Sin

Tolstoy’s descriptive prose in Anna Karanina brings sin alive and makes it tangible.  On page 186, Tolstoy writes of the adulterers:

“It provoked in Vronsky and Anna a feeling like that of a mariner who can see by his compass that the direction in which he is swiftly moving diverges widely from his proper course, but that he is powerless to stop the movement which every moment takes him further and further from the right direction, and that to admit the deviation to himself is the same as admitting disaster.”

Tolstoy gives a real-life example of exactly what James says:

but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” James 1:14-15

Sin will give birth to death. We can nip it in the bud and allow God to abort it from us early on, repent, and minimize the consequences. Or we can allow it to complete its gestation process, become full grown, and give birth to enormous consequences.

Those who choose not to repent, who choose to remain in their sin and make excuses for such, continue to deceive themselves and lie to themselves, distorting reality all around them. Tolstoy describes this well on page 189 where Anna is speaking of her husband, Alexei Alexandrovich, to her lover:

“He’s not a man, he’s a machine, and a wicked machine when he gets angry,” she added, recalling Alexei Alexandrovich in all the details of his figure, manner of speaking and character, holding him guilty for everything bad she could find in him and forgiving him nothing, on account of the terrible fault for which she stood guilty before him.”

These passages blew me away at the accuracy of the detail and description. Have you ever experienced choosing a course against the will of God and having it drag you, even while you were watching, away from your proper course? Do you have friends who will hold you accountable and speak the truth plainly to you? When you do hear the truth, are you willing to allow God to enable you to choose to repent and stop, right there and then, and end the swift movement toward disaster? Tolstoy is correct, we are unable to do this under our own power. We need the power of God.

Have you ever watched another make such choices? Have you spoken truth over another and had them reject that truth, continuing to allow themselves to be dragged away and enticed by sin, knowing that the sin would eventually become full-grown and give birth to horrible death?

These words of Tolstoy are spot-on in accuracy of one who continues in their course of sin: “holding him guilty for everything bad she could find in him and forgiving him nothing, on account of the terrible fault for which she stood guilty before him.” The one who continues to sin finds fault in others though they are the one who is guilty. Both my new husband and myself experience this with our ex spouses who were unfaithful. They still blame us for everything, coming up with more stuff, even though they are the ones who stand guilty. They continuously find all the bad and forgive nothing.

Really and truly, this must be a horrible way to live. It was not that her husband was not in need of forgiveness; we all are. It was not that he didn’t have bad in him; we all do. It’s that she magnified the bad, ignored the good, refused to forgive, and refused to see the truth, placing the guilt for her own sin on that of her husband who was innocent of this sin.

Tolstoy truly understood the nature of sin and was able to articulate such.

6 thoughts on “Sin

  1. That’s why I say every seminary student needs to read that book. You’ll learn more about the dynamics of sin from Tolstoy, than you will reading a theology book. One of the problems I see with seminaries is that the exclusion of the practical end of what they are learning.

    It’s one thing to understand the doctrine of sin on an academic level–even to the point where you can get high marks in Mohler’s classes. It’s a totally different matter to understand how the dynamics play out in the lives of people. Much of that understanding requires what I call “spiritual mileage.”

    A lot of it, though, can be gained through reading some good quality writing from folks like Peretti (especially The Oath), C.S. Lewis, and Tolstoy. Those guys bring to life those realities about which you read in Proverbs, and–as you quoted–James.

  2. it seems that in ‘christian circles’ it is desired to try to make things what they want them to be rather than facing the truth of what they are. there is this thing that since sin is bad, christians must think and act in ways that indicate sin does not enter their lives. the reality is that sin enters all of our lives, and we need the power of God to enable us to fight sin b/c there’s a war going on in the spiritual realms.

    sin is not simply a ‘secular’ problem; it is a human problem. it does not go away simply b/c one is a christian or attends church or whatever else one determines makes them ‘better than that.’

  3. @Ame
    Yep. What often gets lost in those studies is that those realities apply to everyone from the most radical feminist to the worst of the Open Theists to the most rigid hardshell Baptists to the most hardcore proponent of Reform Theology.

  4. If you don’t begin with the fact that there is a log in your own eye–and we all have at least one–it’s hard to deal effectively with the reality of sin.

    This is why no small number of pastors are finding themselves neck-deep in their own scandals: the same Biblical doctrine that applies to the non-Christian, also applies to the most high-profile of ministers.

  5. we (meaning christians in general) want to make it a “their” problem rather than facing the reality it’s an “our” problem.

    when we read books like this we are forced to face our own depravity, and, as you and i have both seen, creating an armour of lies and choosing to believe them is not at all limited to those outside the church or even to those who are not christians.

    it is raw to look in the mirror and to see what we are willing to justify and accept. to ignore it, however, and to hide it, makes it that much more powerful. satan’s power grows in darkness.

  6. The problem is caring enough to change.

    The world is going to hell, and the believers have largely abandoned Godly behavior.

    Tough to hang on – the will to fight is hard to maintain. Even harder to see the value in persevering as anything more than a sort of spiritual parlor trick. I still fight on, but mostly from momentum.

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