Issue link: http://denverseminary.uberflip.com/i/1056515
15 Saved From Sin Ben R. Crenshaw, MA Marketing and Communications Coordinator I n 1949 C. S. Lewis penned a seminal essay, "e Humanitarian eory of Punishment," in which he examined various theories of punishment. According to Lewis, theories that reject retribution in favor of curing the guilty or deterring the delinquent are undergirded by an anthropology that believes humans are merely ill and in need of rehabilitation, not sinful and in need of saving. In contrast to this flawed anthropology, the Gospels present a starker, but ultimately more refreshing, picture. In Matthew 1:21, the angel could have said any number of things about the implications of Jesus' name, which in Hebrew means "Yahweh saves." e angel could have pronounced that Jesus would save His people from foreign oppressors, natural disaster, national decline, or pestilences and pathologies. Instead he highlighted the one flaw we each possess: sin. Jesus died for our sins to save us from the penalty of sin: death (Rom. 5:12; 6:23; James 1:15). By doing so, He also conquered despotism, disease, disaster, decline, and decay. Sin was at the root of the corruption of God's creation, so God's rescue plan targeted sin. Once that problem was dealt with, new creation could ripple out across the cosmos. Our world has little interest or patience for sin. By rejecting the sinfulness of humankind, we have pronounced the death of Jesus absurd. If our problem is mere sickness or disease, then Jesus dying on our behalf is not only incomprehensible but unjust. What kind of bloodthirsty God would demand the death of His Son for human pathologies when other remedies are available? Repulsed by such a thought, we reach for medicine, technology, economic policy, and education to cure ourselves and achieve cosmic justice. is is all the god of Moralistic erapeutic Deism has to offer. Still, we know this approach is insufficient: we stagger under the weight of a fallen and decaying world, we wrestle with our flaws and frightening capacity for evil, and we grieve and become incensed by the injustices in our society. We are flummoxed by death, and without the gospel we would despair. If the human condition is marred by a sinfulness unto death that resists all efforts of self-resuscitation, we need a dying Savior. Only in this case does the coming of Jesus make sense. is Christmas let us celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the One who came to save His people from their sins, and through that, the world. "SHE WILL GIVE BIRTH TO A SON, AND YOU ARE TO GIVE HIM THE NAME JESUS, BECAUSE HE WILL SAVE HIS PEOPLE FROM THEIR SINS." - MATTHEW 1:21 10 December