Mitch Pacwa - Winning the Battle Against Sin: Hope-Filled Lessons from the Bible

WINNING THE BATTLE
AGAINST SIN

HOPE-FILLED LESSONS
FROM THE BIBLE

HOPE-FILLED LESSONS
FROM THE BIBLE

Fr. Mitch Pacwa, SJ

Copyright 2013 by Mitch Pacwa, SJ
All rights reserved

Published by The Word Among Us Press
7115 Guilford Drive, Suite 100
Frederick, Maryland 21704
www.wau.org

17 16 15 14 13 1 2 3 4 5

ISBN: 978-1-59325-225-0
eISBN: 978-1-59325-450-6

Imprimi potest: Rev. Fr. Timothy P. Kesicki, SJ, Provincial
Chicago-Detroit Province of the Society of Jesus
March 4, 2013

Scripture texts used in this work are taken from the Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright 1965 and 1966, and the Revised Standard Version BibleSecond Catholic Edition (Ignatius Edition), Copyright 2006 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA.
All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Cover design by John Hamilton Design
Cover art: Lorenzo Ghilberti (13701455), The Temptation of Christ,
Relief panel from the North Gate, Baptistery, Florence, Italy
Photo credit: Scala/Art Resource, NY

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the author and publisher.
Made and printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pacwa, Mitch, 1949

Winning the battle against sin : hope-filled lessons from the Bible / Fr. Mitch Pacwa, SJ.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-59325-225-0

1. SinBiblical teaching. 2. SinChristianity. I. Title.

BS680.S57P33 2013

241.3dc23

2012047745

To my brother, Jimmy Pacwa, for his fiftieth birthday. From the joy when I heard you were on your way, through the first motorcycle ride I ever gave you, to your present career of customizing motorcycles, I have been delighted to have you as a brother. May God bless you always.

Sin is a universal phenomenon. We are all born with original sin, and even after we are baptized, we suffer from its effects, finding ourselves attracted to and tempted by actions that are forbidden by God because they harm us and others. For a variety of reasons, however, today these basic truths about sin are not universally recognized. Many have lost their understanding and sense of sin.

One reason is because of the prevalence of moral relativism. If objective truth cannot be known, neither can anyone know what is good or evil, sin or virtue. The best that each person can do is to define his or her own version of good and evil. Of course, this leads to conflicts among individuals and groups who differ about the definition of what is good or evil. Ultimately, a power play will determine the relativists ideas of moral good and evil: the people with might will decide what is right. In addition, there are also a growing number of people who do not believe in God at all. Without a belief in the existence of God, there cannot be any objective truth about what is sinful and what is not.

Some deny that evil even exists. In a pantheistic worldview, sin and evil cannot exist. The behaviors that other people such as monotheistic Christians and Jews consider sin are then, in fact, not evil at all. They are simply hard lessons that people choose to learn, with a result that they will also learn a correspondingly hard lesson when they are reincarnated in another life. Other people are behaviorists who believe that we are determined by our genetics and do not really have the free will to choose either good or evil.

These contemporary ideologies are contrary to most ancient views that sin not only exists but is universal. Ancient people expected both their neighbors and themselves to sin; failures of moral action were assumed to be endemic to every human being. For instance, in ancient Sumer it was taught that never has a sinless child been born to its mother.... A sinless worker has not existed from of old. Akkadian wisdom asserted the same idea: Who is there who has not sinned against his god? Who that has kept the commandment forever? All humans who exist are sinful.

The Bible also teaches that sin is universal, as seen in the introduction to the flood story: The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually (Genesis 6:5). This verse begins with amazement at the greatness of sin and then moves to the interior quality of this universal evilevery imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. This widespread evil causes God to regret having created human beings.

In the same strain, the Book of Proverbs reflects on the human experience that sin is intrinsic in human life: Who can say, I have made my heart clean; / I am pure from my sin? (20:9). This rhetorical question assumes that no one has made his heart clean, nor is anyone pure from sin.

Similarly, in another wisdom book, Qoheleth the Preacher reflects, Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.... Behold, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many devices (Ecclesiastes 7:20, 29). Admittedly, Qoheleth is generally cynical about life, but his reflection on the absence of any man who does right and on the mischievous devices of all people has resonated with the experiences of people of faith since he wrote it down early in the second century B.C.

The ancient wisdom, whether among pagans or believers in the one true God of Israel, recognizes that sin is a real experience for everyone, a sad truth from which no individual or society can escape. In this book we will examine the very rich traditions within the Bible to help us define some of the various aspects of sin both in the Old and New Testaments.

Why take on such a study? A deeper understanding of this biblical teaching will help us to win the battle against sin that we all face. The truth is that in Christ we have been transformed. Through his passion, death, and resurrection, we have become a new creation. As our faith in this truth grows, we are better able to withstand temptation by standing firm in Christ and the merits of his sacrifice. And if we do fail, we know that through Jesus, we can be forgiven and reconciled. This is the hope of our faith. The aim of this book is to give you a deeper sense of that hope. In studying the biblical passages that follow, you will grow deeper in your faith and also come to a greater realization of the love God has for you and how much he yearns for you to come to him in repentance so that he can grant his forgiveness.

We will begin with the story of the fall of Adam and Eve, not only to see that sin entered the human race at its start, but also to look into aspects of the story of the temptation and fall that pertain to the experience of any and every sinner through the ages. In chapter 2, we will examine why an offense against God is so serious, and in chapter 3, we will seek to understand why we need a divine Savior to reconcile us to God. In chapter 4, we will focus on our responsibility for sin and how our free will gives us a choice for life in Christ or death from sin. Chapter 5 will investigate the Bibles understanding of sin as an experience of slavery and the freedom from sin that we have in Christ. Chapter 6 will discuss the influence of the flesh and the ongoing battle between the flesh and the spirit. Chapter 7 will treat the concept of the world in the New Testamentthe world as the object of Gods love and redemption, and the world as an enemy of God and redemptionas well as the influences of Satan. Finally, in chapter 8 we will reflect on Gods plan to transform us into the image of his Son.