I have suggested that we are not lost because we sin, but rather that we sin because we are lost. We are not in darkness because of sin. We are in darkness because we do not know the Light, and consequently, we sin. By “lost” I am not talking about condemned and sentenced to hell, but what the word literally means and how Jesus used it (lost sheep, coin, and son, Luke 15). “Lost” refers to those who “do not know their way, where they are, or how to get to where they need to be”. When we are lost and in darkness we do not know what to do.
Jesus came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10), that is, to find and rescue those who are like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36). We do not begin life knowing our way, exactly where we are, and should go. No, in lacking true knowledge of God we are in the dark from the beginning, and as a result, act in ways contrary to God and who God intended us to be.
Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. Galatians 4:8
As Paul states, in not knowing God we are slaves as if unto gods, but that to which we are actually obedient and subservient in this ignorance are not divine, holy, nor truly gods. The problem is not sin, but not knowing God, from which false worship and sinful behavior arises. Distinguishing between what is the source of our spiritual problems and what results from it helps us recognize our true need Too often we have thought sin is the source of our spiritual troubles, rather than the symptom of the real issue. The real problem is that we do not know God.
But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again? Galatians 4:9
Notice how Paul tells the Galatians that now they know God, but then, almost as if to correct himself and to speak more accurately, says they are “known” by God. All our knowing depends on being known, in the same way John says that our loving (which is in fact the basis of our knowing God) is predicated on God’s prior love of us. We love because he first loved us (1 John 4:19). We know because we first are known. We are loved into being, and known into knowing. This initiative by God is what rescues and saves us from being lost in darkness. God reveals himself and shows himself that we may know him.
Do not think that because I am saying we need to know God that I am relying heavily on the work of the mind or intellect. We are to love God with all our mind (Luke 10:27), not merely think about him! By loving God with our whole being we will come to know God. As we grow to truly know God in this manner of participation in the divine nature of love, which is beyond mere knowledge, then we will be changed.
Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature. 2 Peter 1:4
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