In Romans Paul talks about sin as if it is an independent entity: in his eyes sin is not so much something I do; it is more like a power which rules over me, alienating me from other people and corrupting my desires. St. Augustine talked about evil as a privation of goodness, meaning that evil has no existence in itself: it subsists by distorting and corrupting what is good. This is how sin affects human nature: it takes human desires and distorts them. Thus, love is corrupted into lust; wanting to have enough is magnified into greed, pride becomes narcissism, our anger becomes disproportionately selfish; instead of enjoying goodness, we seek pleasure for its own sake; in the selfish pursuit of our desires, we lose control of who we are and how we live. As Jeremiah said, ‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick’ (17:9). Sin is parasitic on goodness.

A parasite is an organism that survives by feeding off the host organism, and that is how sin operates: the stronger it grows, the unhealthier we become inside, to the detriment of our relationships with others and our own physical wellbeing. If our soul is diseased, every part of us suffers. When it comes to tackling parasitic organisms there is no vaccine available (despite the fact that malaria kills nearly one million people every year). This underscores the way in which scientists have developed COVID-19 vaccines in record time, and used some highly innovative techniques in the process. We have come a long way since the start of the epidemic, when researchers were wondering whether the key to finding an antidote might lie in isolating antibodies from the plasma taken from survivors. Over a hundred years ago, the practice developed of infusing patients with the antibody-laden blood of those who had survived an infection, and this ‘convalescent plasma’ approach was apparently used with some success in dealing with outbreaks of SARS and Ebola, although not with COVID-19.

Is there a cure for sin? The Bible says that Christ, who knew no sin, became sin for us, coming in the likeness of sinful flesh and dying for sin to condemn sin in the flesh, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 8:3). Somehow, Christ’s identification with us in our sinfulness and his death for us deals with Sin. If we use a medical analogy to look at what Jesus has done, we can see him being infected with sin, succumbing to death and yet emerging the other side victorious, and as a survivor of sin generating within his human nature the antibody of the Holy Spirit, which is the ultimate means of our cure. Like every analogy, this one breaks down in all sorts of ways if you press it too hard. Yet nevertheless, I like the idea that Jesus is the one who pioneered the only known remedy for the human condition, so that by injecting his Holy Spirit into our lives he gives us the antibodies we need to fight the parasite of sin in our hearts. The good news is that there are no issues with supply for this antidote: The Holy Spirit of Christ is freely and readily available to everyone, irrespective of age, upon request. The question is, as with the COVID-19 vaccine: will you accept it?