Live 4 The LORD

The Three Ingredients to Every Sin

Adam and Eve began the history of human sin and that first sin shows us the three ingredients present in every sin you and I commit.

The first ingredient is pride. Adam and Eve wanted to be a big deal. They wanted to be like God. 

The second ingredient is worldliness. Worldliness means there is some created good, some good of this world, that you prefer to God. It could be something lofty and sophisticated, like the knowledge of good and evil. It could be something totally banal and sensual, like a bite of a tasty apple. But whatever it is, you would rather have that worldly good, than the infinite goodness of God.

The third ingredient is disobedient self-will. Where you say, “I know God has forbidden this. I know this goes against the providential ordering of things. But I don’t care. This is what I want and I’m going to do it.”

All sin is pride, worldliness, and disobedient self-will. If we are ever to be saved from our sins, what saves us must be able to overcome these three forces within us. And that’s part of why Jesus saves us the way He does.

Christ Redemptive Passion

Christ is the New Adam, the one who has come to save us from the destruction wrought by the first Adam. Look how He does it: by inverting all the motivators of sin.

The first source of all sin is pride. So look at Christ’s humility! Falsely accused, spat upon, sarcastically crowned with thorns, betrayed by his friends, triumphed over by His enemies, made to die naked and gasping for breath in public between two sinners.

The second source of all sin is worldliness. What earthly good does Christ cling to? Not friends or family or fame or physical comfort. He lives just long enough to see the crowds turn against Him, His little band of followers run away, His right-hand man betray Him, and before He dies He even gives His Mother away. He holds onto nothing, clings to nothing. 

And the third source of all sin is disobedient self-will. Before His Passion, Christ makes it clear that His entire sacrifice is directly opposed to disobedient self-will. Right before His Passion, as He sweats blood, He says, “Father, not my will, but yours be done.”

This is how sin is overcome, by counteracting pride, worldliness, and disobedient self-will. This is how we overcome sin too, in the sacrament of Confession.