Episode 137 - Return To Sender With Your Sin

Anger at evil is easy to mock until you are the one who has to carry the damage. We start with a simple, uncomfortable observation: our outrage is selective. Some crimes barely register when they feel distant, yet the same kind of wrong can break our hearts when it touches our own people. That inconsistency matters because it shapes how we talk about sin, justice, and the possibility of atonement.

From there we lean into a bold claim: righteous indignation is not automatically a moral failure. The living God is provoked by evil, and to feel a clean, heated concern for victims can be part of bearing God’s image. But we also need divine illumination, because we excuse what should horrify us, condemn what is good, and hide from our own wrongdoing. Real spiritual honesty begins when we ask to be shown what we have learned to overlook.

The centrepiece is the biblical word “paqad” a visitation where the lights are switched on, the books are opened, and the true cost of sin is finally faced. We connect that to restorative justice, including offenders meeting victims, and to Scripture’s hard language about God “visiting” iniquity. We also look at Romans 13 and the role of civic authority in making wrongdoing carry consequences, set against a culture drifting into the shrug of “whatever”.

If you want a deeper, Christ-centred account of justice that holds together victim care, accountability, and the hope of redemption, press play, then subscribe, share, and leave a review, what part of this challenged you most?

The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore

Transcript

Welcome And Atonement Series

Rev Dr PRB 0:30

Well, welcome to the next episode of the Christ-centered cosmic civilization as we continue to explore atonement. Well, the way we react to and feel about crimes varies a great deal according to our own experience and proximity. We may listen to the news reports of different crimes and we may feel only a mild reaction. Yet when we are caught up in those crimes for ourselves, we may react with hot tears and righteous anger. In our hard heartedness, we may feel little about reports of evil in faraway places or in communities that we feel no connection to. Yet when the people we know personally, people we love, when they are the victims, we may be overwhelmed with passionate care, furious against the merciless and wicked scum who could do such things. And in modern Britain, this problem about what crimes and sins provoke outrage and what don't register even has become a huge problem because crimes committed against some people were ignored for a long time and abuse in institutions ignored for a long time because the people the people who were victims of it were basically not considered important to the people who had institutional power. But then at other times that those people with institutional power find causes and crimes and injustices around the world or whatever, and they they get very upset about those things and expect everyone else to. Even though all of these things are terrible evils, perhaps. So but let's think about those occasions when we do feel like the heat of righteous indignation burns within us, and we even cry with the anger and upset and heartbrokenness about terrible evils that are committed. When we feel like that. Oh, and and again, the notion that sometimes people say that kind of feeling is is a bad thing. We will examine that more, that uh people who talk like that are generally that there's a problem in them because they we'll see the living God uh feels righteous indignation about evil. So it's it's it's to be in the image of God to feel such things. And if a person has come to a point where they are are so dispassionate about these things for whatever reasons that they've lost a lot of their humanity. So when we feel though, this right burning anger and heartbrokenness, we then we would like to visit, we're going back, remember that word Packard, the the idea of the visitation, the confrontation with evil and sin and the sinners. So when we feel like that, we would like to visit the criminals with all the forces of law and order to make sure that they are confronted, held to account, and charged. We know that is necessary and that there's no until that is done, hardly anything. You know, there's a there's in the Bible, we've talked about this in the podcast, like righteousness has these three components. There is a component, the first component is to care for the victims, the second of evil, the second component is to see is it possible to redeem the criminal, the sinner? But then the third component is this idea of justice, vengeance, punishment, and so on. All these are three necessary components of righteousness in the Bible. So when we encounter terrible evil that stirs us and that we appreciate the horror of it and it impacts us viscerally, we want to make sure that the damage caused by the criminals is not borne by the victims alone. So that the huge damage is caused, and that initially all of that rests upon the victims alone, and then what is wanted to do is to first of all try and alleviate that simply by caring for the victim, so that some of the the weight of that is doesn't rest entirely on them alone. But we also wish to have set so that the the that weight of damage and pain is transferred back onto the person who originated it. You know, send return to sender, return to sender with this trouble. Like it in Thessalonians, where the w in the word of God says, God will pay back trouble to those who trouble you. The idea being that the trouble they are causing to the church will be returned to sender on the on the day of God, on the day of Jesus' appearance and so on. So we want the victims of crime and sin and evil to know that the criminals, the sinners, have been made to bear the cost of their crimes. That there's yeah, now with such a passionate care for the victims, equipped with the power and authority to do something about it, such a visitation upon the criminals. So there's all sorts of you know, some there's the difficulty of finding out who the criminals are, who who uh is there evidence to to be certain about that? All of these are the issues, these are difficult things for human beings, because we we don't we sometimes well mostly pe criminals and sinners, we all do it, we hide our sin. And to have a full and frank confession of sin is is unusual. Like right from Adam and Eve, there's an attempt to evade and hide and cover up in the wrong way. So we want to visit them, visit the criminals, to find out who they are, and then to bring it out into the open, and then to visit so that the crimes are counted, known, addressed, condemned, and then also that as in some measure there is a return to sender that the criminal is has to bear the c what they have done rather than it being left entirely upon the victim. So that I mean there's so many things we want to explore about this, but let I'm trying to contain it in a manageable way. But the the righteous, passionate, heated concern for justice that we feel about those crimes that that that touch us or speak to us, all of that is a dim reflection of that hot righteousness that drives the Father, Son, and Spirit who are provoked. That's a biblical word, our sins provoke the living God. So the Father, Son, Spirit are provoked by our evil, even the evils that we care nothing about, nothing at all. So that's why there is also that element in the Bible where there's a desire for the Lord to show us our own sin. Because there's things within us we want to know if there is any wicked way in us, because we are very aware that there are some things that we get indignant about, and there are other things that we overlook, and there's even things that are actually evil that we think are good, and good things we think are evil. So, and and that requires a divine illumination. It's a we need the great the gracious mercy of God to even let us be aware of of what it is that provokes him so much within us that we do. So, going back to this Hebrew word, Pacad, visitation, confrontation, focus. Packad is when the lights are switched on and all is revealed and judged. It's when the Lord God pays attention to the way we have lived, it's when the books are open, when we're inspected, audited by the one with whom we have to do. Packad is when the living God, hot with anger and passionate with love for the victims of our evil, it's when that living God comes knocking on the door in this particular way. It's when the righteous judge, against whom all our wrongs have ultimately been committed, brings the reality of that, even brings the damage we have caused down on our own heads. When we hurt others and violate the character of the living God, it may seem that there is no real cost to what we have done. We don't always see the pain and hurt and damage that our actions have caused, and we very rarely appreciate how painful our our our sins are to others. This is why it can be so important for criminals to meet their victims. In their own mind, they don't realize the genuine cost of what they've done. They minimize any cost they acknowledge. And sometimes they even make it sort of a joke. They mock the trouble they cause, they laugh about it. But when they come face to face with the people they have had, the people who've had to bear the terrible damage caused by their actions, that can be a profound event, particularly when the criminal is isolated from the wider criminal network and gang. I remember there was an associated press article by Dina Potter. This is like more than 15 years ago. I think it was in it was in 2015, I think. The whole issue of offenders meeting their victims was discussed. And I have this quotation from that article, and it says this, it can it can help offenders confront the human cost of what they've done, said Pat Nolan, vice president of prison fellowship, a national prison ministry. Most criminals depersonalize their crime, but meeting with the victim makes it real, he said. Many then work out ways to pay restitution or otherwise atone for the crime. So this idea of visitation, it's too simplistic to dismiss the need for packad, for confrontation, counting, charging, bearing the cost of sin. If there is to be genuine atonement, if there's to be true covering of the sin, reconciliation when criminal and victim may be at one, there has to be this PACAD. I want to take a moment to explore this idea of the Lord visiting sins and evil upon humanity, upon sinners. Even with that classic declaration of the divine name, we get it in Exodus, but I've just picked the Numbers 14, 18 example. The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion, yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. He visits, let's get it in the the end, the the ESV is helpful here. The Lord, yeah. He forgives iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation. So there is that notion of the weight of sin, the consequences of sin returning to the sender, returning to the sinner, and then that having a weight and consequence and causing devastation, not only to that person who did it, but their sin has this weight that spills onto their children and grandchildren and so on. That the sin has this ruination effect, and when it is returned, and when the person feels uh suffers the consequence of what they've done, the the the the even children and grandchildren feel the effects of their sin. We get it there. We get it in Deuteronomy 5, and it's in we're in the Ten Commandments. The the second commandment, you shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above above or on the earth beneath, or that's in the water under the earth. Do not but you shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children of third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands who love me. See, again, that the visitation of evil. But there's an interesting one that brings out this sense of being held personally accountable for sins and the sins coming to visit. It's when in Korah's rebellion and the Lord has said to Moses and Aaron, separate yourselves out, and let's have Korah and whoever's with him, that let them stand on their own by their tents. And then in Numbers 16, verse 28, Moses said, Hereby you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works, and that it has not been of my own accord. If these men die as all men die, or if they are visited by the fate of all mankind, then the Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord creates something new and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into Sheol, then you shall know that these men have despised the Lord. So there the idea is all men are visited by this fate. But if these men are visited by don't die of natural causes basically, are visited in a different way, that reveals something specific to what they have just done. So this theme of iniquities being visited, it's right there in that proclamation of the divine name. And it's a big, it's an important point about this visiting of iniquities or the return of them, the rebounding of them. So when let's think about when the Apostle Paul explains the role of the state in dealing with our crimes, he argues that it is vital for the state to make sure that criminals are confronted with the cost of their actions. And it's a it's that Romans 13 verses 3 to 5. Let's just listen carefully to it because again it helps us to appreciate how the Lord God views evil and why it has to be confronted and visited and punished. So Romans thirteen verses three to five, rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right, and he will commend you. For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore it's necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment, but also because of conscience. But notice there the phrase that the civic ruler is God's servant, and that is defined as an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. That is how they serve God by like having this showing wrath against them and bringing punishment upon them. So to show strong disapproval of wrongdoing and to punish it, to bring so that there are consequences. Pain is meted out in all variety of ways. There's all sorts of tools of punishment that the state can wield, but it's it part of it is to demonstrate wrath, to demonstrate disapproval, hatred, condemnation of evil. So the ominous phrase about the rulers bearing the sword is explained by the fact that the ruler is representing God Himself, an agent of wrath. To bring punishment on the wrongdoer. In a fallen and broken world, the damage of my crimes is not obvious to me. Why should I care what happens to other people? That kind of is some people say that the diagnostic moment for why modern societies are disintegrated and broken is simply the word whatever. So that if if the the kind of the shrug of the sh shoulders, whatever, I don't care, it's none of my business. That is the is the is the kind of putrefaction of modern society, the sense of I don't care. It's nothing to do with me. Why should I care what happens to other people? What is it to me of the harm done to society? So it's that way in which litter is an example. It's such a trivial thing at one sense. But if we if I remember the first time years ago when I was a little boy, seeing some people dropping litter in the street with no cur. And just being like quite shocked by that, because it's like that is ruining messing up society, a public space, and without any care. And of course, the littering in itself is a small thing, but it's reflective of an attitude of society to society at large, saying I don't care. I don't care about the consequences either of dropping this crisp packet, or if I make people's lives a misery by my sins against them, I don't care. I don't care. I'm only living for me. So it's that what is it to me of the harm done to society? What is out of my sight is out of my mind, all that attitude. And and and that whether that happens in in the very obvious, like civic order sense, but more seriously is this deeper sinfulness that goes on within us. So we might keep a very ordered and clean environment, but still the rotting uncleanness and horror of sin may be more present, you know, can be extremely present. But so that's what what that's what's going on with this. In Romans 13, Paul is explaining, and we get the same thing in Daniel and Revelation, and it's throughout the scriptures, and and the way that prophets will confront world leaders to a degree that their job is to make sure that a society has a sense of shame and horror and a sense of the badness of sin and crime and wrongdoing. Like of course, civic society cannot do that in the full sense because so many sins are go on within us and involve the worship of the living God and all kinds of things. But there's a way in which the Lord God has appointed civic rulers to maintain a certain level of indignation against evil and wrongdoing. So the living God appoints rulers in every nation, each giving the task of revealing the wrongness of crime and evil and sin, but also they have this task of revealing the cost of it, and then visiting that cost upon the wrongdoers. The ruler should ensure that the damage caused by my crimes falls on me, and that I experience the pain and damage that I have caused to others and to society. So I might say, Well, it doesn't, I don't care. What is it to me if I do wrong and others are hurt? And the state is appointed to say, well, it does matter, and we are here to make sure you feel the con the pain that you've you've tried to effectively drop that litter of your sin and you don't care about it, but we are here to pick that up and and put that crisp packet back in your pocket. You know, simp I'm speaking metaphorically here. You know, you've could you've committed a crime, you've tried to walk away from it, we are gonna pick that up and put it back upon you so that as much as possible, society doesn't have to bear the consequences, but you do. Like that. Now, especially when our thoughts, words, and deeds do not directly involve any other human being, we can easily begin to think that no harm is really done. You know, so if if it that if we're thinking about our imagination, the corruption, what are the things we imagine that are very sinful and evil, that the the lust, the envy, the anger that we fester within ourselves. Now, some of those things, that those festering thoughts will or may issue into action sooner or later, but it's easy to imagine that if we are containing it within ourselves, no harm is really done. That the hurt we have caused disappears into thinner, that there is nothing. It if we and and that's revealing because Genesis 6 reveals that it is we it was because of the continuous evil imagination of the human heart that the Lord God visited the flood upon the world and destroyed the whole world, other than eight people. So it was a set yes, there were many public and outward manifestations of this, but it it says it is that the imaginations of the human heart were only evil continually. And so the Lord says, no, cannot have that. And so what I'm trying to reach for here is that there are crimes and sins that are outward, and that we it is possible to see the consequences of them, and the the the human civic authorities can visit those back upon us, but that there are a whole nother kind of sins that are not so easily seen or quantified or measured, and those ones we can very easily care nothing about at all, but the living God, they can they uh they confront the living God who sees these things is very aware of our hidden sins and the mess that's inside us, and yet, you know, if we don't care very much about the damage we cause to our fellow human beings who are right in front of us, how little we care about the damage we cause to the living God who is unseen, who we think so little about, we may hardly think of him at all. So the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are violated by the vile acts of rebellion, thoughts, words, deeds, and greater damage, hurt, offence is caused than we ever think or imagine or dream. Pacad is when the Lord God visits us with all the damage we have caused, even these things that are hidden sins to all the rest of the people around us, but are in the face of the living God, and he brings that damage down upon our heads. That's the day of visitation. So in Amos, when they say, Oh, Amos says, Why are you looking forward to the day of the Lord as if the day of the Lord's gonna be a good thing? It's like it's you, you know, it's like you escape one problem and you're running into an even worse one because the day of God's visitation is when he visits you with all your sin, all your evil, all your shame, all your uncleanness. The living God will come and bring that upon you. And you why you're looking forward to that, that's madness. As it stands, Amos says, This visitation is gonna be awful for you. That's the day of darkness. You think it's a day of light, it's a day of darkness for you and destruction, the day of that visitation. So this visitation, confrontation, the divine visitation, where the sins, the iniquities are visited, and the day of his visitation, the day of his arrival, that's when the true cost of our sins and crimes is visited upon us. And so with this in mind, we're gonna have a look at some in we're gonna have a look at some incidents particular beginning with the book of Genesis, and then we'll move on from there.