Is it
a sin to get a tattoo? Some of them are really bad, but what about flowers
and nice things, or religious pictures? My daughter got one on her ankle,
and I think it looks cute. I was thinking of getting one too.
 n the story of Cain and Abel from
the book of Genesis we learn that God warned Cain to discipline his passions,
but that Cain, not listening to God, and out of anger and envy, slew his
brother Abel. God then put a mark upon Cain so as to indicate to other men
that Cain was being punished by the hand of God and that he should not be
slain by the hand of man.
No one knows what sort of mark
God put on Cain. Now, some commentators claim that this mark was a tattoo
and that it relates to the practice, prevalent in ancient times, of using
tattoos for tribal identifications. Nevertheless, even if the mark were a
tattoo, it bears a distinction that separates it from any typical
tattoo.
Tattoos: Then
and Now
A typical tattoo has one fundamental
characteristic: it is placed on the individual by the hand of
man—that is, it’s the work of human hands, whether those hands
belong to a man or a woman.
A tattoo, therefore, signifies
a social identity. Whether it serves the function
of a tribal membership or whether it fulfills your idea of
“nice,” it points to an identity that
you choose for yourself.
But notice carefully: you place
this identity upon your body, not upon your being. And here,
precisely, we come to the place where a tattoo—any tattoo, then or
now—receives it own mark as sinful.
By the Hand of
God
God put a mark upon Cain to indicate
that Cain belonged to God. Moreover, this belonging was not just a bodily
belonging; it was also a belonging of soul. Cain belonged to God
body and soul, and the mark pointed to this reality.
As such, the mark foreshadowed another reality, a future reality.
The book of Ezekiel (9:4) tells
us about the mark of the Thau (or Tau—the last letter
in the Hebrew alphabet) that God Himself would put on the foreheads of those
who belong to Him. This Thau therefore signifies the mark of the cross
which, as a consequence of the Redemption worked
by Christ, is placed on an individual at baptism
to mark his or her identity as a Christian.
Note that this redemption is
a gift from God; it does not depend on anything we do ourselves. Our redemption,
therefore, comes from the hand of God. It comes only from the hand
of God. Any identity we have, therefore, is meaningless unless it comes from
the hand of God, and so the only mark on our body that can ever legitimately
identify us is the mark of baptism.
Consequently, any indelible mark
that you place upon your body is the work of human hands. It identifies your
body—which God intended to be a pure and chaste
temple of the holy Spirit—as belonging to
something other than God. Belonging to something other than God is idolatry,
and so any tattoo—tribal, Satanic, or “cute”—marks your
body with the sin of idolatry, and that sin marks your soul
with, well, something not very nice.
No
advertising—no sponsor—just the simple truth . . .
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