The Mathematics of Sin
I remember those days in high school when the “new math” was introduced. We carried around brown paper covered texts full of strange language, believing we were on the verge of enlightenment. Most of the time we were just confused. All of the familiar ways of handling problems with numbers were displaced, inappropriate. The old ways just didn’t work under the new rules. They were from another world, now so utterly foreign that we had to learn an entirely new language in order to cope.
I really struggled in those days. Hour after hour I would pour through the text, waiting for the light to somehow dawn so that I could figure out what was happening. It never did. How I passed math was a miracle of grace. Now, all these years later, I can only remember a few of the confusing topics that my teacher was so anxious for me to learn. What little I do remember has helped me to see the rest of my world in a different light. As strange as it may sound, new math helped me understand old sin.
I remember that integers (a fancy name for whole numbers) are associative, distributive and commutative.
The associative property means that for counting numbers the sum of adding or the product of multiplying any three of them is the same regardless of the order you happen to take. For example, adding 3 and 7 and then adding 4 more is the same as adding 3 to the sum of 7 plus 4. This may seem like no big deal, but if you tried to do the same arbitrary order operation with subtraction and division, you would get different answers. Thus, subtracting 3 from 7 and then subtracting 4 more is not the same as first subtracting 4 from 3 and then subtracting that number from 7.
Sin is also associative. The sum or the product of my sins doesn’t seem to change regardless of the order I happen to choose. I can have lots of little sins, a mixture of big and little sins or just a few big ones. No matter how I try to straighten out the arrangement of my sinful behavior, I always end up at the same place. Dead in trespasses and guilt.
Commutative means that the order in which I add any two numbers does not make a difference to the sum. So 3 + 4 is the same as 4 + 3. It means that the numbers are interchangeable. So are my sins. There are no unimportant ones, no trivial ones, no excusable ones. Mortal or venial, big or little, first or last, no matter what the order or the operation, I always reach the same destination, standing guilty before a holy God. My sins are just as lethal as anyone else’s. I don’t gain any credit because I am not a murderer or a thief. My status before God is not one single hair different from the one who has committed murder or the one who has stolen from others. I am a liar, an idolater, a blasphemer. My score is the same. The commutative property of sin should keep me from succumbing to those artificial hierarchies of good and bad used to prop up my denial. It reminds me that Jesus pictured murder as equivalent to rage in the heart, adultery as equivalent to lust in the mind, idolatry as equivalent to usurping God’s role as judge. Commutative means that I am in the same soup with everyone else. Not special, not privileged, not exempt. But also not unforgivable, not unlovable. Just another one of the catastrophes of self righteousness in need of right selflessness.
What about the distributive property? In mathematics, this means that for counting numbers involving addition and multiplication, we can either add first and then multiply or multiply first and then add. So (3 + 7) x 4 is the same as (3 x 4) + (7 x 4). I can distribute the multiplication product across the integers to be added and still get the same result. Once again the story of the rich young ruler shows us the connection to sin. It doesn’t matter how many good deeds I have done, nor how often I have kept the rules, any amount of sin distributes itself across all of my right actions and destroys them. One sin plus anything else is still the same result. That’s what the rich young ruler found out. The order of good deeds and sinful acts does not change the final result. This distributive property of sin brings all of my attempts to earn righteousness with God back to zero. My balance scale always tips the wrong way. Didn’t Jesus give us the same picture when he suggested that a little leaven will permeate the whole loaf?
Three other mathematical properties help us visualize the properties of sin. The first is that each positive number has an opposite negative number. For any number on the positive side of zero, there is a number on the negative side of zero. +1 and -1, +2 and -2, etc. What an insight into our pretensions to goodness! Without the active exercise of God’s life giving Spirit in my endeavor, I always end up with a negative number result no matter how positive the action may appear. I can take any good deed, absolutely any one, and turn it into sin by simply excluding God. Did I give to the last charity crusade for starving children because God led me to or because I wanted the accolades? If God was behind my action, then why did I secretly miss having the money? Did I offer hospitality to the homeless victims of a tragic fire because I saw them as needy children of my Master or because I needed to assuage my guilt over how I deal with my own children? Did I volunteer to serve on the Christian Ed committee because the Spirit led me to a clear understanding of being a servant of others or because someone had to do it? The contemporary Christian community seems to be full of soldiers like those under Gideon’s command who bowed down to drink (Judges 7:6-7). They were in the right place with the right intention, but God did not call them to do that particular deed. Human achievement alone is anathema to God because action without Spirit is sin.
The most amazing thing is that this positive and negative characteristic can’t be determined by just looking at the number. 1 unit is still 1 unit. Adding a + or a – sign does not make its unit size different. It’s the same with sin and grace. The true value of the act is often invisible in the act itself. The spiritual value is determined by the sign I place in front of that act in the secret parts of my life. A look can be lust or appreciation. A gift can be grace or gain. Only God and I know if it’s on the + or the – side. And God is never fooled even when I fool myself.
The second property is that the system of whole numbers is closed with respect to addition. That means that the sum of any two whole numbers is always a whole number. Sin is also a closed system. On the microcosm scale, any action that involves sin always produces more sin. Two wrongs never make a right. Even more importantly, on the macrocosm scale, no action or process within the closed sin system will ever or can ever reach beyond the limits of sin. Scripture proclaims this truth by saying that Man can never find his way to God. Left on our own, the end product of every effort we take will always be sinful. There is no way out. God hates sin. God will judge sin. We are sinful. And (here is the killer) there is nothing we can do about it! Christianity is not about our search for God. It is about God’s search for us. We live in a closed system. Only God can penetrate the sin barrier to give us access to His openness.
Finally, there is the very peculiar number zero. In mathematics, zero is not nothing. It is a number. It has a place on the number line. But it behaves in very strange ways. For example, anything divided by zero is always zero. So, 4 divided by 0 = 0 and 4,444,444 divided by 0 = 0. Similarly, anything multiplied by zero is zero. Zero added to or subtracted from anything never increases or decreases the sum. Then there is the most peculiar fact of all. Zero cannot be divided. That doesn’t mean that it just is impossibly difficult, like finding the decimal value of p. It means that dividing zero by anything is not only impossible, it does not even make sense. Zero divided by anything is nonsense. Isn’t this the final character of sin. It just doesn’t make sense. It is moral and spiritual insanity. How else would you describe behaviors that deliberately and permanently separate you from the only source of Life? This zero insanity of sin tells us something very important. First it tells us that we are literally in a life and death struggle. Secondly, it says that whenever we try to find the “reason” for our sins, we are probably looking for excuses since there can never be a rationale for sinning. And thirdly, it shows us how diseased our very thinking is when it is full of sin. We would never even consider the possibility that all of humanity is insane. But that is precisely the message of the Bible. Without God, we are the mental patients in a terminal disease ward, speedily heading for Death while we pretend that we are life saving physicians. No wonder the Gospel seems so backwards. Thank God, it isn’t human!
Sinful mathematics can only help us learn if God gives us a new way of being. When I nearly failed in those math classes, it was not because I was unable to learn. It was because I could not think mathematically on my own. I needed lots of help from someone who knew the truth. Today I still do. But today I need lots of help from the One who really knows my true condition, my true disease and my true consequences. He is willing to teach me if I am willing to learn. And He guarantees that I will pass.
