Kapu
My wife and I were visiting Hawaii and my favorite place on the whole island is a place called Two Step. Two Step is an old lava flow into a secluded bay that makes two steps into the reef. It is a protected reef so there is an amazing number of marine fish and corals to snorkel among. To get out, you take the same two steps out. As amazing as that is, right next door is a place I’ve always called the Place of Refuge. It’s actual name is Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau. Ancient Hawaiian society was based around a code of Kapu or code of conduct. For example, it was against the Kapu for women to prepare Taro into Poi. It was also against the Kapu for a person to kill another person or for a man to eat with the women. When I first heard of the Kapu, the historian referred to a violation as a sin. The penalty for a violation of the Kapu was death.
The only chance a person had, if he or she violated a Kapu, was to run to a place of refuge. If they made it before he or she was killed, they could be redeemed from the penalty. This might mean jumping into the coral reef and trying to swim through the barrier reefs to avoid the spears on land or running from the top of the mountain to the shore through the jungle. For some reason, I started thinking of the similarities to the Christian belief and Jewish Old Testament heritage. Let’s start with the Old Testament.
“And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall select cities to be cities of refuge for you, that the manslayer who kills any person without intent may flee there. The cities shall be for you a refuge from the avenger, that the manslayer may not die until he stands before the congregation for judgment. And the cities that you give shall be your six cities of refuge. You shall give three cities beyond the Jordan, and three cities in the land of Canaan, to be cities of refuge. These six cities shall be for refuge for the people of Israel, and for the stranger and for the sojourner among them, that anyone who kills any person without intent may flee there.” - Numbers 35:9-15 ESV
There was a lot more stipulations than the passage suggests but I see a similarity. Now let’s consider my view that a sin is a sin. God can’t accept any sin and, at least for me, I’m full of it.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” - Romans 6:23
“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” - Romans 3:21-26
“Both we and our fathers have sinned; we have committed iniquity; we have done wickedness.” - Psalm 106:6
I haven’t found anywhere, sorry to my catholic friends, a distinction between types of sin. And clearly, the wages of sin is eternal separation and damnation by God. As much as we want to believe that our sin isn’t as bad as someone else’s, it just doesn’t matter to God. Sin is death. This too is similar to the ancient Hawaiian culture of the penalty of death for violating a kapu.
Praise God that he sent his son to come and die for our sins to save us from eternal separation and damnation by God. And we don’t have to beat the spears to make it to our place of refuge. All we have to do is to accept Jesus as our Lord and savior.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” - John 3:16-21
