Exploding the Sin Scale

The latest weekly installment on John Calvin. The close observer may note that it's posted at a decent hour of the day and two whole days before my prof sees it. I seem to have caught up on short-term projects and can devote some time to the long-term projects... Oh, balance you elude me.

Two years ago we experienced a fire that completely consumed my personal library. Over three thousand volumes perished in the blaze and ever since I’ve been carefully re-building my ‘precious,’ taking careful note of the recommendations of friends and professors. Each volume on the shelf, from the weighty tomes to the small handbooks represents not only the treasure of its content, but also the story of its acquisition. Every time I devote financial resources for the sake of literary expansion, I consider the loss of one well worth the gain of the other.

One of my most recent acquisitions occupies a place of honor on the reference section of my bookshelf. It even has an impressive title; it’s the ‘Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament based on Semantic Domains’. I can be a bit of a snob about my books and I began my quest for this particular gem looking for a new copy. I found one online for the low, low bargain price of 480.00. Choking and spitting, I laid my snobbery aside and began perusing the used copies from various resellers. Descending from three hundred into the two hundreds I began to despair of finding an affordable copy of this must-have resource. Digging deep, I finally found a copy for sixty bucks, shipping included! In my mind, I saved a bundle of money, got the book and preserved a happy marriage.

Everyone uses comparisons to judge the value or cost of economic items. We compare every item we consider purchasing against an internal scale of value, often set by an ‘anchor,’ which can be quite arbitrary. In the case of my dictionary purchase, the new price set the anchor by which to compare other copies. Choosing one thing over another, we decide that possessing it brings us greater utility (value) than retaining the money we use to buy it. Billions of times every day, purchases and trades occur according to that internal value scale.

Comparing the cost of my book to other prices convinced my internal value scale that I had found a bargain, but the scale doesn’t only work for economic costs. We determine the cost of moral behavior in much the same way. As we compare ourselves to others around us, we pleasantly evaluate our good behaviors and decry our weaknesses, the few that we actually find. We even use the Ten Commandments as a set of moral guidelines by which we measure our success or failure. Reading “you shall not murder” leads us to a positive evaluation of our character. This positive evaluation assumes, of course, that we have not taken the life of another human being. John Calvin points out that the negative command also assumes a positive character; and the degree of the command extends in proportion to the prohibition. Wordy, I know, but the meaning is this: If I must not kill, then I must do my utmost to promote life. This expansion of the value scale places comparatively minor sins on the losing side of the equation. Calvin says this:

"In considering vices we are often deceived because we reduce their importance if they are a a little bit hidden; so the Lord draws us back from this deception and accustoms us to putting each fault under a category by which we can better understand how we ought to loath it."

The question for us all is not, “Have I killed anyone today?” nor is it “Have I hated anyone?” These may not be exactly equal, but they exist on the same side of the value scale: the bad side. The real question is, “have I done my utmost to love my fellow man today?” Against this standard, we deeply feel our need for God’s grace and enablement to fulfill the absolute opposite of killing, namely, love our fellow man or woman so much that we do all we can to promote life.