Communal Sinfulness

Jeremiah 17:9 is a familiar Scripture that is easily repeated out of context. Granted, even out of context, the gist of the verse is still held up. Jeremiah writes that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick.” We usually quote this verse when someone mentions the trust they have in their own heart or feelings. Outside of the reality that emotion is just one small aspect of “the heart”, we would still be right in warning another of trusting in their own heart since it is indeed “deceiving”. In short, we are reminding the hearer of the reality of sin and depravity. Though we would be correct in this small snippet of theology, we are also missing the context of Jeremiah. When the prophet is writing these words, he is not thinking about individual Judahites. Rather, Jeremiah is seeing the idolatry, rampant wickedness, and omission of true worship, all around, and describes the people as “desperately sick and deceiving” – though, indeed, made up of many individual sinners. As much as we think and preach about individual sinfulness, we often need to be reminded of the communal nature of our fallenness.

First, we must remember that we are bound to a community of sinners, called humanity, because we are descended from our first parent and federal head, Adam. As the Westminster Confession reminds us: “They [Adam and Eve] being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed; and the same death in sin, and corrupted nature, conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation.”[1] It is evident by simple observance that there is “no one righteous,”[2] save Christ, and that “all have sinned and fell short to the glory of God.”[3] We are not sinners in a corner. Through Adam, we are bound to others – apart from Christ – in the communal fallenness.

Secondly, since all men are sinners, and we live among sinners, we can cry out like Isaiah that we are people of unclean lips who dwell among other people of unclean lips.[4] And because of our humanity, we are prone to be influenced by those we dwell among. Even if not in person, we are still influenced by what we read, see, or hear from other sinful humans. Even more, the sinfulness of humanity has so scarred the world, that creation itself is cracked. The creation groans in pain awaiting its redemption.[5] 

Thirdly, our deceitful and sinful hearts are not sinful in a vacuum. All our sins, even our secret sins, affect others. Even as we look to the Ten Commandments, we see the breaking of the law being a sin directly against God in false worship or against our neighbor. When the Apostle Paul writes of sexual immorality being “against one’s own body,”[6] he is not suggesting that it is a private sin, but he is elevating the damage done in sexual immorality, for there are indeed “some sins that are more heinous in the sight of God than others.”[7]

It is understandable why Jeremiah was so dejected. In Judah, there aren’t just a bunch of individual sinners galivanting about, but rather the whole of the people were as one deceitfully, sick hearted people. The only remedy was a work of God that took the hard heart of the people and give them a heart of flesh.[8] In and through Christ, this is what the Lord has indeed done for us. Yes, Christ has redeemed individuals, but even more, He has saved a people for Himself. As those bound and united to the Last Adam, the church is no longer a group of people identified by communal sinfulness, but a community of love and mutuality – though imperfectly. Instead of influencing each other towards sin, we “bear one another’s burdens”[9] and build each other up in the most holy faith.[10]

[1] WCF 6.3

[2] Romans 3:10

[3] Romans 3:23

[4] Isaiah 6:5

[5] Romans 8:22-24

[6] 1 Corinthians 6:18

[7] WLC 150

[8] Ezekiel 36:26

[9] Galatians 6:2

[10] Jude 1:20