One reason for this is that Western Christians (Protestant and Catholic, but especially Protestant) have predominantly thought about sin through the guilt/innocence paradigm—what theologians call a “forensic” (that is, legal) view of sin. The basic idea is that God is a morally serious God; he is not only loving and compassionate but also holy and just. We are guilty before his law of justice, and our only hope is Christ’s pardon. And the good news is that Christ is both “just and the justifier.”[36] This is a biblical view, but it’s not the biblical view. It’s just the one that has been
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