We have often trivialized sin by understanding it merely as that which is evil rather than as disobeying God by trying to get life from knowing good and evil. Consequently, the church has, to a large extent, continued to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil without realizing it. We have too often defined ourselves as the practitioners and defenders of the good, the judges and conquerors of evil, and the saviors of people and society.
Most fundamentally, the quest for a holy reputation is sinful, for it cuts to the heart of God’s goal for creation and the central of the church to be a community that receives, lives in, and recklessly shares the unsurpassable love of the triune God. Striving for a holy reputation is self-serving because the whole enterprise is unconsciously designed as a strategy for getting life for ourselves.
Perhaps the greatest indictment on evangelical churches today is that they are not generally known as refuge houses for sinners – places where hurting, wounded, sinful people can run and find a love that does not question, an understanding that does not judge, and an acceptance that knows no conditions.
The one reputation we are called to acquire is identical to the one reality we are called to live in: We are to be, and to be known as, a people who receive and give love in an outrageous, impartial, unconditional way. The only thing that gives any value to our holiness is our love (1 Cor. 13:1-3).
How can the church begin to acquire the reputation of love it is supposed to have? It is not by devising more loving programs, for this would be just another form of trying to do the good thing. To engage in loving activity for the purpose of accomplishing something else (e.g., gaining a certain reputation) is to continue to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. When we try to be the church by doing good things, we cease manifesting who we already are.
Rather, the way to acquire a reputation for being loving is to simply become loving. We are to manifest God’s love simply because we are in God’s love. Our one need is to simply be people who are loved for free, who are filled with love for free, and who therefore love all other people for free. Our one need is to join in the dance of the triune God, to celebrate God’s triune self-celebration, and thus to live and love in the fullness of the triune love.
We find that this commandment not to judge – not to eat of the forbidden tree – is emphatically repeated in the New Testament. There are four key passages.
Matthew 7:1-5 addresses appropriate and inappropriate judgment, and giving and receiving judgment.
Romans 2:1-4 addresses that righteous judgment is reserved to God.
Romans 14 addresses the making of judgments between the stronger and weaker brothers and sisters. We are to consider the impact of our actions on others and modify our actions when appropriate.
James 4:11-12 addresses speaking against brothers and sisters or in judgment of them. These are sins of the mouth.
God alone is judge, for he alone knows the true hearts of people (James 4:12). Jesus came not to condemn the world but to save the world by loving it despite the fact that it deserved condemnation (John 3:17, 12:47). The one thing we are created to do, saved to do, and commissioned to do is love. This is why God, out of his love for us, warned us in the beginning to refrain from eating from the forbidden tree (The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Genesis 2:16-17) and why this warning is repeated throughout the New Testament.
In short, the greatest need of the church is simply to be the church, which is the collective body of people who submit to God and participate in God’s eternal love. Our one need is to simply be people who are loved for free, who are filled with love for free, and who therefore love all other people for free.
Boyd, Gregory A. Repenting of Religion – Turning from Judgment to the Love of God. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2004.