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BP 206

“Sin is more relational than behavioral,” writes Matt Smethurst in his book, Before You Share Your Faith.

He also quotes Psalm 51:3-4 to support a second assertion that sin is more vertical than horizontal:

“For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
⁴ Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight” Psalm 51:3,4

In this post, we will focus on Smethurst’s first point, namely, that sin is not as behavioral as it is relational. We don’t sin in a vacuum apart from relationship, but we sin in the context of relationship. Our sin is always against someone, whether that be God, others, or self.

Designer Therapy for Life has asserted in previous posts that when a trinitarian God is the source of everything that exists, this universe will most certainly be relationship driven. We see evidence of this truth all over scripture, but maybe most amazingly in the statement that “God is love” (1 John 4:8,16).

The triune God of the Bible is certainly sovereign and all powerful, but these traits might not be as primary for Yahweh, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit as they are for the divine being posited in Islam since Allah is not a trinity but a monad, existing alone for all eternity. Where there is not a trinity of divine beings but only one divine person, it would not be natural for God to be most known for love. Relationship might even be seen as unnatural for a God who has existed forever—alone.

But for the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, loving relationship is at the very core of their being among themselves and among their creation, humanity. God is love and so love motivated the Father to send His Son in the power of the Spirit to reconcile men and women to Himself so we could be in close relationship with Him. Yes, the Christian faith is relationship driven.

As humans, we are at our best not when we cultivate power, control, achievement, and wealth. Rather, we are at our best when we intentionally practice relationships that are intimate and loving. We are at our worst when relationships are distant, fractured, hampered by selfishness, and when we are pursuing idols apart from relationships.

As a reminder, loving relationship in the universe occurs in three domains: with God, with others, and with oneself. Mental illnesses, like the consequences of sin, arise when there is a disturbance in relationship in any of these three domains.

A second important reminder is that the three relational domains are all interconnected—like the divine trinity. (A few things in this binary universe can be explained in threes). So, if there is trouble and unhealth in one relational domain, all three domains will suffer–and mental health will be compromised. In fact, the symptoms of mental illness are signposts that point to unhealth (separation due to sin, hiding, fear, aloneness, shame, etc.) between you and God, you and others, you and your own self.

Let’s take a moment to consider a real-life example of how relational disruptions and subsequent mental illness impact all three domains as a consequence of sin—sometimes someone else’s sin and sometimes our own sin. The following example supports Smethurst’s statement that “sin is more relational than behavioral” and also the belief advanced by DTFL that mental illness is more relational than it is physical or psychological.

Remember, it’s all about relationship.

Sarah grew up with a narcissistic father (here we see the horizontal domain) who rewarded her every time she valued his awesomeness properly but punished her with rage and cold abandonment whenever she wounded or offended his fragile ego. Even if she disagreed with him, she was rejected for assaulting his weak self. The only options available to her were to agree with her emotionally young dad or to fawningly shut up and keep her opinions to herself.

When he felt valued by Sarah, he valued her. When he felt devalued by her, he devalued her.

Projecting her father’s self-centered fragility onto God the Father, Sarah struggled with the practice of giving God glory in the vertical domain. She saw God the Father through the lens of her experience with her earthly father as a needy personality who would punish her if she did not stroke His ego perfectly or glorify Him appropriately with exacting obedience. She also believed on the subconscious level that she could never speak honestly to God or express any emotions like sadness or anger because her heavenly Father—similar to her earthly father–would personalize her honest expressions as attacks on His character.

In short, she viewed God as a narcissistic personality—greedy to be valued and wrathful if not valued properly.

In the intrapersonal relational domain (where Sarah sees and relates to her own self in her soul), Sarah grew up viewing herself as bad and unlovable due to the shaming ways her father reacted to her when she did not worship him correctly by obeying his demands for glorification (He wanted his daughter to make his easily wounded self feel safe and valued instead of choosing to do the difficult journey of his own personal growth).

Sarah also became over scrupulous in how she navigated her relationship with other people and with God. She demanded perfection from herself (just as her father demanded a narrow band of perfect behavior from her) not just in deed and words but also in her thought life. Yes, even her private thoughts came under severe scrutiny by herself and, in her belief, from God. God was always watching her and would react in wrath if He saw her undervalue Him.

Predictably, Sarah went on to develop anxiety in the form of obsessive-compulsive tendencies because she felt so bad (with the help of dad’s accusations and abandonment) about how she had wounded her father in the past. She also felt bad when she obsessed about future reprehensible sins that she would certainly perpetrate against her father and God.

She always felt bad or was anxious that she would do something bad. Badness was her identity.

Sarah was not aware of it, but her deepest badness was triggered by her anger toward her father. Some of her anger was at the level of frustration or annoyance. But beyond her immediate awareness, she also housed a deeply buried anger due to thousands of wounds from her impulsive and reactive father. This deeper anger was an intense rage—white hot and annihilating.

Just as her father had repeatedly annihilated her with his anger when he perceived that she had wounded him, Sarah now destroyed him with her rage in the privacy of her soul. She frequently dreamt about her father dying in a car accident and on one occasion even had a fleeting dream about poisoning his food. Beneath it all was her latent wrath for her father.

Sarah’s intense anger in reaction to her father’s sin against her now morphed into sin inside her own heart. In a way, Sarah had repeatedly broken the sixth of the ten commandments that says, “You shall not murder.”

Obviously, Sarah’s rage and her largely subconscious desire for her father’s demise (or murder) fueled her feelings of badness and shame. She did not feel bad just because her dad sinned against her with accusations of being hurtful, selfish, stupid, and wildly insensitive to him. Now she was also bad for her own sin of murder in her subconscious mind. True of OCD, Sarah had to undo her sin by engaging in various compulsive behaviors like hand washing, cleaning the house, and even memorizing scripture to quiet her obsessions about her badness and shame.

Did Sarah have other obsession (unwanted thoughts) besides the subconscious ones about her father’s death? Yes. Her largely buried rage toward her father and subsequent feelings of badness also manifested in obsessions about not being a Christian and through a rather exotic fear that she would seduce every man she met. Plain and simple, she was a bad person.

Okay, what are some observations we can extract from Sarah’s story?

+ Sin is more relational and less behavioral. What sin do any of us commit that is not against God, other people, or our own self? Sin is always relational, whether it is rebellion against God, harming other people, or hating our own self and doing things that will harm us. Sin is about disobedience against and running from God, taking from and harming others, hating and hiding ourselves.

+ Yes, some problems in this world are not obviously relational like your body being afflicted by cancer and suffering from inherited, genetic health conditions. However, do remember that even the physical deterioration of our bodies (2 Corinthians 4:14-16) is a result of the separation between us and God due to the sin of rebellion. Dying and death entered the world after the Great Rebellion in the Garden. Even the decaying of our bodies is due to a break in our relationship with God.

+ Like sin, mental illness is more relational than physical or psychological as witnessed in the life of Sarah. We were created for healthy, loving relationships with God, other people, and our own selves. Any disturbances in these three relational domains will likely result in symptoms of mental illness like depression, anxiety, OCD, bipolar, eating disorders, and certainly personality disorders.

+ Sarah was enraged with her father, but she also was angry with God the Father. For one thing, her resistance to authority was prewired in her due to her innate spirit of rebellion and self-sufficiency present in her at birth. We all have an attitude in us that “I’m the boss of me.” Even nice people who are people pleasers are pleasing people on the outside but inside they are angry at having to submit to others. None of us innately loves authority especially if it puts limits on our desires or points to our deficiencies. For another thing, Sarah was also enraged with God because He did not protect her from her father which felt like betrayal and a lack of love. He also asked for her obedience to Him just as her narcissistic earthly father made her obey him and his fragile needs.

There is so much more that could be said here about setting healthy boundaries and distinguishing hurt from harm, and forgiveness not being the same as trust. Those critical topics are addressed in other posts.

In conclusion, sin and mental illnesses mostly (always?) occur in a relational context. Why is this truth even important?

In this particular post, the application is that you won’t find the satisfaction of your deepest hunger outside of relationships. You have been made in the image of a relational, loving God who pursued relationship with Adam and Eve even when they hid from Him in the Garden.

So you, like Him, are a relational being who runs on love, faithfulness, closeness, and the pursuit of relationship.

Therefore, seek The Trinity before all others (Matthew 6:33) and love Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. You were created for intimacy with God. Without this intimacy, you will be alone in the universe. You will suffer mental illness and sinful affections that point to your lack of God’s loving presence in your life.

Know that I’m not saying that mental illness is a punishment visited on a few people who have sinned more than others. No. What I am saying is that mental illness is a sign pointing to disturbances in relationship in all three domains—vertical, horizontal, and intrapersonal.

If you are struggling with relationships for any reason or practicing relational sin, get on your horse and ride. Move toward God, others, and yourself, not against others or away from others and your own self. Look inside and identify your part in the breakdown of relationships such as hidden resentment, jealousy, rage, hatred, rebellion, or a fear of getting hurt, of rejection, of abandonment.

Don’t settle for sin that is always relational. Don’t live with symptoms of mental illness that God may lovingly allow in your life to point to a breakdown in all three relational domains. He doesn’t want you to remain in your default position—alone. He wants you to be in loving relationships with Him, others, and your own self.

Separation is the glee of Satan. Healthy “withness” is authored by the relational triune God whose name is Immanuel, God with us.

So, run toward.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” ~ John 13:34-35.