Sin is like cancer. It begins to grow deep in the body unseen, sends out tendrils to capture blood supply, then metastasizes by sending bits of itself through the blood stream into other organs. To save the person from the ultimate effects of cancer the rogue mass and it’s cells must be put to death (and this is accomplished in one or more ways so this is where this metaphor breaks down but don’t loose it because of that). However, if the ONLY objective is to kill the cancer then the probable result will also be the death of the body in which the cancer resides as a parasite. So, care is exercised in going to the necessary extent to kill the cancer but not the body–however, the body does inevitably suffer from the cure.
Having a cancer is not the “normal” condition of the human body, rather, it’s an aberration. However, until the aberration is killed or removed the human body will continue to cease being “normal”.
One of the big problems relative to our human condition is that we have become accustomed to the “aberration” so we think and function as if the “aberration” is “normal”. The “cure/healing/salvation” was accomplished in Christ on the Cross. We enter into that “cure” and experience the “healing” as we repent – go out or beyond our normal mind and see that our “normal” was the “aberration” and then put our confidence and expectations in the One Who is the cure for our “normal”.
It is about sin, but only to the extent that sin is the underlying problem of our “wholeness” (holiness). Jesus took care of the sin issue. We are now freed to enter into a life of “well wholeness” which is what it was all about from the beginning. To continually dwell on or reminisce about sin is like being in a room of people who don’t have anything to talk about except their surgeries and illnesses.
We, however, can go into that room of people and interrupt their sick introspection by saying, “Hey! I’ve been healed by the best doctor in the world. His success rate is 100%.”
Jesus holds within Himself the reality of who we are. We are brought into resurrection life by his anamnesis of us…When Jesus on the night he was betrayed took bread and said, “Take eat, this is my body given for you, do this in remembrance (anamnesis) of me” then took wine and said, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” is our anamnesisof Him. In the resurrection we will be His anamnesis, and that in the full wellness and vitality of His memory — the way He sees us and not the way we see ourselves.
