Chapter 14 SIN, AND THE MISUNDERSTANDING THEREOF

Sin, and the way it is understood in modern society, is a foreign concept in the SUPOX. In the ecosystem of a forest, concepts like 'transgression,' 'offense,' 'sin', and 'debt' have no meaning. The forest operates, instead, on the basis of life and death.
It is the same in the SUPOX.
Sin, or breaking the law, is like a diver who breaks the pipe that connects his mouthpiece to the oxygen tank. The action, how he broke the pipe, whether it was an accident or intentional, and the mitigating circumstances: these are in and of themselves not important. What is important is the consequence: that his connection to his source of life has been cut. He will die when he runs out of oxygen. Even though ‘breaking the pipe’ is what we would call sin, it’s the fact he ran out of oxygen that killed the diver. It is being deprived of the Spirit of God that killed Mankind. For our diver, the focus is on how to repair the pipe. If you have ever tried to fix a broken chair, a broken cup, or broken water bottle, you will be aware of the unfortunate truth: fixing is always harder, if at all even possible.

What then? Are we better than they? No, in no way. For we previously warned both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. As it is written, “There is no one righteous; no, not one. There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks after God. They have all turned away. They have together become unprofitable. There is no one who does good, no, not so much as one.” “Their throat is an open tomb. With their tongues they have used deceit.” “The poison of vipers is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. The way of peace, they haven’t known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Now we know that whatever things the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God. Because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight; for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. ROMANS 3:9-20 WEB

When Moses received the Levitical Law and delivered it to the Israelites in the desert, in one sense it was instructions for repairing the pipe. It described perfect 'alignment.' It presented a blueprint by which Mankind could be connected with God's life. From that point on, however, an unexpected and devastating reality became clear. No one is capable of following those instructions by their own hand. Nobody has the capacity to repair their connection to God and reconnect to the life he provides.

Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. PSALM 51:5 NIV

But those who depend on the law to make them right with God are under his curse, for the Scriptures say, “Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the commands that are written in God’s Book of the Law.” So it is clear that no one can be made right with God by trying to keep the law. GALATIANS 3:10-11 NLT

The arrival of Jesus Christ among Mankind changed the dynamic substantially. Prior to Jesus, any small sin, any break in the pipe at all, severed the connection. It didn’t matter how much a person got right, because they were measured by what they got wrong. A small break is still a break.

You can’t pick and choose in these things, specializing in keeping one or two things in God’s law and ignoring others. The same God who said, “Don’t commit adultery,” also said, “Don’t murder.” If you don’t commit adultery but go ahead and murder, do you think your non-adultery will cancel out your murder? No, you’re a murderer, period. JAMES 2:8-11 MSG

So, offering a bypass to the old pipe, Jesus Christ completely upended the system. He didn’t offer a fix, he offered a replacement: His life, through the Holy Spirit, within us permanently.

“But those who drink the water I [Jesus Christ] give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.” JOHN 4:14 NLT

So then, Jesus Christ offers a way to be not dead, and to reject him is to reject life. Because of this, since Jesus Christ, there is only one sin that matters: to reject him. And it makes sense. To breathe again, to be reconnected to the oxygen tank, nothing else matters. It is the difference between life and death.

“When he [the Holy Spirit] comes, he’ll expose the error of the godless world’s view of sin … He’ll show them that their refusal to believe in me [Jesus Christ] is their basic sin.” JOHN16:8-9 MSG

Jesus Christ made a way for a person to return to their intended created form, … Spiritkind.
In simple terms, and as things currently stand, everybody on earth starts off already dead. They are the Spirit Dead. Their mortal bodies are powered by the remnant of God’s initial ‘bringing the dust to life’ breath within them.

Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person. GENESIS 2:7 NLT

The life of God is so powerful that this single breath endures for decades. It powers the flesh to renew and regenerate, like a machine with a perpetual-motion engine within it. Mankind, then, is alive with God’s initial breath in their mortal bodies, but unable to breathe and slowly suffocating. Their spirit is dead and their mortal days are numbered.

… the Lord said, “I won’t let my life-giving breath remain in anyone forever. No one will live for more than one hundred twenty years.” GENESIS 6:3 CEV

… the body without the spirit is dead… JAMES 1:26 NIV

How then can we understand our situation?
Imagine the diver, disconnected from the oxygen and now thrashing about in a panic, desperately trying to stem the flow of water into his mask. Before he realizes it, he has broken the pipe in three more places and cracked his breather. The situation is dire. Each of these actions is a sin that further separates him from the oxygen he needs to live.
In the NAPOX this truth is mostly obscured, where wealth and success can hide reality. No such deception is possible in the SUPOX. But here is the point. For the onlooking angels, the focus is not on how many mistakes he made. The focus is on if he will embrace the solution in time.

I [Jesus Christ] am the Gate. Anyone who goes through me will be cared for—will freely go in and out, and find pasture. A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of. JOHN 10:9-10 MSG

Embracing God’s life through Jesus Christ nullifies the effect of sin in the past, and the Holy Spirit transforms the Spirit Dead to Spiritkind. But none of this is to say that 'sin' no longer has any effect.
The fact is, perhaps surprisingly, sin’s capacity to kill becomes more obvious after a person becomes Spiritkind. The Spirit Dead can't get any more dead. One break or one hundred breaks, it makes very little functional difference in terms of the spirit. But once the spirit is rekindled, it takes only small things to mute the flame. The fact that sin deprives the newly alive spirit of oxygen becomes apparent. Within Spiritkind, sin's ability to kill the spirit becomes obvious.

Listen! The Lord’s arm is not too weak to save you, nor is his ear too deaf to hear you call. It’s your sins that have cut you off from God. ISAIAH 59:1-2 NLT

Sin always separates from the life of God. But irrespective of the size and scale of the break, Spiritkind have the Holy Spirit who administers grace and forgiveness, repairing the damage immediately upon the person's request. They have no need to suffer through suffocation.

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” Let anyone who hears this say, “Come.” Let anyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who desires drink freely from the water of life. REVELATION 22:17 NLT

But the rule is simple. Sin always breaks a person’s connection to life. But the gift of God through Jesus Christ is reconnection.

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 1 JOHN 1:8-10 NIV

Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned. JOHN 15:4-6 NLT

To sin is to die. To continue to sin and refuse to repent is to choose death. But thanks to Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit there is another path.


Excerpt From: Geoffrey Young. “Guardian Universe: The Gospel in Unexpected Terms.”
Chapter 15 VERSAL AND VERSION