Sin is separation from God
Sin is separation from God
The person who abides in God, God lives in his heart, and he lives in the heart of God. He is a person who does not waver from his spiritual path, and whose love for God does not waver…
He lives in fellowship with God, in communion with the Holy Spirit; he is steadfast in God, in His Church, in His commandments and teachings… As for the sinner, he has separated from God, because sin separates him from Him.
Sin is separation from God.
The person who abides in God lives in fellowship with God, as He promised us saying: “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.” But the one who lives in sin separates himself from God.
Sin is separation from God. For sin is the works of darkness, and God is light, and there is no fellowship between light and darkness.
The sinner is a person who has separated from God, from His commandments, and from His work; he has separated from the communion of the Holy Spirit, from the fellowship of the divine nature.
If God were sharing with him in the work, he would not have sinned.
If you live in righteousness, you live with God. And if you live in sin, you move away from Him. In the Scripture there are many examples of this:
When the prodigal son sinned, he separated from his father’s house to a far country, far from the father and from his fellowship.
When this son repented, he returned to his father, and the period of separation ended. Repentance, then, is a return to steadfastness in the Lord.
Sin is separation from God, on earth and in heaven also.
The Scripture says that the door was shut, and the foolish virgins stood outside; between those sinners and the Lord there was a closed door, separated from Him, and from the wise virgins also. Thus sinners are always cast outside, outside the kingdom, and outside the camp, into the outer darkness.
Sinners do not only separate from God, but also from His angels and His saints, as in the story of the rich man and Lazarus:
Our father Abraham said to the rich man: “Between us and you there is a great gulf.” None of you can cross over to us. Thus, although the rich man and Lazarus lived together on earth, they were separated in heaven. The rich man could not approach Lazarus, but “saw him afar off,” in regret…
This separation began from the first sin of Adam, when he separated from God, hiding behind the trees, then being driven out of paradise…
When Lot loved the well-watered land, he separated from righteous Abram. And when Demas loved this present world, he separated from Paul. Thus there became a permanent division between the righteous and the wicked, no mingling… “Remove the wicked person from among yourselves.” Therefore the Church used to separate sinners outside.
As for the righteous, they have fellowship with the Lord, on earth and in heaven…
The Lord did not say to the thief on the right, “Today you will be in Paradise,” but He said to him, “You will be with Me…” And as the Apostle Paul said, “We shall always be with the Lord.” And the Lord said, “Where I am, there you will be also.” Thus the kingdom is “God in the midst of His people.”
In the state of sin, a person separates from God in his heart, as he loses the former love and forfeits the confidence that was between him and God.
In sin, a person separates from the love of God. It is impossible for him to continue in His love while resisting God and challenging His commandments. Therefore the Lord Jesus Christ said to the angel of the church of Ephesus:
“I have this against you, that you have left your first love” (Rev. 2).
The sinner separates from the friendship of God, from His love, from boldness with Him, and from the former fellowship; he no longer walks with the Lord.
He does not share with God in work, nor does God share with him…
There becomes enmity between him and God; therefore the apostle—as an ambassador for Christ—calls out saying, “Be reconciled to God.”
In the state of sin, another love has entered the heart and taken the place of God. In sin, a person has loved the world, and “love of the world is enmity with God,” as the apostle said: “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”
Thus the phrase “Abide in Me” also means “Abide in My love.”
The branch that abides in the vine has the sap of the vine flowing in its veins, and the root of the vine and its nature; thus it bears the form of the vine, its nature and its fruits. It becomes one with the vine, according to its likeness and image…
The person who abides in the Lord does not sin and cannot sin, for he has acquired a new heart that loves the Lord…
Separation from the Lord by sin is called by the Scripture treachery:
For he has betrayed the former fellowship between him and God; he has betrayed love and broken the covenant, and joined the enemies of the Lord. He loves what God hates and what He forbids. He no longer welcomes the indwelling of God in him, but quenches the Spirit and grieves the Spirit…
For there is no middle way: either you are with God loving Him, or you are His enemy. There is no intermediate position… “He who does not gather with Me scatters.”
And in this the apostle says (1 John): “They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.” He disowns them completely with the phrase “they were not of us.”
This judgment is exactly like the Lord’s words to sinners: “Assuredly, I say to you, I never knew you,” and His words to the foolish virgins: “Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you.”
Either you are with God with all your heart, or you are a traitor with His enemies. Either you enter the ark with Noah, with righteousness and life, or you perish outside the ark with sinners. There is no middle solution…
Either you go out from Sodom and do not stand in all the plain, or you become a pillar of salt like Lot’s wife… You cannot combine God and the world, darkness and light, the love of God and the love of sin. Either this or that…
Where are you now? Determine your place and determine your destiny:
Do you live in love in the heart of God, or have you separated from Him? Is the Spirit of God working in you, or are you knocking in despair outside the door while the Lord declares that He does not know you? Are you in your Father’s house, or have you strayed into a far country?
Sin is exceedingly sinful, because it separates man from God.
It is separation from God in the act of committing sin, and also in its result it is separation from God.
It is separation from God in its action and in its consequences…
Zacchaeus the tax collector, in the state of sin, was far from God. But when he repented, the Lord dined in his house, and salvation came to that household. The Lord’s going to his house was an expression of the new life with God and of God’s indwelling in him…
He who sins loses boldness with God; and he who lives with God lives in divine love, in the knowledge of God and in tasting Him, and preserves His indwelling in his heart, and shares in work with Him.
When Cain sinned, he separated from God and became a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, fearful and terrified, because in his separation from God he also separated from peace, not only from righteousness. Thus he said to the Lord in words filled with bitterness and regret:
“You have driven me out today… from Your face I shall be hidden.”
It is the same fear that the prophet David feared when he said:
“Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.”
The phrase “How long will You hide Your face from me?” is much lighter than casting a person away from before the face of God…
There is another phrase more terrifying that was said about Saul:
“And the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul” (1 Sam. 16).
How dangerous it is for the Spirit of the Lord to depart from a person… Therefore it was said as a result concerning King Saul: “And a distressing spirit from the Lord troubled him.” Thus the demons played with him…
Are these not frightening stages that end in a tragedy:
Distance from God, enmity with God, separation from God, the hiding of God’s face from a person, the departure of the Spirit of the Lord from a person, and casting him away from before His face, so that evil spirits may trouble him?!
Therefore beware greatly if you have left your first love, and remember from where you have fallen and repent, lest your lampstand be removed from its place…
Do not allow another love to occupy the love of God in your heart, whatever the reasons and whatever the external pressures.
Separation from God has degrees, and every degree has its danger.
Sometimes you move away from God, yet God is near to you, caring for you with all attention so that you may return, as the lost sheep strayed and the Lord searched for it until He brought it back and carried it on His shoulders rejoicing. And as Augustine said: “You were with me, but because of my misery I was not with You.”
But the danger increases when distance from God takes on a form of indifference, and when it turns into a distance in the heart with depth, not merely a distance in the path through ignorance or weakness. The danger increases when it turns into enmity and resistance, into stubbornness against the Holy Spirit and unwillingness to return.
The danger increases when separation shifts from being on the human side to becoming a form of abandonment on God’s side, and God leaves this person to a reprobate mind and delivers him into the hands of his enemies.
May we be reconciled with the Lord and not allow the distance between us and Him to increase, but strive toward Him and cling to Him, for we have no life apart from Him.
If we depart from God, all life departs from us, and we descend into a path of endless destruction…
An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – in El-Keraza Magazine – Year Seven (Issue Forty-Three) 22-10-1976
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