Simul iustus et peccator

Written by Rev. Nicholas Davelaar
Published in the Courier of Russellville, Arkansas

Do you still sin?

A friend of mine once told me about a Christian co-worker who claimed not to have sinned for the past seven years or so. Not once. Needless to say, as they talked, it became clear to my friend that his co-worker had a very narrow definition of sin. Nothing like, for instance, Jesus’ rigorous understanding displayed in Matthew 5-7.

Do you still sin?

As one pastor has observed, there are two kinds of people in the world, but those two kinds are different from what he had long supposed. He came to understand that the two kinds of people in the world were not good people and bad people, but rather bad people who know it and bad people who don’t know it.

In the same vein, the Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once wished it was possible to divide the world into good people and bad people. In his famous Gulag Archipelago, he lamented, “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

Think about that. “The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.” That’s not Scripture, but it’s closer to Scripture than a lot of what passes for Christianity.

Do you still sin?

Yes?

Allow me then to share with you an old Latin phrase. Latin can be scary, but this phrase is absolutely beautiful because it summarizes what the Bible says about a person who trusts in Jesus Christ for forgiveness.

As Martin Luther (1483-1546) famously declared, each person who trusts in Jesus Christ for forgiveness is simul iustus et peccator. Translated, that means “at the same time righteous and a sinner.”

That conclusion arose especially out of Luther’s study of the book of Romans. Romans doesn’t avoid acknowledging the reality and depth of our sinful nature. In fact, it bluntly tells us who we are. Yet, again and again it also tells us how and why we are reconciled to God. It tells us how and why we, though sinful, may stand declared righteous before God.

Simply put, the way of reconciliation is not by cleaning up our act in one way or another, but instead by trusting in Jesus Christ, whom God the Father graciously sent to die on the cross and rise from the dead to reconcile condemned sinners to himself. Indeed, Romans 8:1 marvelously declares, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

To borrow the dying words of John Newton, the famous writer of the hymn “Amazing Grace,” the long and short of the gospel is that we are great sinners, but Christ is a great Savior. In him, on account of his death and resurrection, each one of us who trusts in him stands declared righteous before God, though still a sinner.

Does that mean we need not strive against sin? Not at all. But the unmistakable call of the gospel is to receive and rest in Jesus Christ, as opposed to putting our confidence in our striving (or being crestfallen by our lack thereof).

Think about that.

For further study, read Romans 3:21-26.