He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord.
The word here translated ‘abomination’ is no weak thing. It is not ‘unpleasant,’ it is not ‘ugly,’ it is not ‘repellent.’ It isn’t even something as simple as ‘evil.’ ‘Abomination,’ תּוֹעֵבָה (to-ay-baw), tells us that God finds this thing disgusting, viscerally revulsive, a revolting evil which must be hated. Paul’s ‘anathema’ (Gal. 1:8-9 (‘accursed’)) is perhaps the best equivalent, in the Greek of the New Testament. An abomination is never mere; to be an abomination is a condemnation to damnation. We, this passage tells us, can become an abomination when we do… what?
Deuteronomy 12:31 gives us one way to become an abomination in speaking of the Canaanites: “You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.” This ritual infanticide, whose spiritual descendant is the abortion industry and its sacramental role in leftist culture, made Canaan an abomination to God. For being such evil, God delivered them up to destruction.
It seems a much smaller sin, in comparison to letting one’s infant child roast on the statue of Moloch, this sin of ‘justifying the wicked’ and ‘condemning the righteous.’ Yet this sin too is abomination to God. To lie, to make good evil and evil good, to call light darkness and darkness light, that leads to this judgment: “Their root will be as rottenness, and their blossom go up like dust” (Is. 5:20,24).
Nor should this be surprising to us. James 2:10 states, “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.” The essence of any sin is to declare that I am greater than God and His law, that all sin is mine to do, God willing or not. This sin in particular blatantly declares as much; it is to say, “My judgement of the situation is correct, overruling God’s judgment which it contradicts.” For me to pretend that something God hates is good, to demand that something He loves is evil, this is the essence of every sin, the placing of my authority above His, whether by deceit or impudence.
How do we enact this sin in our lives? It is obvious enough in the unjust judges which plague our political system, legislative, executive, or judicial, men who openly and officially “acquit the guilty for a bribe, and deprive the innocent of his right” (Is. 5:23). It’s less obvious in our daily lives, in dealing with ourselves, our families, our friends, with everybody else we meet.
The two people we spend the most time with, ourselves and God, are the most common objects of this sin. For ourselves, we are generally experts in at least one excuse, one way of justifying sin. “It’s not that bad” or “It’s not really a sin” are probably things we’ve said more than we’re comfortable with, certainly more than we should be comfortable with. Justifying our own sin is a common occupation- after all, there is rather a lot of it, and justifying it is easier in the short term (though not in eternity) than confronting it, than recognizing and repenting and mortifying. Meanwhile, in a little more distant way, we can be tempted to indulge in guilt by refusing to recognize when we truly have done good, by God’s strength (Rom. 7:24-25), which is a shame both on us and against God. Pride is to be guarded against- including the pride of false humility.
With God, meanwhile, we have a sad tendency to dislike His treatment of us and the world. It’s a plain fact that we don’t live in a uniformly pleasant world, that we suffer. This suffering, for the Christian, is discipline unto life (Hebrews 12:1-6), chastening to turn us from the sin which scars us to Him; it is for the pagan a warning and a foretaste of hell. In both cases, we have an urge in us to make our own eyes the judge of God, to condemn the good He does. Even when the world is openly pleasant, too, we have a sad habit of envy. We look at the wicked or those who are simply not-us, and we say, “Is it not an evil that this man is blessed?” This too is sin.
The principle applies not just to ourselves and our relationship with God but to our relationship with all men. All of us must consider ourselves, what we have done, are doing, and will do. We must ask: “Where have I called evil ‘good’? Where have I complained of the good God did me? Where have I excused myself or one I am partial too? Where have I made light of evil?” In this vein, too, we should consider the companions we keep, how they appear under this consideration, so far as we can see, whether we walk with scoffers (Ps. 1:1) or in the company of the wise (Rom. 15:32), that we may seek light upon ourselves and to shed light upon them.
In all this, we must remember the gravity of this sin, this ‘abomination,’ that in the words of the hymn, “See him dying on the tree! / ‘Tis the Christ by man rejected!… / Ye who think of sin but lightly, / Nor suppose the evil great; / Here may view its nature rightly, Here its guilt may estimate.” Remember also: “Here we have a firm foundation; / Here’s the refuge of the lost: / Christ, the Rock of our salvation: / His the name of which we boast.”
God bless.
Written by Colson Potter
1 – Kelly, Thomas. Stricken Smitten and Afflicted, LINK. I highly recommend reading (or singing) the whole hymn to get the full impact of the section quoted.
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.