Sin's "Butterfly Effect"

“Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Romans 5:1

“yet we know that no one is justified by the works of the law but by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by the faithfulness of Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.” Galatians 2:16

 Last time I wrote about sanctification. Turns out I got a little ahead of myself because that’s tomorrow’s topic! The team that put together Firm Foundation did a fabulous job of structuring it so that the topics build on each other well. Today we look more deeply into something I alluded to last time, justification. According to the real Webster, justification is, “In theology, remission of sin and absolution from guilt and punishment; or an act of free grace by which God pardons the sinner and accepts him as righteous, on account of the atonement of Christ.” So what is this sin that we need absolution from? What crime needs to be pardoned?

 Webster’s definition for sin is quite lengthy, but succinctly put it is, “The voluntary departure of a moral agent from a known rule of rectitude or duty, prescribed by God.” Simply put, sin is when you know you shouldn’t do something and you do, or you know you should do something and you don’t. The key here is knowing. So how do we find out what we are and aren’t supposed to do? That’s a little more complicated. When we drive on the road, there are a lot of rules and laws to follow. How do we expect all the drivers to know what they are? They have to take a test before they get a license enabling them to drive, legally anyways. I’m pretty sure that most people driving without a license know they are supposed to have one, so there’s knowledge as well. What about the rest of life? How do we know how to act towards people in the grocery store? They don’t give us a license for that, but we mostly seem to handle it well.

 More than 3,000 years ago, a man named Moses was chosen by God to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. From there, because of some poor choices, they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, during which God gave them, again through Moses, the law. In fact, Moses wrote the first 5 books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. You can read his story in Exodus mostly if you’re interested.

 While some things may seem like common sense to us, you have to realize that we’ve had the law for three millennia. God brought the law to the Israelites, so they could learn what sin was (Romans 3:20). Before this, they didn’t have any clear list of rights and wrongs. Now they knew and could not refute that killing someone or taking their things without asking was wrong. They also knew it was a sin to worship other gods. Did that stop them? Sadly, no.

 You might think, “I’m not an Israelite so how does the law apply to me?” First off, if you’re aware of the law, then you are aware of sin. Secondly, for those who have not had such an education, Romans speaks to them as well:

For whenever the Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature the things required by the law, these who do not have the law are a law to themselves. They show that the work of the law is written in their hearts, as their conscience bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or else defend them, on the day when God will judge the secrets of human hearts, according to my gospel through Christ Jesus.  (Romans 2:14-16 NET)

 Did you have to read a law in order to know that killing someone is wrong? Does reading about child trafficking break your heart whether you have read the Bible or not? In addition to writing the law on stone tablets, God wrote the law on our hearts and, as the verse says, our conscience bears witness. Odds are you felt guilty about something before you read the Bible. That’s because you did something you knew was wrong. That’s the definition of sin.

 Well now we have sin, we’re aware of our sin, and we’d really like to get rid of our sin. It’s like debt, in fact it is a form of debt. If you’ve been following along with my blog, you’ve seen that I’m learning about using points and miles for travel. One of the primary ways of earning said points is by opening credit cards. Now, contrary to some popular teaching, credit cards are not evil. They are a tool that can be used to bless you, but when misused can lead to misery. Kind of like chocolate, but I digress… Funny story. We were sitting at lunch after church yesterday and my husband asked me to pay off our credit card. Now we have our cards set up to pay in full on their due dates every month. We NEVER carry a balance. That would completely defeat the purpose of using cards to earn points if they caused us to spend money on interest. The funny part of him asking me to pay it is that it wasn’t due yet. In fact, it wasn’t due for 25 more days! The statement had just posted to the account the day before, and he isn’t actually on the account so I don’t think he knew that. He just felt in his spirit a weight of debt and he needed it cleared ASAP. So, of course, I hopped on my phone and paid it off right away.

 In the same way that my husband felt a weight of debt with our credit card, we feel a weight of debt from our sin. Ironically, that feeling of sin-debt can keep some people from coming to Jesus. They feel like they have to clean themselves up, to clear themselves from that debt before they can present themselves to a perfect God. But the truth is that we can never do this for ourselves. First off, you can’t reverse what you’ve already done. It’s in the past, you can’t, “take it back.” Your choices, your sin, have already set things in motion that cannot be undone. Secondly, even if you had a time machine and you could go back and change what you did, it would still exist in your heart. You would still know the reality of that act or thought. It changed you. We’d like to think that most of these are simple things, “little white lies” maybe, that do not have profound effect. Have you ever heard of the butterfly effect? It’s a part of chaos theory that postulates “a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.” (1). In the words of meteorologist, Edward Lorenz, “Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?” While this representational idea may be a bit blown out of proportion (get it, blown? Tornado? Heh, I kill me), the theory is pretty sound that small things can have big effects the farther out they go. Think of a stone thrown into a pond. It may be small, tiny even. When you toss it in, only the smallest of rings appears. But then the ring spreads, and more rings follow. That tiny stone has cause a “ripple effect” that spreads much farther than it’s initial footprint. All this to say, there is no “small sin,” there is only sin. None of us want to think that what we have done is the equivalent of some horrendous act committed by a serial killer, except maybe the serial killer, but in God’s eyes, sin is sin. In fact, in James 2:10 it says, “For the one who obeys the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.”

 Yikes! Ok, we’re convinced of our sin debt. We realize we can’t go back in time, or do any other thing to get rid of it because it’s effects are already at work in the world. So what do we do? If you’re anything like my husband, once you’re aware of the debt you want to get rid of it! Thankfully, God provided a way, the ONLY way, for us to be completely rid of our sin, washed clean. This applies to the sins in our past, the sins we will inevitably commit today, and the sins still ahead of us in our future. You see, even though Christians live with the Holy Spirit inside of them and are freed from slavery to sin, meaning their inability to “just say no,” we still have a sin nature. The flesh, as some call it, draws us to sin and we are not perfect, like Jesus, so sometimes we mess up. We don’t have to, God says that in every temptation He will give us a way of escape (1 Corinthians 10:13) but like Paul, “I do not do what I want – instead I do what I hate,” (Romans 7:15).

For Christ is the end of the law, with the result that there is righteousness for everyone who believes.  Romans 10:4

 Jesus is the way God provided for us to be rid of our sin debt. Believing in Him, in the work He did for us on the cross, is the ONLY way we can finally and forevermore be rid of our sin debt. No longer are we slaves to sin, unable to say “No” when we know something is wrong. No longer are we held accountable for our sin.

But if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we do not bear the guilt of sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous, forgiving us our sins and cleansing us from all unrighteousness.  (1 John 1:7-9 NET)

Here’s the Thing: Jesus’ blood doesn’t just wash away “some” of our sin, or certain sins, but all unrighteousness. In Him, we are justified, we have received justification, His sacrifice is able to justify us. Put it however you want, the result is the same. Accepting the perfect sacrifice of Jesus on the cross as covering for our sin is the only way to right the wrong. We cannot do it ourselves, it’s impossible. I love how the devotional put it, “Our faith in Christ removes the burden of guilt and condemnation, replacing it with the embrace of His grace and mercy.”

(1)  Wikipedia contributors. (2025, January 28). Butterfly effect. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect