Secret Sin

Isn't it fascinating that our (mankind's) first response to sin is the same now as it was in the beginning? After all of the thousands of years that sin has been with humanity, it seems that we would have come up with a different way to react to it. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, and then were confronted with God Himself, their reflex was to hide (Gen. 3). Today, our reflex is the same. This is what shame does to us. It is easier and more natural for us to attempt to hide our sin and hide from God than to confront our sin and confess to God. And we have made an art of hiding. We are so good at it that we've even invented ways of hiding our sin from ourselves. We keep secrets, we lie, we deny, we wear masks, we blame others, we redefine our actions so as to make them seem not so terrible, we become religiously dutiful, we compare ourselves to others, etc, etc, etc,...

The irony and tragedy in all of this is that, although hiding our sin promises some sort of release or protection from shame, it is particularly in hiding our sin that shame becomes our master. The secret sin harbors shame. It is only the confession of sin that kills shame. But Sin messes with our minds. It causes us to turn things on their heads and to think of things in a skewed way. We are convinced that being secretive about our sin will protect us from shame. We are convinced that if we are truthful about our sin, shame will overtake us. In fact, the Bible teaches us that the opposite is true. If we hide our sin, shame will surely overtake us. But if we are willing to confront and confess our sin, the freedom that we will experience will blow our minds.

But there is an even worse ironic tragedy to hiding our sin than being overcome by shame. It has to do with our perception of God's Grace. This is vitally important because our degree of love for God is directly related to how we perceive His Grace. As Jesus Himself said, "...But he who is forgiven little loves little." (Luke 7:47 ESV) Jesus said this in response to dinner hosts who scoffed at His acceptance of a sinful woman who washed His feet with her tears. He said this, not because the hosts needed less forgiveness than the woman needed, but because they needed just as much forgiveness as the woman needed, but they did not realize it. They had hidden their sin from themselves and others by becoming very religious. Therefore, they could not understand God's grace the way the sinful woman understood it. And since they could not understand God's grace, they could not love God. Here is the point, if we hide our sin, especially from ourselves, we will think that God's grace isn't all that great, so we will not love God all that much. Charles Simeon, a 19th century pastor of the same church for 54 years, understood the indispensability of searching the depths of his own sinfulness. Of his own quest to understand his depravity Simeon wrote, "I have continually had such a sense of my sinfulness as would sink me into utter despair, if I had not an assured view of the sufficiency and willingness of Christ to save me to the uttermost." (The Roots of Endurance, John Piper. pg 107). The greatest tragedy in hiding our sin, especially from ourselves, is that we minimize God's Grace, and as a result, we minimize God's Glory. This is what Simeon understood in a way that we desperately need today. May God grant that we will trust His grace in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and may that trust lead us to confront and confess our sin.