Editorial: “The opposite of love…

is not hate but indifference”. So wrote holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. Many others commented the same- that millions of people were systematically exterminated because of the indifference of otherwise “good people”. It all happened because ‘good’ people did nothing. Wiesel continued: "Indifference is never an option… the opposite of life is not death but indifference to life and death".

Time and again Biblical history demonstrates that sins of silence and omission are just as fatal as sins of public, physical commission.

- Sarah omitted to say that Abraham was her husband; and was reproved (Gen. 20:16).

- Onan omitted to raise up seed to his brother, and was slain (Gen. 38:10).

- To omit to hate evil is the same as to commit it (Ps. 36:4).

-  Because David omitted to enforce the Law's requirements concerning the transporting of the tabernacle, a man died. His commission of good didn't outweigh his omission here (1 Chron. 15:13).

- We have a debt to preach to the world; we are their debtors, and yet this isn't how we often see it (Rom. 1:14). Time and again we commit sins of omission here. Let’s make it our aim to introduce the Lord to at least one person each day [e.g. by leaving calling cards around the place. Contact me if you’d like some].

- Samuel would have sinned against Yahweh if he ceased to pray for Israel in their weakness (1 Sam. 12:23). We so easily give up in prayer for the weak.

- Adam's sin of commission (i.e. eating the fruit) may well have been a result of his sins of omitting to go forth out of the centre of the garden and multiply. By one man's inattention (Rom. 5:19 Gk.) sin came into the world. The same word is translated “to neglect to hear” (Mt. 18:17). Hence Adam and not Eve was the first sinner. This needs some meditation.

-  The Lord taught that to wangle one's way out of caring for their parents by delegating it to the synagogue was effectively cursing them, and those guilty must "die the death" (Mk. 7:10,11). To him who knows to do good but does it not, this omission is counted as sin (James 4:17- written in the context of brethren omitting to help each other). Likewise He said that if he had omitted to heal the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath, this would have been 'doing evil' and even 'killing' (Mk. 3:4). That's how seriously He took omitting to do good when it's in our power to do it.

-  Ps. 44:20 balances the sin of omission against the sin of commission: “If we have forgotten the name of our God [omission], or stretched out our hands to a strange god” [commission]. It makes a good exercise to watch for how many times the Proverbs treat sins of omission as if they are sins of active commission. "He that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster" (Prov. 18:9)- 'mere' laziness, as we may see it, an omission of working- is the same as the commission of a purposefully destructive person. And to laze away our hours is perhaps a temptation in this generation as never before. He who doesn't help those terminally ill, saying within himself "Behold, we knew it not"- will be judged by God "according to his works" (Prov. 24:11,12). The internal turning of a blind eye in our attitude is in fact an active 'work' which will be judged at the last day. And again, our generation has many opportunities to walk on by and claim we never knew. When we did. And there's no generation like ours for rewarding that attitude, when it's actually one that could lead to our eternal condemnation. For we are all terminally ill and need God's urgent, saving attention.

- To not lend to one's poor brother will be counted to us as sin (Dt. 15:9).

- If we omit to 'visit' the fatherless (in the Hebrew sense of coming close to, getting involved with, not just 'popping in to see')- then our religion is defiled and impure (James 1:27).

- "As troops of robbers wait for a man, so the company of priests murder in the way" (Hos. 6:9) is the basis for the Lord's parable of the injured man on the Jericho road. According to this Hosea passage, there is no difference between the robbers and the priest who passes by. Surely the point of the allusion to Hosea 6:9 was that the priest who omitted to help was as bad as the robbers who committed the attack. This is how serious are sins of omission, of passing by on the other side from a hurting individual, all too busy with our petty religion.

 

The more we analyze them, most of the sins mentioned in the Bible [as well as our own sins] tend to be sins of omission. We don’t set off into each day brazenly bent upon committing sin. But we so easily are lulled into the mire of mediocrity whereby we simply omit to do that which God requires of us. Wide-eyed and innocent, the rejected will claim, “When did we see You hungry… thirsty… in prison?”. They will find it hard to understand that sins of omission were that serious. To brush off the idea we might visit the imprisoned [in whatever forms of prison they are in], attend to the needy… because we’re too busy today, as we were yesterday, and as we shall be all our tomorrows… these kind of psychological, mental decisions of a moment, made each day, could lead to the Lord telling us that He never knew us. When we consider the Lord's teaching of Mt. 7:22,23 and 25:42-44 together, He's saying that those rejected at the day of judgment will be so on account of their omissions- hence their surprise, and anger because they knew that they had done good works; they thought that what they had committed was morally acceptable to God, and this would usher them into the Kingdom. But their sins of omission cost them the Kingdom. 

We think we have no time. Because we let the world, the internet, thinking about that movie… take it from us. We quickly justify ourselves by thinking that we do quite enough for others anyway, that we care for our family… when in the end, we are leaving the least of Christ’s brethren needy and unvisited. The one talent man wasn’t condemned for doing anything wrong; but rather for omitting to do at least something with his talent. Likewise the Pharisees were condemned for ‘omitting the weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy and faith’ (Mt. 23:23). These men occupied themselves day and night with what they considered the weighty matters of the Law- its exposition, careful understanding of the Hebrew text etc. But exactly by doing this they committed the crucial sins of omission. In the end, it’s action which is the weight of the Law and not dissecting of texts. Whilst true understanding of a text is of course important, we can so easily become guilty of ‘bibliolatry’, worshipping the Bible as an end in itself without catching the spirit of selfless service to others.

The Lord Jesus was perfect, never sinning, despite being saddled with our human condition just as we are. One aspect of His achievement was perhaps that He didn’t focus as we tend to, upon not committing sin but rather, positively, on achieving the Father’s glory. It was this emphasis which led Him not to commit sins of omission either. As we think of Him in His time of dying especially, I believe we see this. When I imagine myself being crucified - and we all need to go through such an exercise of imagination if we take seriously His command to take up His cross and die with Him - I imagine being faced with a stream of temptations which I know I’d not overcome. But the Lord wasn’t on the defensive, fighting off each temptation as it came, but rather positively focused upon the goal before Him. Quite naturally therefore He was less likely to fall into sins of omission, because He was positively oriented toward the goal. But here we have to examine what is the goal of our lives? Raising families, providing security for them… or seeking the Father’s glory, and dealing with every issue in life as a means to that end? This approach should enable us to deal better with the issue of priorities… for so often we justify our sins of omission by reasoning that we had other priorities, and one can’t do everything in life. ‘How to juggle priorities?’ ceases to be a difficult question if we have the clearly defined aim of in all things seeking the Father’s glory.

If in the daily round we can know how desperate we are, the urgency of our spiritual situation, we will appreciate the more finely what the Lord has done and is daily doing for us, and will be motivated to make an urgent, joyful response.  The whole wonder of God’s truth as it is in Christ is totally lost on us unless we see our desperate need. And the wider wonder of grace will only be appreciated, the thrill felt, if we feel something of the whole of humanity’s desperation. One way of realizing the seriousness of our sin is to recognize that each sin we commit, we could have avoided. We must hang our heads, time and again. In the very end, we can blame neither our circumstances nor our natures, even though these are factors in the committal of each sin. We must each bear total personal responsibility for every sin, both of commission and omission.

Grace And Works

The justification by works mentality can lead to a paranoia about sins of omission. Believers wrongly feel guilty that they vowed to do something and didn’t; that they enthusiastically decided on some great project in an evening of dynamic discussion with others, or made a promise in the mystical impetus of a short-lived moment… and never did it. But the omissions the Lord focuses on are omissions of simple acts and attitudes of love, and perceiving ones brethren as truly part of the image and person of He Himself.

The fact that the ecclesia is a hospital for sinners and not a club for the righteous, and that salvation is by pure grace and not works, must not be allowed to blur the cutting edge of the demands for action which there are in following Christ. Only in realizing how far we fall short of them are we led to a more thorough humility and a more radical repentance. Regular repentance is absolutely necessary for each of us - for sin both of omission and commission, in motive, aim, thought, desire, wish and fantasy is sadly a daily reality in our lives. Yet grace reigns as a King (Rom. 5:21), in the sense that the real belief that by grace we are and will be saved, will rule over our lives and transform us (Titus 2:11,12). Grace will be the leading and guiding principle in our lives, comprised as they are of a long string of thoughts and actions. And as with every truly focused life, literally all other things become therefore and thereby of secondary value. The pathway of persistent, focused prayer, the power of the hope of the Kingdom, regular repentance…day by day we become alive, real people, not couch potatoes sitting hunched over a screen, but living out in our lives the life that He lived and the death He died.

Duncan Heaster


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