So That You Do Not Sin

What Does God Actually Want?

…so that you do not sin.

— Exodus 20

…he expected justice, but saw bloodshed;

righteousness, but heard a cry!

— Isaiah 5 

Sin can sound like an enormously complicated religious concept. But then I read the Ten Commandments and wonder whether we sometimes make it more mysterious than it needs to be. Put your trust in God. Don't murder somebody. Don't steal from them. Don't betray them. Don't lie about them. Don't become consumed by wanting what they have. Even remember to stop working once in a while. Moses says that all of this has been given “so that you do not sin.” In the simplest possible language, I find myself wanting to translate that as: Be nice.

Of course, the commandments ask more of us than niceness. They describe a life properly ordered toward God and toward one another. Don't use God. Don't use people. Don't let your own desires use you. And really, why should it surprise us that a Creator might provide some instructions for living within the creation? These aren't arbitrary obstacles God has placed between us and happiness. They describe ways of living that make human life together possible.

Then Isaiah gives us two familiar words: justice and righteousness. We have become rather good at pulling those words apart. Justice can become something we demand from everybody else, while righteousness becomes something we measure within ourselves—or vice versa. But Isaiah doesn't separate them. God looks at his vineyard and expects to find both. Instead of justice he finds bloodshed. Instead of righteousness he hears a cry.

Maybe that's one way to understand why sin matters. When justice disappears, eventually somebody gets hurt. When righteousness disappears, eventually somebody cries. Sin isn't merely an infraction recorded somewhere in heaven. It leaves evidence here. People bleed. People weep. Relationships break. Communities become cruel. Something that God intended to produce good fruit has produced something else.

And that turns Isaiah's words back toward me. Does the way I practice righteousness leave somebody else crying? Does my pursuit of justice permit me to become unrighteous toward the person I believe is unjust? I can demand justice while treating another person viciously. I can defend righteousness while remaining indifferent to another person's suffering. Either way, I have separated two things that God apparently intended to remain together.

Perhaps “so that you do not sin” means something considerably less mysterious than I have sometimes made it. God wants me to learn how to live with him—and how to stop hurting other people. Justice and righteousness belong together because goodness toward God cannot finally be separated from goodness toward one another. Isaiah gives us a remarkably practical test for whether we're getting it right: Look for the blood. Listen for the cry.

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