Separating Sin and Sinners

Many read the Old Testament of the Bible and complain that it is filled with violence, bloodshed and general mayhem: people killing people, God killing people, people killing animals, etc. What does it all mean? Why all the evil and death? Does God believe in all this violence?
In this present day, why is there so much murder, rape, abuse and other evil rampant in the world around us? What makes humans act like this? To call some of them "animals" is to actually insult the animal kingdom.
God loves people but He hates evil. God has "wrath" in His nature. But that wrath was never intended to be used against people but against evil. However, if a person clings to the evil that God condemns, they get hurt. Before Jesus came, there was no way to separate people from evil, so when God came against evil, people were destroyed! That is the reason for the flood. God did not hate those people; He hated evil and had to do something about it. Throughout the Old Testament, He commanded His people to do something about it as well. That is why there was all that killing in the name of God by God's nation, Israel. The nations that lacked a covenant relationship with God could only be "cut off" or destroyed before Jesus' death at Calvary. God's people were commanded to rise and destroy the evil, which in that day meant destroying the people as well.
All the rules of Leviticus and Deuteronomy called for death for most evil and the harsh "eye for an eye" principle for the remaining offenses. Where you have only Law, "The wages of sin is death!" (Romans 6:23). It seems likely that the reason God instituted the Mosaic system of animal sacrifices when people sinned was not only to point to Christ's sacrifice, which it did, but also to hit humans right were they were: in their human feelings.
We live in a day of "animal rights" activists. We see people and groups who have chosen to be the protectors of animals. They want to avoid animal pain, animal experimentation, and in extreme forms, vegetarians do not want the killing of animals for food. And I'm sure that similar groups existed even back in the Old Testament days.
The animal pet business is thriving in our culture and some take care of their animal "children" better than some others take care of their natural children. Our animal pets are very lovable, some say more than their human friends are.
The concept of animal sacrifices, therefore, is abhorrent to many minds today and it is hard to imagine for some why God would ask for the destruction of so many animals in ritual. But let's see if we can get some idea of God's thinking.
After the fall of Adam, men lived physically separated from God thinking that they were "doing their own thing". Men had their domesticated animals that they grew to "love" and even their "pets". Since God's overall goal for man is the elimination of evil (sin) in man, God probably wanted to physically show man the horrible nature of sin by causing the death of creatures which man had grown to care for.
Our city culture does not see much of lamb and calves and turtle-doves anymore. But any sheep rancher will tell you that a lamb is a cuddly, affectionate little creature of God. A calf is not quite as cuddly but just as affectionate. And as for turtle-doves, people who keep birds will tell you that you certainly can become attached to them. These are all God's creatures but do not have the created potential of eternal life as humans do. God owns them and can certainly use them for His purposes in making human beings into Sons of God.
Now men in those days certainly killed animals for food to eat. Any farmer must learn to do this, affection for animals notwithstanding. But here was God ordering men to kill these "loving" animals for no obvious reason, just because a man had sinned. I believe that God was showing man the horrible nature of sin and how it causes death, if not immediately in the sinner, at least the sinner would see death in the animal caused by his sinful action. The animal was destroyed for no earthly use. This had to hit man right where he was. Every time he sinned, he had to provide one of these cute, affectionate animals to be sacrificed. God was driving home a point about the utterly offensive and repugnant nature of sin, which is just basically man living apart from his God.
But the miracle of the cross of Jesus opened the way for God to SEPARATE MEN FROM THE EVIL THEY DO. We no longer kill animals as sin offerings. Christ died once and for all as the ultimate sin offering. We no longer should attack people to kill them in the name of God. But God does not want us to think our battle days are over! We are still to be men and women of battle. The only difference between those who battled in the Old Testament and those of us called to battle in the New Testament is HOW, WITH WHOM and BY WHAT POWER that we battle.
After the fall of man shortly after his creation, Satan and his fallen angels took control of the lives of human beings. People thought that they were in control of their own lives, that the choices they made were independent choices decided upon by them and them alone. That is, they thought they were exerting their "free-will" in every decision they made. But this was an illusion. It was not true in the "real" world of the spirit.
But what about this "free-will" to choose? We have free-will all right, but it consists only of the ability to make one of two, and only two, choices: we can accept this totally dependent relationship with our Creator OR we can choose to live our lives in our own strength, by our own human ability and knowledge. That is, we can choose to be INDEPENDENT-SELVES" and live our day to day lives under our own steam.
But being an independent self is an illusion. It is not true. It only seems on the human level like it is possible. But it is not. Human beings must be indwelt by a spirit deity nature. They cannot be independent. If you are not indwelt by God's nature, then you WILL BE indwelt by the nature of the god of this world, Satan. If you make the free-will choice to be an independent self, they EVERY day to day decision that you make will be controlled by Satan. That does not mean that every thing that you do will be "bad". Your life will be a mixture of apparent good and apparent evil just like the tree of the "knowledge of good and evil" in the garden. Satan wants to keep you under his control and away from dependence on God. The best way to do this is to keep you thinking that you are a mixture of good and evil and have the human strength to choose good most of the time over evil. But the real spiritual truth is that if you are not living in union with and dependent on God, then you ARE under Satan's control! And, amazingly, he will influence you to do many "good" things. But these are only to reinforce in your mind the illusion that you can be a "good" person as an independent self.
Before Jesus came and died and rose again, there was no concept among men of living in union with God. Some men thought they could live better with God's HELP, but God was always considered transcendent, that is, out there somewhere away from us but able to somehow help us. But after Jesus died for our sins, it became possible for Him to come and live in us, live in total control for us and make us "good" or "righteous" rather than having the nature of evil. In fact, this is the grand purpose of all human history and human experience: to drive people to the total understanding that we cannot live an independent life on our own steam. We are just not capable of being "righteous" without Jesus living in us. This was true of Jesus and God the Father when Jesus lived as a human being. He said that without His Father in Him, He could do nothing! He was totally dependent on the Father. And He said that He came to, in the same way, live in us and have us totally dependent on Him.
We can really say that Jesus came to create a new SPECIES of humans. The old species lived in with Satan's nature, were under his control and were evil by nature. The new species lives in union with Christ, is under His control and is righteous by nature. The old species was basically evil but sometimes did good things. The new species is basically good or righteous but sometimes does evil things, that is, sins.
In the old species, Satan is basically in control but sometimes God, on the outside of them, tempts them to do good things and they temporarily respond. In the new species, Christ is basically in control but sometimes Satan, on the outside of them tempts them to do evil things and they temporarily forget that Jesus is in charge and they temporarily try to live by their human strength and they temporarily fail and sin. But Jesus living in them immediately causes them to see their human failure drawing them to an even more stable relationship with Himself.
But what about personal responsibility? Is not a man basically responsible for his actions? Yes, he is! A man without God who makes a free choice to live as an independent self is, in a definite way, responsible for any human failures which result from his control by Satan and his human inability and lack of power. A man who makes a free choice to call on Jesus to come and live in him and direct his life is, in a definite way, responsible for any human successes which result from Christ's leadership and goodness. But all the specific little choices which a man makes in his day to day existence are not really free-will choices but are directed by the indwelling MASTER (Christ) or master (Satan). Our human free-will is only in deciding: one, whether to live as an independent self on our own power (which is an illusion and actually allow Satan to control us) or, two, whether to call out to God for forgiveness and renounce our ability to control our own actions.
But the problem comes when the new man, with Jesus living in him, still occasionally commits sin. This he does because he still lives in a body of flesh which is his contact with the material world around him. Satan can still exert an EXTERNAL influence and when we CHOOSE to temporarily ignore our dependence on Jesus and go it alone, we will invariably sin. And we are responsible! But we are not sinning BY NATURE as the old man does. The proof of this is that members of the new race are immediately sorry for having sinned and Christ reapplies the forgiveness of the cross. They return to the recognition of their union with Christ.
So we see that under the Old Testament Law there could be no mercy. Evil was always EVIL BY NATURE. Because everyone, except a few who God called, lived separate lives from God. Forgiveness of sin, under the Law, was impossible.
But today, because of Christ, we can SEPARATE THE SINNER FROM THE SIN HE COMMITS. We can and we must forgive the sinner even though we hate his sin. Incidents that violate us should not be allowed to linger in our minds after the event has taken place. However, Satan and his forces want us to focus on these negative events. Satan wants to capitalize on the offenses that come into our lives in the hope that he can propel us into envy, strife, confusion, anger, resentment, etc. By so doing, he can externally influence our lives by our thinking. Satan is just as interested in influencing us AFTER an offense comes as he was in instigating the incident to begin with! It is the potential aftermath of an offense that is the most destructive for us.
Forgiveness protects our lives from Satan's strategy by opposing the evil that tries to enter after an offense comes. Just as God forgives us by sending our offenses "as far as the east is from the west", we are to put the offense out of our thoughts.
Satan wants to dishearten and ultimately devastate us by keeping us focused on what happened. He loves to keep running "instant replays" of the event in our minds. To forgive, though, is to focus on JESUS instead of on the offense.
When we forgive, we are winners over the forces of evil and their schemes and NOT OVER PEOPLE. Remember that our struggle is not with them anyway. The believer should never think in terms of winning and losing when dealing with another person. Christ in us is bigger than that. Remember the people who offend us do so for various reasons: their fallen nature, Satan, the influence of a secular world filled with evil, misunderstanding, etc. Forgiveness deals with the EVIL behind why people do what they do. This is the first aspect of forgiveness.
The second aspect of forgiveness is that it releases the power of God toward offenders so that God can change them. When we forgive, God's holiness flows through our actions and attitudes toward the offender. Somehow this enables God to move within that person to overcome the evil that is dominating his life.
But forgiving someone who has hurt us or hurt someone we know is difficult! No, it is impossible! Humanly impossible! But we can do it! Because if we are a member of the new RACE with Christ living in us, then we passed our human control over to the spiritual control of Jesus. And HE can cause us to have a godly forgiveness of an offender. We may not FEEL humanly like forgiving. WE may not accept Jesus' direction totally in all areas at first. But we will continue to have a growing awareness of our union with Christ.
Yes, Satan's influences will reappear and failure will result, but each time we return to Him, the fresh power of forgiveness restores and refires us for victorious living.
So I hope that now the concept of all the death and destruction in the Old Testament has a clearer meaning to you. Then, evil had to be destroyed and people joined to evil were destroyed with the evil itself. There was no legal forgiveness in the Old Testament but rather just a temporary covering of sin within the congregation of God's people by the ritual of animal sacrifices. Whatever difficulty we have today in understanding these rituals of sacrifice must be factored into God's overall purposes of teaching man the seriousness of sin.
I am a dog "lover". You may be a cat "lover". People in general have a closeness to animals. We hate to see them die. But we also must grow to understand that GOD HATES TO SEE SINNERS DIE JUST AS MUCH! And so He devised a way to separate the sinner from the sin – He sent Jesus Christ to make it possible to have a whole new human species containing an indwelling Jesus Christ. In this new species, the person (with the Person of Christ united) WOULD BE SEPARATE from sin. The apostle Paul called it being "dead to sin". In the believing Christian, the "wages of sin" is not death as stated in Romans 6:23 but rather human consequences and spiritual correction (Hebrews 12 calls it "chastisement"). Whatever slips into sin a Christian commits are not "sins unto death" as we are told in 1 John 5:16.

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