YouTube: Breaking the Sin Connection
The Jews of Jesus’ day saw a strong connection between disease and sin. The best example of this belief is when a young man, blind from birth, was brought to Jesus with the question, Who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind? We notice they did not inquire about his belief regarding the connection of the boy’s condition to sin. They made the assumption, and they wanted Jesus to name the guilty party. Jesus, of course, dismissed their question and took steps to bring about the healing.
On several occasions, before he spoke a healing statement, Jesus would tell the person that their sins were forgiven. I do not believe he was asserting special power over sin. He was breaking the sin connection, erasing the lifelong belief that their problem resulted from an offense against God.
I have pointed out that much of what we consider sin, our legal system would call a process crime, a crime, not against a person, but against the legal system itself. None of the so-called seven deadly sins—pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth—are actually illegal. They are considered sins against God, but they are really only sins against the religious system. Jesus made clear in his prodigal son parable that the Father does not take into account the sins of his son.
Jesus was a spiritual educator. His conscious connection with God gave him direct insight into what was true of God. When he said, for example, that you are judged by how you judge, he was saying that if you believe you sinned against God, then the first malady that pops up will prove you correct. If you live as if your sins are forgiven, or, better still, not even acknowledged by God, then you will relieve yourself of the associated anxiety.
It is good for each of us to see if we have some kind of sin connection going on. Do we associate negative conditions with negative thoughts or other shortcomings on our part? If so, let’s make sure we get God out of that formula. God is that consistent one presence and one power that we call upon to restore order where chaos may have erupted. Nothing we say our do changes God’s changeless behavior. In other words, our sins are forgiven.