How Sin Handicaps the Body

“It’s none of your business”! This is a statement that should never leave the mouth of someone who names Christ. Actually everything we do is one another’s business (now there may be some information not worthy of sharing and you know what I mean).

We Are More Than Family, We Have Fellowship

The way the writers of the New Testament use the word fellowship, has overarching implications. It is not you and Christ it is us and we. We can’t escape this grip. The one body language  used in 1 Corinthians is even more gripping. It doesn’t allow us to slip out, if we are fair to the text, we have to admit that the fellowship we have with one another actually supersedes the bond we have with our family. The reason being is that our unity is a shared “fellowship” with Christ. There is this unique, metaphysical thingy that may be to difficult to fully explain in a post, but none the less, it is there. We have a unique bond and a unique call to unity, oneness and participation that makes all other bonds (except marriage) secondary. John talks about this in 1 John 1:3. Paul talks about this type of fellowship in Philippians 3:10 and there is something gripping in Jesus’ prayer in John 17. Needless to say, it is a category mistake to say “me” because Christ died for an “us”.

Sin In the Camp, Yes Your Sin Effects Me

In Joshua 7 there is an incident that shows forth this principle.  Achan of the tribe of Judah takes something that God had previously told them not to and it effected the lives of others. The Israelites were having great military success. As God promised, they went through the land killing all on the way to the promised land and then we come to chapter 7 and many fell to the sword and the people were saddened. Now those who were effected had nothing to do with Achan’s sin. It was his sin, his fault, and no one seemed to had participated in his sin (we see that by the judgment that comes upon him exclusively); however, others felt the judgement of God because of somone else’s sin (we see this to in the human race, but no room for that here).  Eventually this thing was brought out and Achan was stoned to death; however, God showed quite clearly that sin effected the entire camp.

What Does That Have to Do with Us?

Today sin has the same result. The question is how. Here is what I think. Much like the natural body. If your arm is infected, it causes your entire body problems. For example. If you have a bad knee, the rest of your body has to compensate for this deficiency. You begin to walk more on the other leg which is now causing injury to that leg. Not to mention, your alignment is being thrown off, causing small, and slow damage to your bones and especially your back. This is slow and you don’t realize but as you do this more and more and this knee is not attended to, your body will soon attempt to adapt in ways to compensate and before long, you have to see a specialist because your entire body has been damaged by one knee injury. The same can go for certain sicknesses. If you have a lung infection, your entire body has to deal with this, your arm can’t ignore your lungs, you can’t in some way isolate your body or compartmentalize your body, you are one person (I borrowed this analogy from Alan)

This is why God tells us to help the weak, to admonish one another to rebuke one another, to help those overtaken in sin (Galatians 6:1) and to even discipline, if necessary, the unrepentant (1 Corinthians 5:9-13).

But Why?

Here is the fundamental reason why. Each believer has been given a gift by Christ to help the body grow up into Christ (Ephesians 4:1-16). Much like your body has been given all it needs for you to grow up, the Body of Christ has been given what it needs to grow up. When one person refuses to walk in obedience to the Spirit, and is now  not being  filled with the Spirit, thus grieving him (Ephesians 4:30), the entire body can’t function like it needs to and it leaves other parts of the body to over compensate for the lagging parts (this is why the lone ranger Christian is cancerous to the body).

Sin causes us to seek our own way and now we are not guided by the Spirit’s mind. We are going our own way and just like a hand that acts on its own from the rest of the body would be a hindrance to a natural body a hand that is part of the body of Christ will be a hindrance the spiritual body. The body just can ignore it and say “well hand do whatever you want”. Why? Because the hand is connected to the body and only if amputated can the body function in a way that is acceptable (though not optimal because the body still must over compensate for the missing limb).

Concluding Thoughts

Finally the last reason for that sin handicaps the body is that it brings a negative witness to the entire body. If we seen someone whose leg was just kicking while the rest of the body did what the head said, we would think something was wrong. We couldn’t ignore it. If you have ever seen the tide commercial where the guy is in an interview and their is a stain on his shirt that is talking while he is, then that would be a good picture of what I am trying to convey. Just think if you were interviewing someone and while they were sitting there, their hand kept slapping the face, or writing on its own, or tapping the desk, but the person kept on interviewing as if nothing was wrong.

Immorality brings a bad witness on the entire body of Christ. Those whom you have never met will be effected rather you think so or not. That is why Paul is very adamant in 1 Corinthians 5. The immoral brother has to be dealt with because we are a people who have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus, given a new heart which motivation is to do what the Lord commands. Jesus Christ came to take our sin upon Himself and has now freed us from the power of sin (Romans 6). We are no longer slaves to sin but slaves to righteousness (Romans 6-7) and we now walk by the Spirit (Romans 8:9-11).

We are to be a people of good moral works to show forth the fruit of righteousness (Titus 2:11-14) because we have been regenerated by the Spirit (Titus 3:4-8) and are new creations (2 Cornithans 5:18-20). We live by the Spirit and are to put on and clothe ourselves in the Spiriti since we are “seated with Christ”  (Ephesians 2:6).

So yes our sin effects everyone in the body and that is why it is my business.