Sin More?

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?  Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. (Romans 6:1-4)

          In C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, Screwtape advises his protégé against aiming for big, spectacular sins when little ones will do just as well. Later, he laments that the banquet fare of the mediocre sinners just didn’t compare with that of the really great sinners, but, I guess, food is food. Today’s passage discusses one human side of that same equation. After saying that grace abounded more as sin increased, Paul asks the obvious question: should we sin more so that grace may about more? 

          I have asked some version of this question. I grew up as a basically “good kid.” I was quite probably a tyrant, but I didn’t get in much trouble at school, except as the victim of bullies. I didn’t drink, smoke, swear, do drugs, or hook up (though it was called sleeping around back then.) The only time I shoplifted, I did it accidentally and wanted to die when I realized I had an embroidery hoop in my hand some twenty steps from the craft store door. For the most part, I was a loner, so I just wasn’t out causing trouble. 

          When I started hanging around with Christians again, I heard them talk about things they’d been “saved out of.” I listened to testimonies from some great sinners, and I found myself almost ashamed of my testimony. How could anyone relate to me? Why would anyone want to listen to what I say? How unrelatable. How boring. I’m not saying that I didn’t sin, but that my sins were laughable from the public perspective.

         I can’t bring myself to go become an alcoholic, drug-addicted prostitute with ten STDs and a criminal record that could wall-paper a courthouse in a major city just to have an impressive story to tell. More power to those who have escaped from that sort of background, but the reality is that quiet sinners need grace, too. 

          What we tend to forget when we think like this is that sin hurts God. It damages the relationship we have with God. Sinning more, and more spectacularly, so that God can give more grace, and forgive more spectacularly is gaslighting. It’s just another way of trying to make ourselves god over God. It makes a lie of our professed love for God or for those around us.