What is it about us, about humanity, that causes us to cling to sin?
What flaw in our nature drives us from the holy?
Why do we always move toward destruction?
Why did Eve eat the fruit?
Why did Adam follow?
Why do we sin?
I think it’s possible that the answer to these many questions is found in the psalmist’s words…
My soul clings to the dust…
I remember having a conversation with a teaching colleague a number of years ago about the origin of sin in a sinless world. We asked how sin came to be if God had created all things perfect. At the time I answered by saying that all things tend to revert to their nature. I’m pretty sure I didn’t explain it very well at the time and it is highly possible that I am off base on this topic, but I don’t think my answer is very much different these days.
In Genesis 2:7 we find that God created humanity from the dust. In Ecclesiastes 3:20 we are told that we are from the dust and to the dust we will return, a claim also confirmed by Ecclesiastes 12:7. We are dust, or in other words, dirt. I realize the quick response is to say these comments apply only to our bodies, but I think it’s possible there is a deeper implication.
Note the many times scripture describes our sinful behavior as that found in animals or some other sort of base creature. Such is what happens to Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4 and such is what Paul describes in Romans 1. Sin moves our nature in the direction of becoming a mindless brute creature and one step closer to the earth than we currently are. We, at least have God’s spirit breathed into us giving us life, the animals do not. As such, unless we are sustained by the life-giving hand of God, we will become less human than the day before. Even with God’s hand, however, until we are changed in a moment, in a twinkling of the eye, we will continue to battle the flesh and do those things that we do not want to.
So, why do we sin? We sin because our nature is broken and tends toward destruction: both physical and spiritual. We are not a body with a soul, and we are not a soul with a body, but we are both a body and soul, the two inextricably intertwined with no line of demarcation between the two. As one goes, so goes the other.
But if so, where is the hope?
I cling to your testimonies…
Our hope lies in the fact that our soul is God’s breath of life in us. While this breath currently resides in a body of dust, it is still his breath. But this is not the only breath God has breathed into the life of humanity. He breathed his word, the law, into the lives of a people in a desert so as to describe what the life of a perfect son of God should look like. And then he breathed his living word, his very son of God, into the world of a people in a promised land so as to show them, and us, how an uncorrupted life should be lived out. These are the breaths of God which give us life, and these are what the psalmist saw to be the only way out of this body of death which we inhabit.
But his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water…
I find it interesting that prior to Eve and Adam, eating of the fruit of the Tree of Life did not seem to be restricted. It is only after the fall of humanity that we find God protecting that tree. I think this is because he did not want us to become locked into a dusty, dirty, fallen nature for eternity. He wanted to provide a way by which we would be redeemed so that when the Tree of Life is once again offered to us we are pure creatures, ready to live for eternity in the way in which he designed us. If so, it is no mystery why the Tree of Life shows up again in Revelation with life giving water pouring out from the throne of God feeding the tree’s roots.
But until such time as that, we live between two worlds. With one hand, our soul clings to the dust of our corruptible self, and with the other hand we reach out for the word of God. Suspended between these two hand-holds we live our lives awaiting that day when the corruptible is transformed, our grip on the sinful dirt is released, and we are finally able to eat from the Tree of Life.
