MENTAL ATTITUDE SIN

Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man:  but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man – Matthew 15: 17-19

In Matthew 5 Jesus Christ, in His characteristic revolutionary manner, redefined the purpose and intent of the laws God gave through Moses by stating “You have heard that it was said of them of old…, but I say unto you…”: he showed that it was not just enough to murder and break the law, the mere fact that a man is angry or unforgiving already attracts the penalty of murder. He also showed that we need not commit

The "righteous" Pharisee and the "sinful" Tax-Collector

adultery before the act is done; lust has broken that law already. Jesus was saying in effect that there was another kind of sin, a heart sin, a sin we could say is greater than other sins, a sin that is many times not overtly obvious but hidden in the heart but is equally as ignominious to God as the very obvious sins and might be even more heinous than they. These sins we may term: Mental Attitude Sins¹.

Mental attitude sins are sins that originate from the heart and can lead to very obvious “physical” sins. The challenge with mental attitude sins is that sometimes these sins do not leave the heart; they originate from there and remain there and can be there for years; dormant and waiting. The individual who is guilty of them may not even know he is in such a mental state of mind. Mental attitudes sins are pride, lust, anger, malice, jealousy, rudeness, bitterness, hatred, envy, uncleanness, revenge, unforgiveness, self righteousness, covetousness, insecurity and a host of others such sins. They are what one may term first grade sins because, like Christ showed us in Matthew 5, they form the root from where arise more heinous sins. Jesus Christ taught about mental attitude sins (although he did not call them that) to point us to two things: that the dispensation of grace would demand more from us in terms of righteousness and holy living than the time of Moses; and that true holy living is beyond keeping the letters of a set of laws. It is important that we remind ourselves these lessons again.

In first century Palestine when Jesus walked the face of the earth, the Jewish religion, Judaism, was experiencing some renaissance.  Having been delivered from the Babylonian captivity and having the likes of Ezra and Nehemiah teach them the laws of

Jews taken in Captivity to Babylon

Moses all over again, there was a new found hunger to serve God. If not for the sake of serving Him, but to at least prevent another captivity. What they did not realize was that the religion that Ezra passed to them had again deteriorated, leaving behind a lifeless form of Judaism. It was this religion Jesus met during his earthly sojourn in the flesh and it was this religion that crucified him. Jesus Christ was a contemporary minister. He did not make vague references about the issues he was teaching on, except when he gave parables in fulfillment of scripture. Jesus’ teachings came in stark contrast to those of the religious teachers of those days, so that while ordinary people loathed listening to these men, whose self righteousness shone as the noon day, they listened to Christ gladly (Mark 12:37). And our Lord did not disappoint them. Jesus did not bind heavy demands of the law on the people; rather he showed the true intent of the law. Jesus Christ was real and very compassionate to people who had sinned (John 8:10-11) but condemned the people who seem not to have sinned because of their outward religiosity but were guilty of a greater sins in the heart: mental attitude sins. This was the matter that was being thrashed out in the text that introduces this essay. The religious teachers of His days were accusing his disciples of transgressing some traditions. But Jesus responded by saying that if anyone was breaking God’s laws it was the religious leaders themselves who had “transformed” God’s laws and its original intent to doctrines of men, that gave rise to laws and traditions of the elders. Then Jesus said that it was not what went into a man that defiles him, but what comes from his heart. Defiling in this context will certainly mean sin. Jesus would have us believe that the root course of all sins is from the mental state of a man’s mind; if the man’s mind is oriented towards the laws of God and their true intent, he would obey God’s laws naturally. But if they are not, he will disobey God’s laws. Jesus, like he did in most of His ministry on earth, was redefining the actual purpose of the laws of God. We would see this play out clearly in the trial of Christ that led to his crucifixion. The religious leaders who were bound in a mental state of hatred and malice conjured all sorts of lies to see Jesus crucified, but they did not have any qualms with keeping the demands of the laws even at that period of time.

So it is not a legalistic adherence to a list of codes written in a book that makes a man holy, rather it is a conscious attention to the state of a man’s heart that makes him holy. For example, the man who has learnt the art of shielding his mind from lustful advances and guides his eyes, is more likely to win over sexual sins than another who has a head adherence to the law: “thou shall not commit adultery”. The day he takes leave of his senses because of the enormity of the temptation at the moment is the day he will commit adultery because he simply will just forget the law and do the act.

It also leads us to the spirit of the New Testament: which is that God has taken His laws, which hitherto he had written on tablets of stone, and has put them on our hearts (Hebrew 8:10). If those laws were written externally, we will need to continually resort to external forces to keep them. If they are written on our hearts and entrenched there, we would simply breadth out what is already inside: holiness (remember the words of Jesus in Matthew 15). Some are of the opinion that the grace that came with the New Testament came to help us keep God’s laws of the Old Testament. This is far from the

truth of scripture (2 Corinthians 3:3,6; Hebrew 8:13). The nature of the New Testament laws is that these laws of God are more in number; richer and more demanding than the laws of the Old Testament. These laws were structured to tame the flesh (Colossians 2:23b) and they are meant to be progressively applied to the New Testament believer. While the Old Testament placed its the demands on the Jews all at once, the laws in the New Testament come one after the other, by the witness of the Spirit in our hearts. And as the Christian learns to obey them, he grows progressively in grace and holiness.

One primary difference between the Old and the New Covenant is grace. In the New Testament there is grace to keep God’s demands in our hearts. We will find them as we resort to God in prayer and the study of His word. But one other means of grace must not be forgotten and that is preaching. It is important that God’s people, who are being discipled in the way of righteousness, place themselves under the ministry of a godly, sanctified, grace-filled minister of the New Testament, who will feed them with the word of God; with which they can go out to live righteous lives (John 21:15). Many Christians fail in their Christian walk because they either do not have godly role models to pattern their lives after; or the messages they hear every Sunday lack the grace ingredient to live holy during the week (Hebrew 13:9); or the ministers themselves have traded the oil of holiness at the lap of Delilah and are passing to the congregation a defiled spirit that leads the people to act likewise. God intends to give his people grace to live the Christian life – for there is yet a temptation that will arise that God has not made adequate means of escape from.

One other reason why we need to remind ourselves of the concept of mental attitude sin is so that Christians may learn to shed off the toga of self righteousness that perfection of works seem to impart on us. When we realize that God does not measure sin the way we do, and also discover that mental attitude sins are as grave or if not more serious than some overtly obvious sins, then we will learn to be humble and talk more in terms of the righteousness that proceeds from grace than the one that comes from works. God hate sin. God will judge every sin. And for those in Christ, God has judged their sins in Him. We need to be continually humbled by the fact that the most upright Christian is as much a sinner as the carnal one, because there is no one without sin (1 John 1:8),  both of them are equally guilty before God (Romans 3:19). But because they

Mental Attitude Sins

are Christians, scripture refers to them as “saints” (1 Corinthians 1:2); this title does not originate from the Pope but from the righteousness of Christ Jesus imputed on us, as we identify with his death and resurrection in faith (1 Corinthians 1:30). When we do this we see that we are all debtors to God’s mercy and grace – regardless of our state of maturity. This does not remove the fact that if Christians are found in overt sins, they must be cautioned and sometimes disciplined, but only with the hope of restoring the erring brother and it must be done in love (Galatians 6:1).

When Jesus said we should not judge our brother, I believe he meant it in the sense of labeling some other Christians as sinners while we are the righteous. The truth of the matter is that some of us come from well shielded and protective backgrounds and would not have been exposed to the temptation that some other believers are. Even if we come from the same background, we are all at different levels of grace, faith and exposure, and God’s expectations of every one of us differ. We cannot judge another Christian because we do not see the whole picture. And while we judge and label them as something, the believer, who is a Priest before God, may have entered the holy of holies by the blood of the Lamb, found forgiveness and cleansing for his sins, and proceeded out to be a new person in the Lord. All this while, we join the devil in the ministry of accusation and condemnation. If there is one lesson this author has learnt: it is never to judge Christians on some mere acts of sin – regardless of how grievous. I will take up issues with any man on matters that border on doctrine and scriptural interpretations; but I thread very carefully in the matter of practice and overt sin. And I think it is a good practice for every one of us because we may be the one in need of restoration from some sin tomorrow.

The wonder of the New Testament is the blessing of the cross of Jesus Christ. Christ Jesus lived and died that we might enjoy the fullness of being sons of God. By Him we have a righteousness that is sure. By him we have access to the presence of the Father.

Put your hope in the Done Work of the Cross
and you shall be be Saved

By Him the written code, the laws of Moses, are abrogated and we are free to follow the leading of God’s Holy Spirit. By Him we have a Sure Hope, heaven, a place of rest, comfort and everlasting enjoyment of God. By Him we have peace in this world despite every tribulation. And by Him we can overcome the deepest mental sin state in our heart that we alone know; and sometimes we do not even know, but God knows. Jesus came that he may deliver men from their sins: including the worst of them all, mental attitude sins (Matthew 1:21).

1.     The Concept of Mental Attitude Sins is taught by many ministers including the Late R. B. Thieme (Jnr). You will find them in his books.
2. I would be very glad if anyone, by reading this essay, came to the consciousness of his own sinfulness and a need of Savior. I would enjoin you to call upon the name of Jesus Christ, in your own words, as you truly feel in your mind, in the privacy of your heart; and you will be saved. You can send me an email: yesufudeji@yahoo.com and I will rejoice with you and find some ways to encourage you along in this new found faith in Christ.