The Roots of Sin

Today’s topic is going to be a bit off-putting to a lot of people. It’s an uncomfortable thing to talk about outside of church for a lot of us, and believe me, I get it. I had a pretty bleak view of sin for a long time. Growing up in a conservative, legalistic small-town church, I developed a view of God as a mean old man with a big stick, just waiting for me to stick a toe out of line so he could whack it. I stuck out more than toes.

But over time, thank God, I learned better. I learned to appreciate the overwhelming grace and freedom that God really represents, even if it was a rocky road for me to learn my mistake. Which is why I want to write something for those of you who may be going through something similar, discussing the nature of sin, but also how we relate to it. It’s not as bad as you’re probably thinking.

So let’s get right into it!

Evil actions and behaviors do not spring fully formed into our hearts. People do good for its own sake, but no one does evil for its own sake. They rationalize it, because they want to get something out of it, or avoid something unpleasant. And yet in Matthew 15, Jesus plainly says that sin proceeds from the hearts of men, and this, not the laws of men, is what defiles him. As early as Genesis 8, God announces that “the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” And yet this does not appear to be a fundamental, unalterable state. Not fundamental, because man was made “very good,” and because the New Testament consistently describes sin as a kind of foreign invasion. The thorns that choke and strangle, or as Paul put it, a thing that lives in us, but is not of us. In the Mirror Bible, Francois du Toit, PhD, gives the phrase “distorted identity” as his interpretation of one of the most common original Greek words for sin. Even though it is not a literal translation, I love the completeness this evokes. A distorted identity cannot be an original identity.

We can also be assured that it is not unalterable, because of the promise of renewal that we have through Jesus. But even without going that far, logic tells us the same. If it were unalterable, then there would be no reason to guard the heart above all else, as Solomon urges. No reason to do much of anything, really.

This, then, is very encouraging. Sin is ubiquitous in mankind, but not indigenous to him. And though we will never be wholly free of it in this life, we can prevent it from taking root.

These roots, then, are our first study: the avenues of sin, from the fallen world and our own fallen nature, into our hearts. 1 John 2 lays out three such avenues through which all temptation comes: lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life. They are the roots of sin in our hearts that we must seek to tear out, painful though it may be.

• Lust of the Flesh — Glorifies emotions and sensations. Approximate to hedonism. Associated with the body. Produces harmful actions, self-gratification, and hopelessness.
• Lust of the Eyes — Glorifies worldly things. Approximate to materialism. Associated with the mind. Produces envy, rejection, and worry.
• Pride of Life — Glorifies the self. Approximate to narcissism.  Associated with the spirit. Produces selfishness, judgement, and manipulation.

Lust of the Flesh

Each of our three roots deals with elevating some particular aspect of the self to the center of our lives, where only God ought to be. Lust of the flesh deals with the elevation of physical pleasures: food, drink, leisure, and sex are all obvious examples of this sort of temptation. But it may include the temptation for the immediate gratification of positive emotions as well as sensations. A lust for praise, or affection, or social approval. That may seem strange, since these are all fundamentally positive things so far as they go… but then, so are food and drink and sex.

The greatest predictor of future success in children that psychology has yet discovered is the capacity for delayed gratification. Children who are willing to delay pleasures for the sake of greater reward in the long-run are overwhelmingly more likely to be successful, not just in their careers, but in their relationships and their lives as a whole. In contrast, the lust of the flesh is a characteristically animal temptation. Notice that all of the desires listed above are observable in the creatures we keep as pets—which will not always be the case in the two sin-roots to come.

Of all three roots, lust of the flesh is most strongly associated with our pain/pleasure programming, and with our physical bodies. As human beings, we possess an animal aspect, but it is meant to be subjugated to our higher spiritual nature. In failing to do this, we cannot help but fall far short of the intelligent, successful beings we are meant to become. The end result of this root is something approximating the practice of hedonism, and its natural fruits are harmful actions, self-gratification, and hopelessness. On average, men tend to be more susceptible than women to the lust of the flesh.

Lust of the Eyes

While lust of the flesh elevates experiential desires of the flesh itself, lust of the eyes elevates desire for the things of the world: possessions, power, status, and the allure of beauty. Fundamentally, lust of the eyes aligns with something approximating materialism, and a wrong belief that we can satisfy ourselves on the appeals of this world. While it can appear similar to lust of the flesh (or even pride of life) on the surface, the essence of this root is a sin of the mind, more than the body, attempting to attain sufficiency apart from God through orientation of worldly circumstances. This is noteworthy due to the rise of intellectualism in the modern world. Even among spiritual communities, the popular belief (whether conscious or not) is that we are our minds, that our conscious thoughts are the truest expression of our identities. Scripture rejects this notion, citing that sin, along with all the issues of life, proceed from the heart, which is far more comparable to what modern science calls the unconscious mind. Consequently, it is not our thoughts, but our beliefs, both conscious and unconscious, which define us.

Lust of the eyes can be easy to dismiss in our lives because we fail to see the extent of what it really entails. You hear the word “materialism” and likely think of greedy corporate executives, spoiled rich kids, or Ebenezer Scrooge. But lust of the eyes is not the elevation of excessive worldly things, but the elevation of ANY worldly things above God. Remember that Jesus instructs us not to worry about material things, what we will eat or drink or wear, because the kingdom of heaven is so infinitely more important. And how can you fully serve God if you are more concerned about being validated by the people around you, or being perceived as successful? A hard pill to swallow, but I see no way around it. The fruits of lust of the eyes are envy, rejection, and worry. On average, women tend to be more susceptible than men to lust of the eyes.

Pride of Life

C.S. Lewis called pride, “the complete anti-God state of mind.” Where lust of the flesh places pleasure over God at the center of one’s life, and lust of the eyes does the same with worldly things, pride of life places yourself at the center, as self-sufficient and (at least in your own life) above God.

Pride of life probably causes the most widespread damage in a person’s life out of any of the three. Consider that even if you do not believe in God as the alternative, placing yourself in the position of “god” is the death of morality, because all morality is based on the idea that there is a standard of good which is separate from us, and independent of us. If the highest good is your own, then anything is justifiable.

It is also the hungriest of the three roots. For example, lust of the flesh might tempt you to tell a lie in order to sleep with someone or to gain the positive feelings of praise from a social group, and lust of the eyes might do it out of envy for another’s position or the desire to gain a greater level of wealth. But pride of life will do it even when there is nothing to be gained, simply to satisfy a sense of self-worship that can never be satisfied. In modern terms, we would call this narcissism—a good approximation, but as usual, scripture’s antidote is more powerful, and more radical than modern solutions might suggest.

That is, total surrender, total sacrifice of self, to the glory of the living God. Of course, this is a massive and nuanced topic which we do not have time to fully address here. But suffice to say that it is not what you might expect from the word “sacrifice.” It is not a life of grueling asceticism and self-flagellation. What is sacrificed IS what would have caused such a thing, and what is given in return is many times greater. Pride of life is most associated with the spirit compared to the other two roots. Its primary fruits are selfishness, judgement, and manipulation.

Another interesting point from C.S. Lewis, he once wrote that he had known people to confess to having temper problems, or to not being able to keep their heads about alcohol or women, but that he had never known anyone who was not a Christian to confess to being prideful. From a philosophical standpoint, this is probably because absent the influence of some kind of God as the center of the universe, it seems perfectly natural to put yourself at the center, and so probably wouldn’t be seen as a vice, in your heart-of-hearts—even though most people of any faith or none at all would agree that it’s much better not to put yourself first. At the end of the day, that’s what it comes down to. What is at the center of your universe? And just as importantly: why?

Have a blessed, wonderful day!

Dr. Alex Loyd