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9. Sin and Justification
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103 When we “tend to the word,” we butt up against the previously cited formula: “[Jesus] was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:25). Because both come from a context that no longer seems to speak to us today, the words sin and righteousness have become foreign to us. We need not be intimidated by this. If we do not avoid this lost language but rather come closer to it, then we can see that the executed one is by no means detached from our time. If it is true that Jesus Christ suffered and died on the cross for the sake of our sins, and further that he overcame and abolished our sins in his resurrection, then the opposite conclusion can be drawn. What precisely constitutes “sin” is everything that caused his suffering, that led to his crucifixion , and that ultimately would be settled on Easter through his legitimacy and validity. This is a fundamental assertion. It deals with the concept 9 Sin and Justification Cross and Resurrection 104 of sin rather than with a precise definition.1 The word sin is as little amenable to definition as the word life. Rather, sin becomes recognizable when we collide with the cross and the settlement of accounts in the resurrection. More precisely, the cross and the resurrection clearly reveal that we are embroiled in and are killed by sin. What comes to light is that we are inescapably implicated in everything entailed by the conditions of production and power, powerlessness and weakness , brutal indifference and indifferent brutality. As we have seen, we dispossess ourselves from top to bottom and thus get robbed of our own doing and leaving be—and our own selves. We nevertheless seek to wriggle free of ourselves in terms of individual feelings, strive for self-fulfillment, and seek an individual path, which is the last bastion of actual certainty (and in this way isolate ourselves in an ultimate loneliness). So we live in between a tree and its bark, and we find ourselves, as Werner Elert once said, “in a cage in which we were placed without being asked.”2 If for some time we have not belonged to ourselves, then we must still account for our omissions and commissions; that is, as always, we must still take responsibility for ourselves. So “sin” means that as both an innocent and guilty person, I am simultaneously trapped in destructive relationships and thus completely avoid myself both as an I and a me. I am simultaneously a plaything of the powers and responsible for myself. I am an indifferent, abstract, statistical measurement , though at the same time a beating heart. [44.192.16.116] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 08:24 GMT) Sin and Justification 105 We should clarify that the Bible invariably sees us as sinners, and though it is unacceptable from the moral perspective, it is appropriate to regard both the Stasi-thugs and their victims in a common downfall and distress. As always, who could ever not be caught up in sin, and who could claim in self-defense that they were without guilt before God? However, “sin” shows itself to be much more than guilt or trespass . Certainly it is also that, but more than anything it is burden, power, fate. Our misfortune is that in our creaturely humanity we are wounded, distorted, bent, and, certainly, regulated by sin. But for all that, even as it comforts and makes us free, the harsh sounding “no” of the cross, presented by Jo Schöpfer's “Untitled” (see chapter 4 above), repels and even alienates. Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, everything is at an end and no longer has a say. As Hans-Stephan Haas once so beautifully put it, as a “saved person,” I “will be distinguished from my sins” by virtue of Golgotha and Easter.3 In the cross and resurrection, I am promised a condition of powerless freedom that runs counter to power; in the face of a brutal and indifferent scenario that treats me as completely irrelevant, I have unalterable value. Again, diving into the cross and resurrection admits us into everything that the content of the power of an already accomplished event makes it possible for us to experience. We must look through the lens of God’s confirmation of the way and work of Jesus Christ in the resurrection, and we must look through it at our situation, where we...