Sin: Is It Nurture or Nature
Dear Dr. Lawyer,
Thank you for reminding me how proud of I am and quick to judge.
I’m realizing how often I judge others and the level of my self-righteousness is dreadful. I never really recognized it until the last year or so and I’m wondering if it is any connection to the folks I’ve lived with. So, I wondered if I became self-righteous in response to abusive relationships.
Eyes opening
Hi Eyes,
To answer your question, you became self-righteous when you were conceived. All babies, everyone, are born little sinners. The only thing they need to begin sinning is the ability and the opportunity. Spend some time in the toddlers at your church and watch the cute little sinners. I heard a preacher call them “vipers in diapers” the other day. And such were you.
How we sin can be influenced by our surroundings, but the fact that we do is our choice. We respond to what God brings into our path by either drawing near to him or doing it our own way. We get a log, cut it in half, use half to cook our dinner and we make an idol out of the other half. Then we bow down and worship it because doing that makes us feel good for a while. Yes, sin is pleasurable, at least for a while (Heb 11:25).
So, we sin naturally. It is part of our DNA. It isn’t whether we sin, but how we sin.
That said, our compadres do have some input on how we sin. One of the things I like to say is, “You become like who you hang out with.” Jesus said we become like our teachers, “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher.” (Lk 6:40). And the psalmist said we become like the idols we worship, “Those who make them are like them; So is everyone who trusts in them.” (Ps 115:8; 135:18).
I think this principle is a creation principle. If you look around, you’ll see that everyone is just like whoever they hang out with. They dress the same way, wear their hair the same way, and talk the same way. And when they admire the person, they really imitate him or her with the goal to be just like them. But it also works in two ways when the person doesn’t like the person they are with. They either end up rebelling against what they see in the other, but they still are just like them. Notice the children of drunks. The kids hate their drunk fathers for what they did to them, and yet they grow up wearing the same kind of ball cap, driving the same kind of pickup, dating the same kind of girls, using the same kind of language with the same accent. They hate the man but grow up to be just like him. It’s a creation feature. God made it this way.
But like all creation features, it has been corrupted by sinful man. In his rebellion, men become just like those they spend time with, whether they like it or not. We all spend time with sinful people, we work with them, we play with them, we may go to the bars with them, we sleep with them, we study with them (in the case of seminary students), and even when we don’t particularly like them, we still become like them. “Oh, I want to be an individual and express myself, so I’ll dye my hair blue and get a tattoo sleeve and a pickup truck. Then, I’ll be myself.”
A minute ago, I quoted Psalm 115:8, now look at the next few verses, “O Israel, trust in the Lord; He is their help and their shield. O house of Aaron, trust in the Lord; He is their help and their shield. You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord; He is their help and their shield.” (Ps 115:9–11). Here’s some more:
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Dt 6:4–9).
“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.” (Ro 8:28–29).
There are all kinds of verses that talk about us becoming like Christ, the need for us to become like Christ, the goal of being like Christ, and the fact that God will not let his children go until they look just like Jesus. And in every case, the way we become like him is by being with him, talking to him, looking at him so that we can imitate him, studying him so we can walk like him, talk like him, think like him, emote like him. The creation feature that causes us to be like the one we hang out with is there because we are supposed to spend significant time with God. This is so that while we are in his presence, we can enjoy him forever, but also so that he can rub off on us and we will be like him. Salt and light in a dark and wretched world.
Oh, here’s something I thought of (I might have heard some of it from someone) the other day, “You can’t continue in sin if your eyes are fixed on Jesus. And you can’t follow Jesus if your eyes are fixed on your sin (even if it is fixed there because you are trying to forsake and defeat it).” So, fix your eyes on Jesus, the author, and perfecter of your faith, and run the race set before you with your eyes fixed on him and the joy set before you. You’ll be more and more like him. You’ll be out of yourself. You won’t be self-righteous anymore.
I hope this helps.