A BIBLICAL VIEW OF
SIN by Walter Henrichsen
September 2000
Dear Co-laborer,
For many of us, September marks the beginning of a new year. Children return to school, summer holidays (for those who take them) are over, and we gear up for another year. This month also begins a new series. In it I want to explore what the Bible teaches about sin. Most of us don’t give this subject a great deal of thought. We acknowledge that we are sinners and would just as soon not dwell on it. I hope, however, that our brief exploration of this subject will help us see more clear what sin is and how God views it. Much that the world calls evil, God does not, and vice versa. Who gets to define sin, right and wrong, good and evil – forms an arena of disagreement debated in almost every aspect of society. In the Bible, God says that He alone has the authority to define sin.
Part 1
The existence of sin is an undeniable fact, as attested by Jesus’ simple words, "Do to others whatever you would have them do to you,”[1] The conscience agrees with Jesus, ensuring that everyone knows what it means to sin. No one can examine his own nature, or observe the conduct of his fellow man, without concluding that there is such an evil as sin.
James 4:17 probably gives us the simplest definition of sin: “Whoever knows what is right to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” We will look more closely at this later in the study, but note that James does not address the issue of who determines “what is right.” Thus, we need to return to the words of Jesus quoted above. Note the following: 1 – Jesus defines hypocrisy. When you treat others differently from how you want to be treated, you are a hypocrite. 2 – Jesus allows each individual to determine for himself what is right and wrong, if he so chooses. When you violate the “Golden Rule” you are wrong. 3 – All people, everywhere, irrespective of their religion or culture, acknowledge that hypocrisy is wrong. 4 – If you wish a relationship with God, He insists that He alone gets to define sin. If you don’t want to live eternally with God, He will allow you to define sin for yourself, but insists that you never violate your own standard.
James, however, tells us what sin looks like in practice; he does not tell us what it is. Is sin a substance, a principle, an act, a defect, a feeling, an evil purpose, all of the above, or none of the above? What makes sin evil, the breaking of a law, violating justice, being unfair? How does this relate to the question of holiness? Against whom does one sin? Whose law is broken? These questions are interrelated and must be dealt with as a whole. Hopefully, in the course of this study, we will touch on all of them.
You cannot determine philosophically the principles of beauty and then decide what people must admire and dislike. All philosophy can do is take the facts of our aesthetic nature and from them deduce the laws or principles of beauty. So too, you cannot determine philosophically the nature of sin and then deduce the laws and principles of sin. You cannot adopt a theory of moral obligation that forbids our recognizing as sin what the conscience condemns. For example, you cannot philosophically argue that homosexual behavior is normal, and therefore not sin, without taking into account your conscience.
We will look at two of the more prominent views of sin as defined by philosophy: Dualism and A limitation of being.
Dualism: Sin is a physical evil, the defilement of the spirit by its union with a material body. As a principle, it is co-eternal with God. These two principles are in perpetual conflict. If you have viewed any of Lucas’ Star Wars films, you can immediately identify this worldview. Sin is “the dark side of the force.” Sin is not a moral evil; it is the necessary condition for the existence of virtue. Just as you cannot have rest without fatigue, there can be no good without evil, no heaven without hell.
Magnetism affords an illustration. When you take two magnets in hand you find that likes repulse and un-likes attract – when you try to force two positives together they resist, and when you place a positive with a negative they attract. Magnetism cannot exist without this “dualism.” When you embrace the worldview of Star Wars, sin ceases to be an intrinsic evil. For this reason, people find this an attractive philosophy.
The Greeks, and probably the Hindus before them, embraced this concept of sin. It was originally thought of as an intellectual shortcoming, the opposite of wisdom. It evolved to mean an offence which is committed with evil intent and which therefore occasioned guilt. The philosopher Aristotle saw sin as the absence of virtue. His definition found its way into the biblical Greek word for sin: “To miss the mark.”
Who defines virtue? The Greeks had no standard by which to judge. They believed that all people have a general understanding of the difference between right and wrong. They could not agree, as is the case today, on who gets to define what is right and what is wrong. Because the Greeks, like the Hindus, believed in reincarnation or the trans-migration of the soul, they saw life as a consequence of guilt in a former life – an expiation of a fault that the soul committed in a former life.
They saw a dualism between the body and soul. The body is evil, the prison that houses the soul. All people recognize the limitations of the body; it breaks down and prevents the person from accomplishing what he wants. Eventual freedom from the body is the objective of reincarnation. Thus, when a person is born it means that that person in a previous life died with a guilt that required expiation in the next life.
The absence of virtue results in suffering. If your present existence means that you died in an imperfect state in a former life, you cannot tell if your present suffering reflects an absence of virtue in this or a former life. Hinduism, with its stepchildren Buddhism, Taoism, and the Shinto religion of Japan, argues that you can best escape the prison of your body by being passive in this life; you should not disturb your “karma.” Thus, guilt is not the result of freely choosing evil over good, but rather improperly responding to your karma.
A Limitation of Being. In this view of sin, the distinction between good and evil is merely a quantitative distinction between more and less. For example, there is no difference between a stunted tree and a wicked man; neither measured up to the norm. You can immediately see that people will differ as to what the “norm” ought to be. If it is relative, then good and evil becomes a matter of degree. Nothing is totally good and nothing is totally evil.
After each act of creation God said, “It is good.”[2] God did not mean that His creation was morally good, but rather that they were suited to the ends for which they were created. You cannot infer from “it is good” that inanimate objects are morally good. So too, you cannot conclude that those acts which God condemns are a quantitative lack, for who makes such a determination? The Sovereign God determined the ends for which inanimate objects were created and He determined acceptable and unacceptable behavior for those created in His image.
If you define sin as a limitation of being, you destroy all sense of moral obligation, and give unrestrained liberty to all evil passion.
In the next issue we will begin looking at how Scripture defines sin. Just as there cannot be law without accountability, so too you cannot have absolutes without a Sovereign God who holds the creature accountable. The follower of Christ is emphatic in what He calls sin because the Judge of all has established a standard. For the Christian, sin must be defined solely by what God says. The Bible alone determines right and wrong.
As we have noted in the past, investigation and experimentation are the tools of the scientific method, and they have been used to give us the extraordinary standard of living that we currently enjoy. But when you apply these same tools to the moral arena, you end with sin and ruin. One of the great tragedies of our time is academia’s use of investigation and experimentation in matters pertaining to morals.
Curiosity is both one of man’s greatest strengths and greatest weaknesses. He cannot resist the urge to investigate the unknown, to penetrate behind the creation of God. To the degree that he is able to do this, however, he develops a critical spirit, critically scrutinizing the Creator. He tends to think and act like God, unhampered and responsible only to himself. With cloning he says, “I wish to control the creative process.” With DNA manipulation he says, “I wish to correct the imperfections of the Creator.”
When God created man, He created him a rational being with the ability to reason and form judgments about himself and the world. With these innate traits God encourages us to explore the world He made. What then, should we do with our seeming ability to clone and manipulate genes? How far can we investigate and experiment without sinning? No one knows and God has not said.
I suggest that motivation determines the line between the permissible and sinning. Because the believer is free to do whatever the Bible does not prohibit, you cannot call wrong what the Bible does not disallow. But God knows the heart. What are you trying to accomplish? These God-given gifts – part of what it means to be created in His image – can easily lead you into an adversarial relationship with God. Instead of seeking to glorify Him in the expression of your gifts, you seek to declare your independence from Him. Thus, the move from glorifying God to becoming His enemy takes place in the heart. No one else may know the difference, but you and God do.
To the praise of His glory,
November 2000
Dear Co-laborer
This is the last issue of the Dear Co-laborer until the first of next year. Leette and I wish you and yours a very special Thanksgiving and Christmas celebration. I hope the holidays afford you opportunity to be with family and loved ones. Our children will gather with us during Thanksgiving, and then we all gather again for Christmas at the home of Deborah and Michael.
Part 2
In the last issue we briefly looked at a couple of ways that the world in general, and philosophy in particular, views sin. You have to believe in one God, who has revealed His standards, and who holds each individual accountable, in order to legitimately establish absolutes. In these next few issues we will look at how the Bible defines sin.
I want to explore two aspects to this “fountain of sin:”
1 – Ingratitude. Paul begins his letter to the church at Rome with an analysis of the human condition. As he begins his exposition on man’s sin, he says, “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”[3] The fountain of all sin is ingratitude.
Why does a man steal? Because he feels his needs are not adequately met and decides to take things into his own hands. Why does a person commit adultery? For the same reason. Many, if not most, of God’s commandments deal with limits on how we relate to one another. A great deal of our unhappiness comes from unfulfilled expectations. People tend to look to others for the meeting of their needs, and when their expectations are not met, they step outside biblical parameters in an endeavor to meet them.
From this we can easily see the link between gratitude and contentment. When our expectations are not met we are discontent, and a lack of contentment breeds ingratitude. The Apostle Paul tells his son in the faith, “But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.”[4]
Ungrateful people are not content. Thus, Paul warns us to be content with what God has given. When we are unhappy with God’s provision, irrespective of the area of our lives in which we find this to be true, we are but a short step from sin. From the thankless heart flow all the sins enumerated by Paul in Romans 1.
2 – A Quest for Autonomy. For a look at this, we will briefly explore Genesis 3. It is impossible to understand a biblical view of sin apart from this chapter. The point of the story of the Fall is to make clear that our destiny was shaped by this event. Because the story of Adam and Eve is inseparable from human existence, and consequently of our understanding of ourselves, we will return to Genesis 3 frequently in our study.
“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”[5]
God made man in God’s image, endowing man with characteristics higher and nobler than any other creature. After creating man, God placed him in Utopia. Under God, he is the supreme ruler of the world; all creation was in subjection to him. He lived in Paradise without limits or prohibitions. Apart from being given the task of caring for God’s creation, the only restriction placed on Adam was that he could not eat of the fruit of one tree.
“Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.”[6]
The author seeks to make clear that the destiny of man is shaped by this event. Satan begins with a leading question as to the scope of the prohibition. Notice Eve’s willingness to be enticed. She said to the serpent, “We cannot touch it.” You cannot find from the account any indication that God said this – either to Adam or to her. “I can’t even touch it.” The first step in disobedience is to make the command appear unreasonable. When you argue that God’s prohibitions are unreasonable, you are well on your way to sinning.
The serpent argues that God does not need to be taken seriously. He characterizes the obedience of faith as hopeless stupidity. This fuels the appetite for autonomy. Note that the appetite for autonomy was not part of the Fall; it was the way God created man. The desire for autonomy gives man choice, and choice is essential for any meaningful relationship.
Adam and Eve’s thirst for understanding took precedence over God’s revelation. Thus, when the serpent argues that the prohibition and warning are not in their best interest, but God’s, they accept the premise. God wishes to restrain man, for he knows that the fruit will “make them as God, knowing good and evil.” God seeks to restrain them by fear from something that they might easily and safely take by transgression of the command.
Instead of gratitude, Adam is angry that God did not make man like God. God created man in His image, but that obviously is not enough. Man wants to be God! The phrase, “I want to be like God,” can be the most holy of ambitions, or the most sinful of ambitions – depending on what you mean by it.
Our first parents sinned because they doubted: a) – that God’s prohibition was in their interest; b) – that God’s will is unconditionally binding; and c) – that there are unacceptable consequences to disobedience.
What was this tree, the fruit of which was prohibited by God? If “good and evil” means knowing “right from wrong,” then Adam and Eve would not have been culpable. For example, a child severely mentally handicapped is not charged with a crime when he breaks the law. We assume that he cannot distinguish right from wrong.
The fruit represented the authority to determine good and evil in their lives – i.e., what is good for them (in their best interest) and what is evil for them (not in their best interest). Satan suggested that if they answered that question correctly, they would have no need for God to meddle in their lives. This is a fundamental drive in every individual: they want veto power over deciding what is and is not in their best interest.
It is why all of us resist authority. I don’t mind submitting if I agree that it is in my interest. For example, I freely submit to the wishes of a physician when I go because of a need. Rather, I resist risks when I perceive that they are not in my interest, as illustrated by my attitude when sitting on a turbulence-free airplane that has the “fasten seat belt” sign on when I have to use the bathroom. The issue of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” rests at the heart of every relationship in every environment. It produces conflict between husband and wife, between parents and children, and between the citizen and the state.
I am not sure what God had in mind when He said that after they ate of the fruit their “eyes were opened.” I do know that they did not achieve their goal of shaping their own destinies. They were less in control of their future after eating the fruit than they were before. Still, this is probably the primary reason people resist giving their hearts to Jesus: they don’t want to lose control of their lives.
I remember witnessing to a scientist at Cal Tech in Pasadena, California. When he claimed to be an agnostic I suggest that he run a “scientific” experiment using the words of Jesus: “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.”[7] I asked him to read through the gospels, and wherever Jesus asked him to do something that was within his power to do, obey and see if he ended up knowing. He looked at me with anger and contempt saying, “The thought of another telling me what to do is abhorrent. Never will I do such a thing!” He could not resist eating the fruit.
What did God mean when He told Adam, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”? Adam had no experience to help him evaluate. He had never seen anything die physically, and had no point of reference for spiritual death, i.e. – separation from God. In short, he had no experience to help him evaluate the implications of disobedience. Satan could easily confuse him regarding what it means to die.
You are most easily deceived when tempted beyond your experience. And yet, experience often brings sin, addiction, and despair. The only reliable exit from this dilemma is to believe God has your best interest at heart when He establishes prohibitions in your life. You can believe Him and live, or you can eat of the fruit and suffer the consequences.
In His firm grip,
January 2001
Dear Co-laborer –
Part 3
Exploring the fall of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3, we saw that they were enticed with the prospect of making their own determination regarding what was good and evil rather than allowing God to make that determination. Their declaration of independence brought them what they were deceived into believing would not happen (death) while not providing what the serpent assured would be the consequence (be as God). My three-year-old granddaughter recently came home from Daily Vacation Bible School and said: “I have good news; the Bible says that I can do anything I want.” I am sure her teacher would shudder over the thought that she came home with such theology, but it illustrates the strength of the desire and how easily we are deceived into believing that it is “good news.”
God created man with a desire for autonomy, understanding that in order for a relationship to exist between the Creator and the creature, man would have to place that desire under God’s authority. Instead we see the grotesque nature of his lust in attempting, in his own power, to transcend the narrowness of his existence.
The philosopher dreams of autonomous man creating a utopia that he controls. In Plato’s Republic, Socrates sought to give a blueprint for such a society. Lenin, deluded by the dreams of Marx and Engels, raised havoc for over seventy years in Russia and neighboring countries trying to marry autonomy and utopia. God created man in utopia with full control over creation and restrained only by his submission to God. It was not enough. Man will never be happy apart from usurping the throne of God. Man can never be content apart from unlimited power, even in utopia. This is the message of Genesis 3 and the essence of sin.
The end of the twentieth century revealed in the United States a direct ratio between affluence and discontentment, i.e. – the more we have, the more discontent we tend to be. Those who don’t have as much as others have are envious. They are angry, not because they are hungry and in want, but because they have failed to “cash in on the American Dream.” Those that do have more than others are discontent because they have learned that their wealth does not satisfy.
Affluence and discontentment manifest themselves in people being bored, preoccupied with their quest for autonomy. In those parts of the world where people do not have enough to eat, you don’t see teenagers with purple hair, tattoos, and rings in their tongues. Does it strike you that the more affluence we have, the more weird we become? We insist on unrestricted liberty and freedom from the consequences of our decisions. In reality, the two are mutually exclusive. It takes an act of the will to put limits on our appetites just as it requires an act of the will to submit to the authority of Christ.
“To the woman he said: ‘I will intensify the pangs of your childbearing; in pain shall you bring forth children. Yet your urge shall be for your husband, and he shall be your master.’ To the man he said: "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat, "Cursed be the ground because of you! In toil shall you eat its yield all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you, as you eat of the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face shall you get bread to eat, Until you return to the ground, from which you were taken; For you are dirt, and to dirt you shall return.’”[8]
God uses pain as His strategy for stopping man in his quest to supplant Him. I watched my parents as they lived through World War I, a depression, World War II, the Korean War, etc. They did not have the time or energy to give themselves for such nonsense as self-fulfillment, self-realization and self-actualization. Pain and opposition distract, causing a person to focus on survival.
So God brought opposition into the life of Adam and Eve. God had previously given Adam the garden to tend,[9] but now he would be opposed in his labor. He faced “thorns and thistles,” requiring him to “sweat.” For her part, Eve would sorrow in childbearing and look to her husband for provision.
Note two extremes in life: Man seeks to be the god of his universe and finds himself discontent when his goal is frustrated. At the same time, man faces war, poverty, disease, and perpetual opposition, causing him to be preoccupied with coping. We see this in the OT portrayal of Israel. The nation was never closer to God than when in pain, and you find that from their entrance into Canaan through Joshua, until the Babylonian Captivity, there never lived a generation that did not war.
Adam and Eve doubted two things – that God’s prohibition was in their interest, and that His will was unconditional and binding. Their progeny inherited the same two doubts. The only ultimate solution to this dilemma (if a person does not want to live in perpetual pain and opposition and die alienated from God) is the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, made possible by the death of Jesus Christ.
Note the four consequences of eating the forbidden fruit:
1 – They became aware of their nakedness and sought to hide it.[10] Sin produces guilt resulting in an endeavor to hide. Seeking to hide something isn’t necessarily the result of sin, but when accompanied with guilt, it almost certainly is.
2 – They hid at the approach of God.[11] Jesus makes this same observation: “For every one who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does what is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God.”[12] Intrinsic to sin is a sense of shame. Without sin Adam and Even had nothing to hide. People want to hide what they deem wrong. With the transgression came a loss of innocence. When a man loses his sense of shame when sinning, he quickly falls beyond the pale of redemption.
3 – When confronted, they resorted to subterfuge in explaining their actions to God.[13] One of the indicators of sin is an unwillingness to admit the truth. Although excuses are not always an indication of sin, often they are.
4 – The were driven from the Garden of Eden.[14] Not only did Adam and Even have to live under the penalty of God, so also their progeny. In our next issue we will take a closer look at the imputed sin of Adam; here we merely note that when Adam fell, God put the human race on trial and condemned it because of Adam’s sin.
In part, you see the power of the Genesis story in man’s ability to identify with his parents. Most, if not all, acknowledge that given the same situation as Adam, they too would succumb to the serpent’s temptation. The mature will seeks to avoid being called to account by God. The uncontrolled intellect is in conflict with a relationship with God. Freedom of the will and thought, characteristics of being created in God’s image, becomes the fertile ground of sin. Man is like a schoolboy, who when discovered, in the act of wrongdoing, is defiant and full of evasions – and yet convicted in his heart.
Life consists of pain and opposition. You can easily conclude that if pain and opposition did not exist, you would not sin. Although it is true that much evil comes in seeking to avoid pain and opposition in the wrong way, Genesis 3 intends to show that the opposite is the case. In an environment free of pain and opposition, man rebelled. Pain and opposition are not the cause of sin, but the antidote; without them man would be irretrievably lost. The lust for autonomy is the generic problem of which acts of disobedience are symptoms. Pain and opposition move man from autonomy to dependence.
In Genesis 4-11 we see the results of Adam’s sin. These chapters form, not a study of its origin, or a reflection regarding its nature, but the history of that sin. The narrative, however, does give helpful insight into the cause and nature of sin.
We see the universal nature of sin before the Flood in God’s words: “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”[15]
We see the universal nature of sin after the Flood in these words: “And when the LORD smelled the pleasing odor, the LORD said in his heart, "I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.”[16]
Judgment does not eliminate sin. People will not stop sinning because they are in hell. Only the grace of our Lord Jesus can bring our propensity to sin into check – by beginning the process of redemption in this life and bringing it to completion in the life to come.
Eager for His return,
March 2001
Dear co-laborer,
Part 4
When God expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, it meant that their children did not begin life the way they did. Cain, Able, Seth, et al. were born outside the Garden, outside of a relationship with God. When God judged Adam, He placed the whole human race on trial with him and condemned it. Thus Paul declares, “In Adam all died.”[17] (He did not say, “In Eve all died,” even though she was the first to eat of the forbidden fruit. The reason, says Paul: “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.”[18]) The theologian calls this imputation: the sin of Adam was imputed to the world.
The Bible gives us three relationships based on imputation. They are:
1 – Adam’s sin to the human race. In Romans 5:12-21 Paul argues that we gain more in Christ than what we lost in Adam. To illustrate, let’s say that God did not impute Adam’s sin to you. This would mean at least two things. First, you must live in perpetual probation. Say you resist the fruit of the tree for ten thousand years; you can still die tomorrow if you succumb to the temptation.
Second, once a sinner, you would have no possibility of redemption. In such a scenario, the world would be divided between the saints and sinners, between those dead in sin and those alive in righteousness. From our understanding of the ways of God, it would be impossible for God to send His Son to die for our sins. God condemned all that He might choose those to whom He will show mercy.
2 – Man’s sin to Jesus Christ. Writing to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul says, “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”[19] God made Christ sin for you and me, Christ, who never sinned, that through Him God might make us righteous. In this verse you see double imputation: God imputed man’s sin to a sinless Jesus Christ and Christ’s righteousness to sinful man. This leads us to the third relationship of imputation found in the Bible.
3 – Christ’s righteousness to the believer. God transferred our sin to His Son at the same time He transferred the righteousness of Christ to the sinner. It is a legal, not a moral transfer. When God made Christ sin for us, it does not mean that Christ became morally sinful. In the same way, when God makes us righteous in Christ, it does not mean that we are sinless. In both transactions, God made a judicial decision.
The following is a chart graphing the differences between Christ, the believer, and the non-believer. Following the chart, Christ was born legally righteous, becoming unrighteous at the cross. He was born morally righteous and never became unrighteous. The believer is born legally unrighteous and becomes legally righteous at the cross. He is born morally righteous and becomes unrighteous at the age of accountability. Note that Christ becomes legally unrighteous at the point the believer becomes legally righteous. This is the double imputation of II Corinthians 5:21. The non-believer is like the believer, except he never becomes legally righteous.
Note that the nature of imputation is the same in all three of the above illustrations; the one case illustrates the others. The transfer in imputation does not affect a person’s moral character.
In what sense, then, did man become a sinner because of Adam? When Adam’s sin was imputed to his progeny, it does not mean that they committed his sin. Nor are they morally criminal because of Adam’s sin. Rather, by virtue of their union with Adam, his sin became the judicial ground for their condemnation – in exactly the same way their union with Christ becomes the judicial ground for their justification.
Satan did not, with a hypodermic needle, inject (as it were) sin into the blood stream of the human race. When God created man, as we have already noted, He created him with a desire to be autonomous. Because of the imputed sin of Adam, God withdrew Himself leaving man free to express his autonomy in an intrinsically sinful environment. In such an environment man naturally sinned.
As believers, we acknowledge our personal unrighteousness. We sense our depravity and worthiness of God’s wrath. We acknowledge that we are made righteous in Christ. The believer does not profess to be a morally righteous person; he is a forgiven sinner. Another has paid his debt to justice.
The only place in the Bible you find a discussion of the doctrine of imputation is in the writings of Paul. He only talks about the imputed sin of Adam in Romans 5 and I Corinthians 15. Paul quotes King David, who says, “Blessed is the man to whom the LORD imputes no iniquity.”[20] But the writings of David do not deal with why this is so or the imputation of Adam’s sin. By and large, biblical writers, including our Lord Jesus, discuss sin in moral terms, of doing wrong, rather than legal imputation.
Today people seek to define sin as a genetic defect. By manipulating DNA it is possible to eliminate manic depression, anger, appetite excesses, etc. Unbelievers argue that man is not sinful because he is innately evil; he can be made good by altering the defects in God’s creation.
Scripture views sin differently. When God imputed the sin of Adam to the human race, He withdrew His presence, leaving man in a position in which he could not help but sin. Thus, God condemns mankind for four reasons:
1 – The imputed sin of Adam. God charged the human race with the sin of Adam.
2 – Man’s willful acts of disobedience. Most of Scripture addresses sin as the violation of God’s law.
3 – Those acts that do not involve the will, but non-the-less are condemned by Scripture and/or conscience.
4 – Sins that are neither willful nor are condemned by the conscience. An example would be covetousness, where Paul says, “I did not know what it is to covet except that the law said, ‘You shall not covet.’”[21]
Grateful for His grace,
July 2001
Dear Co-laborer,
Part 5
Paul says, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”[22] People die because they sin. Babies die because they are sinners. Obviously, they sinned in some sense different from morally. Babies die because God imputed to them the sin of Adam. This is the point Paul seeks to make in this verse.
The sin of Adam, imputed to the human race, becomes for us his children, both a curse and a blessing. Although we lost much when God imputed Adam’s sin to us, in reality we gained more when God imputed Christ’s righteousness to us. Those in Christ gain more than what they lost in Adam. In this issue, I would like to make four observations regarding sin:
You cannot convey the idea of sin to one who has not experienced it. (I remember wondering about the ability of a Sunday School class of three year olds to understand the words to the hymn they were singing, “I was sinking deep in sin.”) How do you explain sight to one born blind? Or pain or pleasure to one who has had no experience with either? You cannot prove to one who has never had pain that pain exists. So too you cannot prove that what you experience as pain is the same as what others experience.
Understanding right and wrong is only possible for moral creatures. You know that you are a sinner, not because of the experience of others, but because of your conscience and the Golden Rule. You know that it is not a limitation of your nature, not merely unwise and hurtful to yourself and others, but rather it has a specific character of its own that makes you feel guilty and unclean.
All people see the need for law and the necessity of being under it. Even the anti-nomian and libertine revert to law when they are in control; when people live in community they see the necessity of law. We, in part, explored this in the study on The Nature of Law.
Included in law is the sense of obligation. When you say, “I ought to,” you mean by it, “I am bound by some authority to do it.” That authority may be your conscience, which governs as the rule of law in your life. Paul said, “Therefore you have no excuse, O man, whoever you are, when you judge another; for in passing judgment upon him you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.”[23] In this verse Paul states what it means to violate the Golden Rule, which is the definition of hypocrisy.
If you repudiate God’s law, arguing with Him when you meet that you did not accept His law and therefore should not be judged by it, He willingly consents to judge you by your own standard or law. Like a tape recorder that records all expressions of judgment, He plays back to you your own moral pronouncements and judges you by them. Thus, if we so desire, He is willing to judge us by our own standard of law. When you reject His standard in favor of your own, however, you forfeit your right to claim the Blood of Christ if you violate your standard.
Sin and guilt are mutually inclusive; nothing is sinful that does not involve guilt. Law defines the sin that produces the guilt. Your conscience, the government, or Scripture may form this law. Conscience attests to the presence of sin by the presence of guilt; the consciousness of sin includes the conviction of guilt.
All instinctively judge as good in others what they consider good in themselves. So too, they judge as evil what they consider evil in themselves. The question of what caused the character of the other person to be good or evil does not enter into the forming of this judgment. For example, you do not call murder good because the murderer is mentally retarded. You may excuse the crime because of such a deficiency, but you do not call the deed good.
People everywhere acknowledge that hypocrisy is wrong. Using Paul’s definition for hypocrisy, all acknowledge that they are hypocrites and are therefore guilty. Even the saint violates his own conscience, treating others differently from how he wishes to be treated.
A law is a law because it has no exceptions. For example, we call gravity a law, because it consistently acts the same. Paul says, “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.”[24] We can call this “The Law of the Harvest,” for there are no exceptions. If we think that this law is not consistent, we “deceive” ourselves; if this law is, in fact, inconsistent, then “God is mocked.”
When you talk of the will you can mean: a) – An act of deliberate self-determination, something performed, as illustrated by an act of premeditated murder; b) – A habit or disposition, as illustrated by a person developing the habit of becoming angry whenever he does not get his own way. Such a person may say, “I can’t help myself;” c) – A spontaneous, impulsive exercise of the feelings and affections, as illustrated by your cursing when something hurtful falls on your foot.
People usually associate the will with only “a,” when in reality all three can promote feelings of guilt and remorse. There is such a thing as character, from which the act is distinguished. Sin is not merely an act, but also a condition of the mind. Jesus said, “I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment.”[25] God will judge you because of your anger, and your sin does not necessarily involve the will as defined in “a;” it may be an involuntary reaction.
You may manifest selfishness, indifference, anger, lust, or covetousness without involving the “a” definition of your will. They flow from the essence of who you are without your thinking about them.
The two components to sin are guilt and pollution; they reside in the conscience of every person. Guilt deals with a sense of having done wrong. Jesus says, “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”[26]Most crime is committed in the dark of night because when people sin they seek to hide their wrong. Occasionally you will find brazen people who flaunt their sin, as currently seen in sexual promiscuity. But the conscience, untutored by society, identifies it as wrong. The conscience condemns wrong and the soul feels guilty.
Pollution deals with acknowledging that justice demands punishment. When the acts of others violate your conscience, you call for justice. When my grandchild gets caught doing wrong, he asks, “Am I going to get spanked?” The Old Testament talks a great deal about the relationship between sin and pollution, illustrated by the comment of the Psalmist: “And (they) shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood.”[27]
Christ takes upon Himself your sin in the latter sense, but not the former. He satisfies the demand for justice, but He does not remove your sense of having done wrong. In your own eyes you consider yourself worthy of judgment and hell, even though He paid the penalty for your sin. The same holds true for the person who goes to prison for his crime. Upon release, he acknowledges that justice has been satisfied, but he still acknowledges that he did wrong. For example, he is asked, “Why did you go to prison?” He replies, “I killed a man.” He knows that killing the man was wrong, even though he served his time in prison.
Furthermore, being guilty is not the same as feeling a sense of guilt and shame. You can be guilty and feel no guilt or pollution. For example, Hitler executed Dietrich Bonhoffer for plotting his death. Bonhoffer was guilty, but we have no indication that he felt a sense of guilt and shame. He was guilty, but he felt justified in trying to kill Hitler.
Guilt is the consequence of sin, irrespective of your attitude or feelings of guilt. You can easily willfully disobey the commandments of God and feel justified in doing so, as evidenced by a woman having short hair and not covering her head when she prays, and by a man taking a brother before the civil court in litigation.
It is also true that you don’t have to rebel to incur guilt. All violation of God’s commands brings guilt, in an objective sense. Thus, God says, “Or if any one touches an unclean thing, whether the carcass of an unclean beast or a carcass of unclean cattle or a carcass of unclean swarming things, and it is hidden from him, and he has become unclean, he shall be guilty.”[28]
Jesus makes the same point: “But he who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, shall receive a light beating.”[29] You may not be aware that you did wrong, or that what you knew you did was wrong, but you are still guilty. Ignorance may be an excuse with God, but you are still guilty; when God excuses you, He does not say that you did no wrong.
Guilt constitutes a heavy burden, not easy to carry; it wants removal. Cain cried out to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear.”[30] The Psalmist says the same thing: “For my iniquities have gone over my head; they weigh like a burden too heavy for me.”[31]
When you acknowledge your guilt and wish God to remove it, sorrow and repentance are essential. When the sinner acknowledges his guilt before God, seeking His forgiveness, God intercedes on his behalf – in the Old Testament with a covering (“Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.”[32]), and in the New Testament with the blood of Christ.
Grateful for His redemption,
September 2001
Dear Co-laborer,
Part 6
Thus far in our study we have looked at some of the ways the non-Christian views sin, and then we looked at sin’s entrance into the world through the sin of Adam. By an act of His grace, God imputed Adam’s sin to the whole human race. Although this was a legal transaction, it resulted in man committing all manner of evil. God did not create you sinful, but you were born into a hostile environment, absent the presence of God, and left to give full expression to your desire to be autonomous. God declares you a sinner in a legal sense, in order that He might send His Son as the Savior of the world. But God did not make you morally evil. You did this on your own when you declared your independence from Him.
Let’s now look at some of the words the Hebrews used in communicating the idea of sin. The most common Hebrew word, het (or its derivative) is found approximately 580 times in the Old Testament. It means: “to miss the mark, miss the way,” and has the same meaning as the basic Greek word for sin in the New Testament. Note its use in the following:
“Among all these were seven hundred picked men who were left-handed; every one could sling a stone at a hair, and not miss.”[33]
“Also, that the soul be without knowledge, it is not good; and he that hasteth with his feet sinneth.”[34] The RSV translates this verse: “It is not good for a man to be without knowledge, and he who makes haste with his feet misses his way.”
Het has both a secular and religious connotation. It can mean: “to stray, err,” and is used for all kinds of misdemeanors. Note, for example, the words of David to King Saul when David was fleeing for his life: “See, my father, see the skirt of your robe in my hand; for by the fact that I cut off the skirt of your robe, and did not kill you, you may know and see that there is no wrong or treason in my hands. I have not sinned against you, though you hunt my life to take it.”[35] David confesses that to have brought harm to Saul, who was trying to kill David, would have been sin, not because of God’s standard, but David deemed that such an act would be wrong.
Likewise, Saul responds to David: “I have sinned: return, my son David: for I will no more do thee harm, because my soul was precious in thine eyes this day: behold, I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly.”[36] Saul tells David that he sinned against him, even though no law of God was broken. Saul knew that there was no just cause to try to kill David.
Although het does not always touch the motive or inner quality of sinful actions, but simply the act itself, it is always a violation of the Golden Rule – even though it is not necessarily a violation of God’s law. As far as I can tell, the Hebrew language does not have a distinctive word for guilt, and het is often used to communicate this concept.
The Hebrew word pasha means: “to rebel, a willful breach of a relationship.” For example, when Israel renounced the dynasty of David, the Holy Spirit says, “So Israel rebelled against the house of David unto this day.”[37] Again, when Edom declared independence from Judah, it says, “In his days Edom revolted from under the hand of Judah, and made a king over themselves.”[38]
Pasha is used to connote a spontaneous human reaction against the authority of God. God, speaking through His servant Jeremiah, says, “How dare you still plead with me? You have all rebelled against me, says the LORD.”[39] Again, God said through Amos the prophet: “Come to Bethel, and transgress; to Gilgal, and multiply transgression; bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days.”[40]
The word rebel and its various derivatives, is almost always against God, His law, and His designated authority. It captures the willful dimension to sin, challenging the authority of God. It was said of Jesus, “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.”[41] Most live compliant lives because they perceive that what is asked of them is in their best interest. You learn obedience when you suffer in the sense of voting against your desire in favor of what you are asked to do. Gethsemane is the only recorded instance of Jesus meeting the will of His Father and not wanting to do it. You are tested each time you meet the will of God and don’t want to obey. You fail the test when you rebel.
You find an interesting phrase for willful sin in Moses’ words to Israel: “But the soul that doeth ought presumptuously, whether he be born in the land, or a stranger, the same reproacheth the LORD; and that soul shall be cut off from among his people.”[42] “Presumptuously” is ruwm, meaning: “high hand, extol self.”
The Hebrews use shagah for “err,” the mildest expression for the reality of sin as seen in Ezekiel 45:20: “And so thou shalt do the seventh day of the month for every one that erreth, and for him that is simple: so shall ye reconcile the house.” These are unpremeditated offences or provocations, and as such, are covered by the sacrificial order. Then too, the cities of refuge were provided for those who shagah: “Then ye shall appoint you cities to be cities of refuge for you; that the slayer may flee thither, which killeth any person at unawares.”[43] Although he commits sin, God does not deal harshly with him, but only because he did not intend to do evil.
Job talks about shagah: “Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up: also he sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth. With him is strength and wisdom: the deceived and the deceiver are his. He leadeth counsellors away spoiled, and maketh the judges fools.”[44] Such errors, according to Job, are Providential rather than personal, the product of a clouded mind, which is incapable of comprehension and therefore dealing with God.
The God of Scripture is unique in setting forth standards on how man should treat his follow man. In those religions that have their origin from reason, there may be rules and regulations governing the behavior of man towards others, but these rules do not come from a personal God who holds each individual accountable. Sin, seen from this perspective, is not only against your neighbor, but also more importantly against God. You are an offense to Him when you step outside the parameters He has established for interpersonal relationships.
You can easily see the relationship between autonomy and ingratitude. Your quest of autonomy is the product of wanting no restrictions on your appetites. Using other people satisfies most of your appetites. Appetites are insatiable, robbing you of your ability to be grateful. It matters not what you have, you will always want more.
I am in the “last quarter of the ballgame.” Jesus said, “I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.”[45] I am in the “dusk” of life. As I reflect on how I lived my life, my only regret is my sin – usually involving other people, but always against God. If I am not unique, this is a powerful indicator that the human is morally flawed.
People can respond either as skeptics or believers. The skeptic must answer, from where did this sense of guilt and remorse come? Are there any in life that do not feel guilt and shame? You cannot prove that it does not come from the environment, but you can demonstrate that society cannot eradicate it. The believer must answer why the indwelling Spirit convicts of sin. The whole of the Bible agrees that we feel guilty because we are guilty. This universal sense of guilt attests to the presence of sin.
Self-justification destroys all ability to reconcile. This is true in every relationship in life, and especially in our relationship with God. The Holy Spirit convicts and we suppress accusation and guilt in an endeavor to justify ourselves. When we do that, we call into question the Spirit’s right to convict us. In the process we destroy any possibility of reconciliation because this may be the unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit.
A sinner saved by grace,
November 2001
Dear Co-laborer,
Part 7
In the last issue we looked at various Hebrew words used for sin. As far as I can determine, only the books of Ruth and Esther omit the subject of man’s depravity, and even Esther refers to it indirectly when Mordecai asked Esther to participate in a beauty contest for the hand of a pagan king, as well as the actions of Haman the Amalekite. The Old Testament authors assume their readers understand the transfer of Adam’s sin to the human race and the moral degeneracy that ensued. “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”[46]
In this issue I want to look at the relationship between sin and God’s law. We explored this, in part, in the last series on The Nature of Law, so some of this will be review.
People have always known right from wrong because of their conscience. In this sense James defines sin: “Whoever knows what is right to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”[47] Jesus defines sin by the Golden Rule: “So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.”[48] You sin when you treat people differently from how you wish to be treated.
If a person believes in a multiplicity of gods he does not have to worry about eternal accountability, for which of the gods holds him accountable? Where does he find his standard of conduct? Where does he find God’s law?
Paul said, “For by the law is the knowledge of sin.”[49] Again he says, “If it had not been for the law, I should not have known sin.”[50] The law defines sin. For the first and only recorded time in the history of the world, the Creator spoke to a whole nation at one time. The nation acknowledged that it had heard God and affirmed what He said. When God gave the law, He defined sin.
After the flood, God said to Noah, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image.”[51] Prior to the Law of Moses, I can find no other command given by God to His people regulating how they must treat each other.
In the law God reveals His will to the people of Israel. When Israel broke the law they sinned against God. This connection between law and sin is exact; in the Old Testament, the law defines sin. Nothing else does.
You can catalogue the different kinds of sin in the Old Testament in a variety of ways. Let me suggest four categories or kinds:
1 – Flagrant misdeeds. These include obvious infractions of the law, such as David’s adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, Uriah.
2 – Acts of rebellion. Saul’s unwillingness to obey God’s command to destroy utterly the seed of Amalek, affords a good illustration. When Samuel the prophet confronted Saul, he began to argue with Samuel. Samuel said to him, “Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.”[52] Finally backed into a corner, Saul admitted that he sinned.
God distinguishes between flagrant misdeeds and acts of rebellion. In the first you disobey; in the second you disagree with God’s command. Let’s use the illustration of a fence. A flagrant misdeed happens when you drive your auto through the fence. God asks, “What have you done?” You reply, “ I broke the fence and I have no excuse.” David did not try to justify himself or argue that he was not wrong. In an act of rebellion you drive through the fence, and then argue with God over the deed: “I didn’t really drive through the fence; it just appears that I did. Besides, a fence should never have been placed there.” When King Saul rebelled, God took his kingdom from him.
3 – Unwitting offenses. When you break the law unwittingly, God provides sacrifices to cover your sin. As we saw in an earlier issue of this series, God provided cities of refuge for the unwitting crime of manslaughter.
When referring to the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16, the author of Hebrews says, “But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people.”[53] The word used for “errors” means, “to sin in ignorance or unwittingly, an error, an oversight.” Flagrant misdeeds and acts of rebellion had no chance to be atoned through sacrifice: "But anyone who sins defiantly, whether he be a native or an alien, insults the LORD, and shall be cut off from among his people. Since he has despised the word of the LORD and has broken his commandment, he must be cut off. He has only himself to blame."[54]
4 – Idolatry. This was a special category of sin for the Old Testament people of God. The creator God of the universe reveals Himself to the nation of Israel. The people know that they cannot supplant God. They exist to serve Him, not vice versa. Still, they create gods who ostensibly will give them their autonomy. As we saw in the sin of Adam, they wanted to determine “good and evil” for themselves. Someone said, “Idolatry is the essence of rebellion; it is committing every sin.”
Sin separates. It always has, and it always will. A man cheats on his wife and separation results. Two men are partners; the one steals from the other, and separation results. In society we separate criminals from the rest of the people by incarcerating them. In the Bible, when the individual and/or the nation sins, separation results.
In the Old Testament, the temporal destiny of the individual was tied to the nation and vice versa. During the days of the Theocracy, the Bible says, “And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim”[55] During the days of the Monarchy, the Bible says, “In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash king of Judah Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel began to reign in Samaria, and reigned forty and one years. 24 And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD: he departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.”[56]
When the people answered directly to God during the Theocracy, He says, “And the people sinned.” When the people rejected the Theocracy in favor of a Monarchy, He says, “ And the king sinned.” God tied the fate of the individual and nation together. In some sense, this has always been the case, as illustrated by the man who bores a hole in a boat full of people at sea. Individual sin has corporate implications.
When God gave Israel the law at Sinai, He assumed that the people could and would keep it. For example, the Apostle Paul says to the Galatians, “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.”[57] If Paul had said these words to Israel after they received the law, I am confident that Moses would have told him that he was mistaken. If God had said that His law could not be kept, then He would be saying to His people that He asks them to do the impossible.
God made no sacrificial provision for the willful violation of His law. As we saw earlier, such people were either executed or banished from the community.[58] You can easily see why He did not provide for the violation of His law: The purpose of the state is to ensure justice. If the violation of the laws of the state can be overlooked through sacrifice, then injustice and oppression reign.
When King David sinned in the matter of Bathsheba and Uriah, he prayed: “For thou hast no delight in sacrifice; were I to give a burnt offering, thou wouldst not be pleased. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.”[59] David understood that there was nothing in the Old Testament arsenal of sacrifice that could solve his problem of murder and adultery. So he threw himself on the mercy and grace of God.
Obviously, God wanted him to go there. But if the sacrificial system addressed willful sin, the people would have trusted in sacrifice rather than grace, and sinned with impunity. This is antithetical to all God teaches.
Prior to these words in the Psalms,[60] the Old Testament believer had no hope, of which I am aware, that God would restore the willful sinner who comes to Him with a broken spirit and contrite heart. Isaiah picks up this theme,[61] but it originates with King David.
The word sin is not a widely used term in society today. Rarely, if ever, do you find it used by the magistrate in a court of law. Even in interpersonal relationships, you seldom find it used. Society has relegated it to the nomenclature of religion, in man’s relation to God rather than man.
As we progress in this study, we will call attention to some reasons for this, but note that without accountability, sin is a meaningless concept. He who gives the law must judge the transgressor. Otherwise the law is vacuous.
Jesus warned: “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”[62] Of course, the only One that can do this is God. Thus, David prayed: “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.”[63] As an absolute monarch, only God could hold David accountable. In a very real sense, this is true for you as well. Jesus said to fear God, for He alone gets to define sin.
His servant,
January 2002
Dear Co-laborer,
Part 8
In the September issue we noted David’s response to God when he committed murder and adultery. For the first time recorded in Scripture, he suggests that a broken and contrite heart can restore our relationship with God. Because David’s confession is so pivotal to understanding how the sinner relates to God, we will devote this issue to an exposition of Psalm 51. David illustrates how a sinner can become a man after God’s own heart. It matters not how deep David’s depravity, his depth of repentance was greater.
I Samuel 11-12 records David’s adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, Uriah the Hittite. Evidently several months transpired between David’s sin and Nathan the prophet’s confrontation of him. David, an oriental king with despotic power, dismisses from his mind the crime he committed. Among the nations of the world, such acts were the prerogative of the king. Because God elected Israel to be His own, the king was under God’s authority.
When Nathan the prophet confronted the king, he awakened David’s dormant conscience. You will remember that Nathan used the illustration of the rich man taking a poor man’s pet lamb and having it for dinner. David evidently had put the crime out of his mind, for he did not make the application. When God’s prophet stuck his finger in the face of David, and said, “You are the man,”[64] David immediately acknowledged his sin. He didn’t try to defend himself; he made no excuses.
Psalm 51 divides into two obvious parts:
V. 1 – “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.” David begins appealing for mercy before confessing his sin. His guilt is an established fact. He appeals to God’s lovingkindness and tender mercies, asking that God will erase them from the record.
V. 2 – “Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.” After asking God to cleanse the record, David then asks God to cleanse his life.. His person is defiled and needs cleansing, and only God can do it effectively. The hypocrite wants his garment cleaned; the man of God, sick of sin, desires the cleansing of his soul.
V. 3 – “For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.” David now acknowledges the plurality of his sins. As with Nathan the prophet, you see no hint of self-justification. Once David sees his sin, it is “ever before” him. He cannot remove it from his conscience and he realizes that it has alienated him from God. David must deal with it.
V. 4 – “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.” David does not say that he sinned against Bathsheba, Uriah, or Israel. Only against God was this sin committed. Sin, in the final analysis, is opposition to God. When you sin against others you sin against God, for God is your Judge and He determines how you treat other people.
Note that David says, “In thy sight.” When we sin, God looks on. Paul says of the godless, “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”[65] One of the marks of regeneration is an awareness that God is watching. David voted against himself in acknowledgment of God’s righteousness. You can approach the judge in a felony case one of two ways: You can declare your innocence, asking the court to be just in dismissing the charge of the prosecution, or you can plead guilty and seek the mercy of the court. God will only forgive you if you plead guilty.
V. 5 – “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” David does not seek to justify himself in this verse, nor does he say that his father and mother conceived him immorally. David acknowledges, not just this one sin, but that his whole nature is sinful.
V. 6 – “Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.” These are two sides of a coin: God wants you to approach Him in integrity, with an open transparency before Him, and He will open your mind and reveal Himself if you do. The Apostle Paul teaches that God is wisdom and He will teach you the way things are.[66]
V. 7 – “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” David can do nothing to cleanse himself; God must do it. You will see this again in v. 16. In vv. 7-12 David asks God for eleven things. We will note them as we progress. In this verse we note the first two: “Purge” me and “wash” me.
V. 8 – “Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.” This is request four and five. David begins in v. 1 by asking God to give mercy; now he asks God to give him joy. It must be in that order. You can have no joy without pardon. When a man is merely wounded, he can still move. When his bones are crushed, he has no power. David uses figurative language to describe his inner being; he is paralyzed without God’s forgiveness.
V. 9 – “Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.” This is request five. There are times when we are ashamed and don’t want people looking at us. David is so heartsick over his sin he didn’t want God looking at him. He says the same thing in v. 1, except here he adds the word “all.” An awareness of a particular sin awakens in us an awareness of our depravity.
V. 10 – “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” These are requests six and seven. In v. 7, David asks God to cleanse him; now he asks God for a clean heart, acknowledging that it is a work God must do. “Remove the evil, but replace it with a renewed spirit.”
V. 11 – “Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.” These are requests eight and nine. Cain was banished from God’s presence. David sees this as a distinct possibility for himself and prays against it. He does not ask for temporal restoration; he doesn’t even mention the subject. God’s presence was more important to David than anything else. Samson did not know that the Spirit departed from him. The Holy Spirit departed from the life of Saul. David pleads, “God, do not let it happen to me!”
V. 12 – “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.” These are requests ten and eleven. They are the words of a saved man. He has not lost his salvation, only the “joy” of his salvation. Thus, this prayer follows David’s plea for pardon and purity. Experience tells him that he cannot live a holy life in his own power. He needs to be upheld by the Holy Spirit. Note that the Spirit is “free,” given to whom God wishes. He cannot be purchased.
V. 13 – “Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.” King David paid a high price to qualify as a teacher. Having experienced this catastrophe he resolves to teach others so they can be “converted.” His pupils are people like himself – those who are “transgressors.” These are the only kind of people that go to heaven.
V. 14 – “Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.” David did not kill Uriah; he died in battle. But the king knows that he was responsible for shedding the blood of this innocent man, the first time in this Psalm that he specifies his crime.
He calls for deliverance from the One who can save him, the only One against whom he sinned. David does not say, “I will sing of Thy mercy,” but rather “of Thy righteousness.” Mercy is only possible if God is righteous, as Paul says, God must be “just and the Justifier.”[67] Justice must be satisfied, and evidently David the king knew that.
V. 15 – “O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.” Sin caused David to lose all confidence in himself. God must open his lips and give the power to praise. If there is any benefit at all to sin, it is the lesson of dependence.
V. 16 – “For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.” In this verse David tells us what God does not want, in v. 18 what God does want. As noted in the last issue, David understood that there was no sacrifice in the Levitical arsenal adequate to handle this problem. There were no sacrifices for willful sin, only those committed in ignorance.
V. 17 – “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” David defines the essence of a person’s relationship with God. God wants you living in a state of perpetual brokenness. God is more pleased with a broken spirit than with the broken neck of a sacrificed animal. It is a “sacrifice” because brokenness, dependence, humility, and contrition require death to self – unnatural attitudes required in a relationship with God.
V. 18 – “Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem.” God established His covenant with David before his sin with Bathsheba. Connected to this covenant was the building of the Temple, and David did not want his sin to hinder this promise. He acknowledges that the covenant was gracious and therefore not conditional.
V. 19 – “Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.” Sacrifices can only be pleasing to God if we understand that there is nothing efficacious or salvific in them. David did not sacrifice in order to be forgiven; He sacrificed because he was forgiven.
Grateful for His grace,
March 2002
Dear Co-laborer,
Part 9
The last issue was devoted to a brief exposition of Psalm 51, the great penitential prayer of King David after Nathan the prophet confronted him with his sin. Next, I would like to explore what the New Testament says about sin. The principle Greek word for sin used in the New Testament is hamartia: “to miss the mark, lose, not share in something.” It is close in meaning to the Hebrew word het, discussed in part 6 of this series.
Originally, hamartia had the connotation of an intellectual mistake. The Greek philosopher Aristotle placed it somewhere between injustice and misfortune: “an offence against the prevailing order, without evil intentions.” Gradually hamartia became associated with guilt as portrayed in Greek tragedies. Man is basically good, trapped by fate. Fate causes him to “miss the mark.”
Although this is a separate study that should take several issues to cover, we will only touch on the highlights. Note four observations:
1 – Jesus did not speak of sin and its nature, but only of its reality. Nowhere does He cover the material the Apostle Paul does in Romans 5-8. We learn of Jesus’ view regarding sin through His acts and sayings. He was conscious of being the Victor over sin.
2 – We catch a glimpse of what Jesus understood by sin in His parable of the Prodigal Son: “I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee…. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.”[68] Sin includes leaving the authority of the Father and living for self, allowing the world to pollute with all manner of filth. The prodigal is aware of his alienation and lostness.
3 – Jesus tells us that He came for sinners, not for those who are righteous: “He said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous.”[69] Jesus does not suggest that some are sinful and some are righteous. Rather He teaches that all are in need of the Great Physician – some realize it and some do not.
4 – Jesus identified with and was called the friend of sinners: “And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples.”[70]
Primarily, the Apostle Paul in his epistles develops the rationale for Jesus’ coming. Paul makes frequent reference to his having received special revelation of the Lord Jesus after His Ascension.[71] His was not an empirical doctrine of sin based on pessimism, but the product of what God Himself taught him.
The Greek word for sin, hamartia, and its derivative (discussed above), occurs 215 times in the New Testament – 78 times in Paul’s letters and 55 times in Romans. It is the most frequently used term for sin in Romans 5-8.[72] There is no appreciable difference between how the Old Testament and the New Testament understands sin. In both it is the violation of God’s law or expectations.
Although Jesus radicalized the law in the Sermon on the Mount, He does not use the word “sin” in His message. As seen in an early issue, sin is the violation of God’s Law. The Golden Rule encompasses most sin against others: you sin whenever you treat people different from how you wish to be treated. Paul takes this theme and states it negatively: “Therefore you have no excuse, O man, whoever you are, when you judge another; for in passing judgment upon him you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who do such things.”[73]
As you know, Romans 1-8 contains the most comprehensive analysis of sin in the New Testament. Here Paul differs from Judaism in that sin is not just an individual act, a violation of God’s law. For Judaism, sin is a free choice; for Paul it is something far more complex.
Paul’s conception of sin is theological and ethical only to the extent that conduct toward one’s neighbor stands under the claim of God. Paul sees sin as a state or condition that embraces/enslaves all humanity. He sees an indissoluble connection between the sin of Adam and the death of all men. Man does not inherit Adam’s sin. Rather, judgment is pronounced upon all because of Adam’s sin. By way of contrast, in the Old Testament, you find no call for individual conversion and deliverance from the power of sin; the Old Testament writers do not draw the same conclusions as Paul, pertaining to the sin of Adam. They taught that if, as the people of God, you keep the law, all is well.
In the Part 2 we looked at Genesis 3-11 and the imputed sin of Adam. You will remember that “imputation” in this context does not appear in the Old Testament. Only Paul discusses it in the New Testament – briefly in I Corinthians 15 and more thoroughly in Romans 5:12-21. Romans 6-8 deals with sanctification and the part sin plays in the life of the believer.
The question of what constitutes legitimate expectations regarding the believer’s sanctification in Christ was hotly debated in the fifth century, principally between Augustine and Pelagius. We will look at this debate again in the next issue, but let me underline the critical role it played in the history of the Christian movement. What did Paul mean when he said, “For in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive?”[74]
Pelagius argued that Christ reversed the effect of Adam’s sin for all people, and all now stand as Adam did before the fall. Visualize people jumping into the pit of hell. In like manner they can climb out. They are free from the moral necessity of sinning. In Christ, people are capable of not sinning.
Augustine argued that “all” means “represented by.” All did not die in Adam, only those represented by Adam did. For example, because Jesus was born of a virgin without the seed of a man, Christ did not have Adam’s imputed sin; Adam did not represent Christ. So too, “all” are not “made alive” by Christ. People can jump into the pit of hell as an act of their own volition, but they cannot climb out. Only Christ can pull them out, and He does not pull everyone out.
Romans 6:6-7 captures the essence of the debate: “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin.” What does Paul mean, “he that is dead is freed from sin?” Augustine said that man is “free from sin” in a legal, but not a moral sense. Just as the believer’s sin was imputed to Christ, so Christ’s righteousness was imputed to him. Paul talks about our position in Christ, not our experience.
“For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. 17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”[75]
Pelagius argued that these words of Paul refer to the non-Christian. Augustine said they represent the experience of the follower of Christ; you cannot understand Romans 6-8 without carrying forward Paul’s teaching on imputation.
This raised the question of how you define sin. Pelagius said only that which involves the will can be considered sin. If the will is not involved, you cannot call it sin; ability limits obligation. “If I ought, I can.” Man must have the ability to do and be whatever God demands of him. Jesus said, “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”[76] If Jesus commands that you be perfect, you can be perfect – as perfect as your “heavenly Father.”
This is the doctrine of the free will of man. Free will is the power to choose between good and evil at all times, every moment of a person’s life. Whatever you do not will, you are not morally responsible for. Sin is only the deliberate choice of evil. Therefore, all people everywhere are equally the recipients of God’s grace. You can make no distinction between common grace and special grace.
Augustine countered that although sin involves the will, it involves much more. Anger, indifference, covetousness, selfishness, etc. bypass the will, but still must be considered sin. For example, a man awakens preoccupied with business and treats his family with indifference. On the way to work he realizes what he did and phones his wife to apologize. Pelagius would say that this is not sin.
The doctrine of Pelagius was condemned in the west at the Council of Carthage in AD. 412 and 418, and in the east at the Council of Ephesus in AD. 431. Most of the church embraces the Augustinian view and it became the position of the Roman Church and most of Protestantism. Pelagius’ views influenced the Dutch theologian Arminius, and in turn John Wesley. Methodism, much of Pentecostalism and the Holiness movement embrace the basic theology of Pelagius.
In the next issue we will finish looking at Romans 6-8 and briefly explore how John views sin in his writings.
In the bonds of Christ,
July 2002
Dear Co-laborer,
Part 10
Paul teaches in Romans 6-7 that the power of sin is broken, but the presence of sin remains. In Romans 8 the power of the Holy Spirit brings the practice of the believer (Romans 7), through the process of sanctification, into alignment with his position in Christ (Romans 6).
Paul ends Romans 5 with these words: “Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.”[77] This establishes the theme of his next chapter: the reigning or rulership of sin in the life of the believer. “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?”[78]
Note the Paul’s use of “reckon” (v. 11) i.e. “impute,” “reign” (v. 12), “yield” (v. 13), “dominion” (v. 14), and “yield…servants” (v. 16). Paul does not argue for the eradication of sin in these chapters, but against its ruler-ship in the life of the believer. Sin may be present, as Paul points out in Romans 7, but the rulership of sin in the life of one for whom Christ died is a contradiction of terms.
John and Paul agree in their view that Jesus, as the Lamb of God, came into the world to save sinners. In his first epistle, John argues that God is love and sin the opposite of love. The rulership of sin in the life of one born of God is impossible. This is the same basic argument Paul makes in Romans 6.
None can consider themselves sinless or dispense with the need for forgiveness: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”[79]
Sin separates man from God so that God will not hear his prayers: “Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth.”[80]
Sin is servitude to demonic power: “Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.”[81]
Man is bound with Satan in opposition to God: “He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.”[82]
The church fathers didn’t deal with the subject of sin, except in general terms, so long as the truth of Scripture was affirmed. They had to deal with the two prevalent heresies, Gnosticism and Manicheism. Both see sin as a necessary evil having its origin in a cause independent of God and beyond the control of the creature. They saw sin as both necessary and eternal.
Briefly, the church refuted these heresies by teaching that: 1- All men are, in their present state, sinners; 2 – The sin of Adam was imputed to the human race; 3 – Salvation from sin comes only through the propitious death of Christ; and 4 – Even babies need regeneration and the redemption of Christ.
1 – In the Synoptic Gospels and Acts, hamartia is always understood as an individual act. Neither Jesus nor His followers in Acts concerned themselves with the nature of sin. They saw people in the reality of their individual sins and the work of Christ based on this reality. It was Paul who raised the theological question of sin as a power, which determines the nature of man and the world. John touches on the nature of sin, but is more like the Synoptics than like Paul.
2 – Three forms of sin can be distinguished in the New Testament:
A – Individual acts of sin as illustrated by the words of James: “But if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors.”[83]
B – The defective nature of man, illustrated by the words of Jesus: “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.”[84]
C – A personal power, discussed only by the Apostle Paul: “For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.”[85]
3 – Paul frequently ties his awareness of sin to his persecution of the church. Writing to the Corinthians, he says, “For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”[86] This persecution was simply the final result of his attempted self-justification through the works of the law. Paul did not violate the law in persecuting the church. He learned that he could be the enemy of God without actually breaking any particular law. His conversion brought him to realize that his whole activity in Judaism was opposition to God’s will. This may be why he was so hard on himself.
Paul applied the law according to his own will when persecuting the church in opposition to the will of God. Once this became clear, he was insistent that sin is not merely violating the law (he already knew this as a Jew). Rather, it was resistance to God’s will, a desire to be autonomous in the application of God’s law. This was the antithesis of what he professed as a Jew, and it appreciably shaped his concept of sin as something intrinsic to man.
The law could not help. Law now had the very opposite function from that ascribed to it in Judaism: “Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.”[87]
Once Paul saw sin as a condition rather than just an act, the law was voided. Seeking to live by the law gives the fallen nature its occasion to sin. Freedom from sin, for Paul, includes freedom from the law.
4 – You do far greater damage to your conscience, as well as your relationship with God, if you seek to establish your own standard of sin, rather than accepting God’s standard. Most of what God disallows, your conscience condemns, as illustrated by the Ten Commandments. On the other hand, much of what the conscience of many prohibits, God allows, such as smoking, drinking, and gambling. Often you will find God easier on a person than you are. For example, you become angry when a person cuts in front of you, while God may not judge him; he may not have even realized that he did it. You must decide on whether you want to be judged by God’s standards, or your own. Think carefully before making the decision.
5 – Hatred is an expression of anger, and anger is the product of frustrated expectations. When a person hates God, it is because God did not measure up to his expectations. As part of the Decalogue, God says: “You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me.”[88]
God says that people worship idols because they “hate” Him. Paul says essentially the same thing: “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”[89] You cannot be angry and grateful at the same time. Ingratitude is the fountain of all sin.
Yours for a life of obedience,
September 2002
Dear Co-laborer
Part 11
It occurs to me that I have a higher commitment to truth than does God. By definition, God is Truth. All He does He does in accordance with truth. Because God is secure in who He is He sometimes creates the impression that He is rather cavalier with His truth. He uses people, blessing their ministries at, from my perspective, the expense of truth. People who hold an inadequate view of God, who come to erroneous conclusions regarding what can be legitimately expected from God, are nevertheless frequently mightily blessed and used by God. For example, God seems to wonderfully bless many who teach that holiness is the path to temporal prosperity, while Paul says that such people have “corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth…”[90]
In contrast, I am insecure, seeking to find truth and never absolutely sure that I have found it. I walk by faith, and faith means I commit without knowing. So I come to conclusions regarding what the Bible teaches, knowing full well that as the years progress, many of these conclusions will be modified. Growth and change in the Christian life take place by this process.
Doctrine, by its nature, is inherently ambiguous. For example, “Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.”[91]
Those in the Roman Catholic Church believe that the bread and wine of the Lord’s Table become the actual body and blood of Christ during the sacrifice at the Mass. I am convinced that they are wrong, believing that during communion we partake of the spiritual, not physical, presence of Christ. But I also prefer the literal interpretation of Scripture unless the context demands otherwise. I, who prefer a literal interpretation, interpret Jesus’ words in John 6 figuratively, while Roman Catholics interpret Him literally. I freely acknowledge that when I meet Christ at the Judgment, I may discover that the Roman Church is correct in this matter.
On the other hand, the commandments, by their nature, are inherently unambiguous. We may disagree on whether believers are obligated to keep Old Testament Law, and we may disagree on exactly how the New Testament commands should be applied, but historically, the whole of the church has agreed that the New Testament commands are normative for believers. Any wordsmith can tell us what the command says and means. For example, Paul is clear when he says, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.”[92] We may disagree regarding what loving our wives looks like, but the command itself is clear and unambiguous.
People please God and are considered holy in His sight not because they embrace the correct doctrine, but because they obey Him. Jesus said, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”[93] Again the Savior says, “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.”[94] James says regarding demons, “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.”[95] Not those who believe the correct doctrine, but those who keep God’s commandments, have the assurance that they love God and that God loves them.
I am not suggesting that you can believe anything you want; God considers doctrine important. Paul warns, “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.”[96] Never the less, for every passage you can find in the New Testament emphasizing the importance of doctrine, you can find one hundred passages emphasizing the importance of obedience.
Jesus says, “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.”[97] Here our Lord teaches that obedience leads to assurance that His doctrine comes from God, not, “If you believe My doctrine you will be motivated to do My will.” If you wish to please God, you must obey Him.
I don’t mean to suggest that obedience and doctrine compete with each other, nor that in obeying God you can afford the luxury of disregarding doctrine. Scripture emphasizes the importance of both.
I may be wrong, but I sense that doctrine is far more important in evangelical Christianity than obedience. The average Bible believing community would have a greater problem with your believing that the bread and wine in communion are the body and blood of our Lord, than a woman being a teacher or elder in the church. I suggest that the priority of God is the opposite; God considers obedience of greater importance than proper doctrine.
During an altercation with Jesus, the Sadducees initiated a doctrinal issue concerning the resurrection. “Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.”[98] So also, in passages such as Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus,[99] Jesus corrects people concerning their faulty understanding of the ways of God, but, as far as I can tell, never in a harsh, judgmental way.
The Savior reserves His harshest words for those who tamper with God’s commandments. For example, He rebuked the Pharisees “for laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men…”[100] People who feel free adding to the commandments of God generally feel qualified to ignore the commandments of God.
You will note that, along with the wholesale neglect of the New Testament commands, Christians do not want to believe that they must fear God. The two obviously go together: If you wish to consider the commandments of God optional, you must be assured that God will not hold you accountable. The whole of the Bible in general, and the New Testament in particular, teach the opposite. Jesus said, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”[101] God is the only one you should fear!
In Romans 3 Paul pronounces judgment on the human race. He says, “There are none righteous…none that understand…none that seek God…none that fear God.”[102] Whenever an individual begins to behave contrary to one of these four characteristics of the unregenerate, you can know that the Holy Spirit is at work in him. In other words, one of the marks of the regenerate is the fear of God. Remember, the word for “fear” is “phobia,” not respect. Respect is on your terms; you get to decide what it looks like. Fear is on God’s terms; He decides what it looks like. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”[103]
I cannot tell you that if you do not fear God you are not saved. But I do suggest that if you do not fear God you have reason to question your salvation.
As society becomes increasingly decadent and as the body of Christ conforms to society, the believer finds himself dependent upon his fear of God. There may have been a day when taboos of culture created an environment of morality and restraint, but I think that most would agree that those days no longer exist. Your fear of God becomes your final safety net keeping you from being sucked into the black hole of tolerating the violation of God’s commands.
You would think that conscience can be of service, and to a certain degree it can. But your conscience can never be your final court of appeal; it can easily be manipulated.
As the body of Christ moves toward conforming to the world, it begins with those commandments that conscience does not affirm. Both Testaments have ample illustrations: “A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD.”[104] “To have lawsuits at all with one another is defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud, and that even your own brethren.”[105] “Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.”[106] “I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent.”[107]
These are merely illustrative of a host of such commandments, the ignoring of which does not violate the conscience. From here it is but a short step to breaking the commandments that are affirmed by conscience. For example, I freely admit that God prohibits murder, and my conscience affirms God’s command. But if a man broke into my house late at night, threatening the security of my family, I would without hesitation take his life – without feeling I had done wrong. That thought terrifies me. With a slight alteration of my perception of circumstances, I can override my conscience and feel justified in doing it.
You can see how easily a person can do the same thing in regard to divorce and remarriage, or how a person can justify homosexuality because “God made him that way.” Never underestimate your ability to manipulate your conscience; it is highly malleable.
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”[108] Whenever you set aside a command, such as the woman covering her head when praying or prophesying, because you firmly believe in your heart that for whatever reason it does not apply to you, be prepared to defend before God at the Day of Judgment that your will was not involved; if you did not keep it because you did not want to keep it, God will judge you.
Satan said to Eve, “Hath God said?”[109] In saying this, he cast doubt on the authority of God. Probably no generation in history has listened to the voice of Satan more consistently than our generation. Either the Bible is God’s Word, or it is not. If not, then your faith consists of nothing more than subjective emotionalism as you seek to use the Bible to feel good about yourself. If it is the Word of God, then God help you if you ignore His commands.
Using the analogy of baseball, I am not talking about your batting average. “Let him that is without sin cast the first stone.”[110] But that is entirely different from arguing with God over the rules of the game. Don’t tell God that His commands are cultural, irrelevant, or unimportant. Obedience is the only sure test of regeneration.
His servant…. your friend,
Walt
November 2002
Dear Co-laborer
Part 12
In this, the closing issue on the subject of A Biblical View of Sin let me note the following:
1 – Sin, grace, and predestination are linked: you cannot understand sin without understanding grace and predestination. Although you must believe in both the sovereign election of God and the free will of man in order to be biblical, you will be unable to grasp the depth of your sin without embracing the doctrine of election. If you think, in the final analysis, that you accepted Christ because of what you did, and Joe pagan did not accept Christ because of what he refused to do, you have an inadequate grasp of your depravity.
2 – People cannot save themselves from the problem of sin. Few things in life are as tragic as the person who engages in the futility of self-reformation. Jesus says: “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.”[111] Sin incapacitates the soul, rendering it unable to deliver itself from bondage.
3 – Regeneration is the exclusive and supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul says: “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”[112] Note four things regarding Paul’s indictment of the human race: no one is righteous, no one understands, no one seeks God, and no one fears God.
Man may be aware of his sin apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, but without the aid of the Spirit, he cannot understand his lostness and alienation from God. People seek God because God first sought them.
4 – God must intervene in a person’s life for salvation to take place, and He does not intervene in all people’s lives. As Paul says, “Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.”[113]
You cannot know the reason why God touches the lives of some and not others. Grace, by definition, means that there is no reason. Again, Paul says that God “predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.”[114] Hosea, the faithful servant of God, took for his wife a worthless whore. It was a marriage nonsensical in the eyes of the world. In this illustration, we are the faithless whores chosen by God “according to the good pleasure of His will.” The disposition to seek God is a product of grace and His gift of life.
5 – Scripture teaches that salvation is based on the propitious death of Christ. It is the ground or reason for God’s justification of the ungodly. If you want to understand God’s hatred of sin, look at what He did to His Son on the cross. Faith is the condition necessary to be saved, but faith is prompted by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.
6 – One of the most perplexing questions left unanswered in Scripture is, what is the source of the evil impulse? How is it related to our God-given desire to be autonomous, and what will it look like in eternity? Will the believer maintain his individual identity with his will intact? If not, does he become a robot?
When Jesus wrestled in the Garden of Gethsemane, He did not want to do God’s will. This desire to violate God’s will was part of His nature; exercising will in choice is essential to being human. When in heaven, will God ever ask us to do what we don’t want to do? In our resurrected bodies, must we struggle with the will of God, as did Jesus in Gethsemane? Will we be tempted with evil with the possibility of sinning?
Scripture seems to suggest, and it is our most fervent hope, that we will not be so tested. I know of no way to resolve this troubling dilemma, unless God removes in heaven this evil impulse – found in the angels before their fall, found in Adam and Eve before their sin, and found in the life of our Lord when He faced temptation.
We are taught that we will rule in eternity as Christ’s vice-regents: “If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us.”[115] “Worthy art thou to take the scroll and to open its seals, for thou wast slain and by thy blood didst ransom men for God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and hast made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on earth.”[116]
Reason suggests that whenever you have two rational beings where one is in submission to the other, you have created an environment of temptation where sin is possible.
7 – Regarding sin, there seems to be three kinds of people in the world:
A – Those who come to the Light, not because they have nothing to hide, but
rather they find not coming to the Light an unacceptable alternative.
B – Those who reject and avoid the Light because they are seeking to hide their
sins; they know that they are wrong and refuse to change.
C – Those who come to the Light, and yet refuse to be broken by Jesus Christ. They seemingly accept Christ without a willingness to abandon their sin.
Of the three groups, the third is the most miserable. When a man meets Jesus, believes that all is right with God because of this encounter, and still hardens his heart regarding his sin, this man may have committed the unpardonable sin. The only safe posture with God is perpetual brokenness and submission to His will.
8 – Each person has the tendency to believe that he gives more to others than what he receives. For example, in a marriage, in an unguarded moment the wife will say, “I give more to this marriage than I receive – I don’t mind doing it, for I love him.” When asked, the husband will say the same thing.
In most, if not all relationships in life, whether children, parents, employers, employees, etc., people feel they give more than they receive. One of the deadening effects of sin in our lives is it produces this perception that we give more than we get. It feeds discontentment and is the enemy of gratitude.
9 – Sin has many subtle manifestations, including rationalization. “But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’”[117] You can easily distort and misrepresent the truth when confronted, especially if you anticipate adverse consequences.
10 – Make yourselves accountable to those who “watch for your souls.”[118] In order to avoid having to rationalize our behavior to others and confronting our sin, we often simply prefer to keep what we do private. Jesus said, “and this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”[119] Generally, men do not want to expose their affairs to accountability.
Even though we may have valid reasons for keeping things to ourselves, (e.g., “People may unjustly judge my motives,” or “I don’t want to be a stumbling block to others,”) accountability is essential in our efforts to avoid the snares of sin. The Holy Spirit commands, “Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with Joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.”[120]
Conclusion
Let me offer two final conclusions to our study of sin:
First, if you wonder if you truly are depraved, I suggest that you think about what you think about.
Second, never forget that Christianity is unique in that it is the religion of the sinner, not the religion of the saint. “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I am not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”[121]
Your buddy in the faith,
[1] Matthew 7:12
[2] Cf. e.g., Genesis 1:10, 12
[3] Romans 1:21
[4] I Timothy 6:6-8
[5] Genesis 1:26-27
[6] Genesis 3:1-7
[7] John 7:17
[8] Genesis 3:16-19
[9] Cf. Genesis 2:15
[10] Cf. Genesis 3:7
[11] Cf. Genesis 3:8
[12] John 3:20-21
[13] Genesis 3:10-13
[14] Genesis 3:23
[15] Genesis 6:5
[16] Genesis 8:21
[17] I Corinthians 15:22
[18] I Timothy 2:14
[19] II Corinthians 5:21
[20] Psalm 32:2 and Romans 4:8
[21] Romans 7:7
[22] Romans 5:12
[23] Romans 2:1
[24] Galatians 6:7
[25] Matthew 5:22
[26] John 3:19
[27] Psalm 106:38
[28] Leviticus 5:2
[29] Luke 12:48
[30] Genesis 4:13
[31] Psalm 38:4
[32] Psalm 32:1
[33] Judges 20:16
[34] Proverbs 19:2
[35] I Samuel 24:11
[36] I Samuel 26:21
[37] I Kings 12:19
[38] II Kings 8:20
[39] Jeremiah 2:29
[40] Amos 4:4
[41] Hebrews 5:8
[42] Numbers 15:30
[43] Numbers 35:11
[44] Job 12:15-17
[45] John 9:4
[46] Genesis 6:5
[47] James 4:7
[48] Matthew 7:12
[49] Romans 3:20
[50] Romans 7:7
[51] Genesis 9:6
[52] I Samuel 15:22-23
[53] Hebrews 9:7
[54] Numbers 15:30-31
[55] Judges 2:11
[56] II Kings 14:23-24
[57] Galatians 3:24
[58] There are certain sins, mostly property cases, for which sacrifice could be made. Cf., e.g., Leviticus 6.
[59] Psalm 51:16-17
[60] Cf. also Psalm 34:18
[61] Cf. Isaiah 57:15
[62] Matthew 10:28
[63] Psalm 51:4
[64] II Samuel 12:7
[65] Romans 3:18
[66] Cf. I Corinthians 1:30
[67] Romans 3:26
[68] Luke 15:18, 21
[69] Matthew 9:12-13
[70] Matthew 9:10
[71] Cf., e.g., Galatians 2:2, II Corinthians 12:1-4
[72] Hamartia and its derivatives are found 47 times in John’s writings, 25 times in Hebrews, and 65 times in the rest of the New Testament. In the Synoptics it is used as a noun, almost exclusively as the forgiveness of sin.
[73] Romans 2:1-2
[74] Cf. Romans 5:12 and I Corinthians 15:22
[75] Romans 7:15-24
[76] Matthew 5:48
[77] Romans 5:20-21
[78] Romans 6:11-16
[79] I John 1:8-9
[80] John 9:31
[81] John 8:34
[82] I John 3:8
[83] James 2:9
[84] John 15:22, 24
[85] Romans 7:11, 13-14
[86] I Corinthians 15:9
[87] Romans 7:13
[88] Exodus 20:5
[89] Romans 1:21
[90] I Timothy 6:5
[91] John 6:53-58
[92] Ephesians 5:25
[93] John 14:21
[94] John 15:10
[95] James 2:19
[96] Romans 16:17
[97] John 7:17
[98] Cf. Matthew 22:23-33
[99] Cf. John 3:1-21
[100] Cf. Mark 7:1-13, esp. verse 8
[101] Matthew 10:28
[102] Romans 3:10,11,18
[103] Hebrews 10:31
[104] Deuteronomy 23:2
[105] I Corinthians 6:7-8
[106] I Corinthians 14:34-35
[107] I Timothy 2:12
[108] Jeremiah 17:9
[109] Genesis 3:1
[110] John 8:7
[111] Luke 11:24-26
[112] Romans 3:10, 11, 18
[113] Romans 11:5
[114] Ephesians 1:5
[115] II Timothy 2:12
[116] Revelation 5:9-10
[117] Luke 10:29
[118] Hebrews 13:17
[119] John 3:19
[120] Hebrews 13:17
[121] Luke 5:30-31