A Sin Tax: Economic Boost?

Government leaders and businessmen around the world are pulling out their collective hair trying to find quick fixes and long-term solutions to the world economic crisis. One solution in the US for certain states and municipalities is creating or increasing the “Sin Tax.”

For those who think you need to be more careful about sinning in light of this, don’t worry. This means that certain things like the sale of cigarettes, alcohol and casino profits are taxed more. These are the “sins” that society is talking about.

Also in the news is a resurgence of the practice of granting Indulgences by some Catholic Churches. You used to have to pay hard cash for this, but now the renewed practice of acts of penance in this life can supposedly shave days or years from your time or the time of a friend in purgatory. All I have to say about this it that it makes Christianity look like a divine comedy. What a perversion of Christian truth!

Anyway, back to the sin tax. Imagine for a moment a real sin tax. Every time you sinned there would be a price to pay, and if you did not pay it now you would really have to pay later, but I am getting ahead of myself. Mind you, I really mean a payment for every sin, and if this was levied against all human beings for every sin I think it would vastly increase the economic reserves of every nation on earth.

However, this would also cause catastrophic bankruptcy for every individual on earth, so this is not a good economic plan at all. Still, if it were enacted we would see all sorts of human mechanisms come into being that either redefined sin, or we would see new forms of tax corruption and tax shelters - indulgences and absolvences - that would let people skate through life without any worries. Allow me summarize these under the category of “Other Religions”.

But there is a fundamental problem with all of this. There is no Sin Tax. There is simply a payment. The payment for every sin is the same, flat tax if you will, and the payment is not monetary. It is death, eternal separation from God.

Here we see humanity’s bankruptcy in its basest state. We can’t pay because it cost more than we have or more than we are. We need to plead – ask – for bankruptcy protection. God will forgive our debt by buying back our lives with the life of His Son. The only stipulation is that ownership is ceded to God. Your life will no longer belong to you. Don’t worry though. God takes very good care of what He purchases.

God is not a banker, but He is able to cancel out the debt of the entire world with one grand payment. It is free to us, but it cost Him dearly.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Rom 6:23