Sin as Cosmic Treason

Popular church leaders, writers, and Christian thinkers are saying that we have talked too much about sin and the cross. They say we as a culture have been “Gospel Hardened” and the cure for that is not more Gospel but less gospel. We are told that we should first tell them about the wonderful plan God has for their lives, how to have better finances and well behaved children, instead of telling them about sin and how to escape the coming wrath (1 Thess1:4-10) Even after becoming Christians many people see the Gospel only as an introductory message to Christianity. It is seen only as a message about how to be saved rather than “the” message of Christianity.

It doesn’t help that we as Evangelicals have added to this thinking by reducing the Gospel to a few hoops one must jump through in order to be saved. If we can get someone to come down during an alter call, raise their hand, and then repeat a prayer, we can hand them their salvation along with their assurance in a two for one ticket. Instead of being saved by grace through faith in the substitutionary work of Christ on our behalf, we are saved by faith or hope that the prayer we prayed when we were younger worked. Seems a lot like superstations rather than faith (and we Protestants think the Catholics and their Marian dogmas are superstitious). Shame on us for reducing the Gospel to some man-made tactics we can deploy at will.

8The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." (John 3:8)

From my experience, and I can say my experience because I find it true in my own life, is that after a person comes face to face with their sin, repents and believes the Gospel, over time the Gospel get replaced. We start to forget about it and depend on other things like our knowledge, our good works, or how we stack up to other people. We think about it maybe once a year at Easter, during communion (that’s probably once a quarter if you’re a Baptist), or maybe the preacher mentions it in a passing phrase before the service is over. Or just think about all the youth conferences (granted some are better than others) that are designed to “fire up” believers through music, charismatic speakers and emotional alter calls only to find that passion quickly fade a few days later. I am learning that true enduring passion is derived from one’s understanding and experience of the Gospel, not by rededicating your life at a retreat every year. One glimpse of the Gospel should be enough to move a truly regenerate believer to follow, and that same Gospel will enable them to endure until the race is finished.

God has been showing me through the Bible that I will never outgrow my need for the Gospel. Sincere repentance is continual. Only when we begin to repent from sin and turn to Christ do we begin to see the evil of our sin. Our human nature and mind has the capability of deceiving us, we begin to justify sin and downplay its implications. It is only through repentance and setting our eyes upon Jesus and his work on the cross that we begin to see God’s love in light of our sin. Spurgeon said that, “Repentance makes us see the evil of sin, not merely as a theory, but experimentally-as a burnt child dreads fire.”

“For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation…” (2 Corinthians 7:10)

You never outgrow your need for the Gospel. It is not something you believe when you first become a Christian, and then you move past it on your way to something “deeper”. You never outgrow you dependence on Jesus for the slightest good in your life, you never arrive. The Christian life is a daily reliance on the Gospel; we are to be humbled daily by the Cross. The Cross reminds us that sin is serious, hell is real, and Grace is costly. The Cross reminds us that perfect obedience is demanded from us, and because of our rebellion we have separated ourselves from God, we have incurred an infinite debt, we have become accursed, and we have shown ourselves to be enemies of God. The cross reminds us that Jesus became a curse for us, that God has reconciled us to himself through Christ. The Cross reminds us that we are not our own, that we were bought at a price; we were redeemed from bondage and slavery to sin and have become slaves of righteousness.

“O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”(Galatians 3:1-3)

Now, you may not follow where I am going with this, everyone has heard it over and over, “the cross is important”, “Jesus died for my sins”, “make Jesus the center of your lives.” But how many people are actually living Christ centered lives? How many people have a Christ centered worldview? How many people live with full submission to Jesus’ Lordship over their lives, one that demands they take up their cross follow him? We all struggle with that, it is a process that we cannot accomplish on our own. And I am convinced that you can’t do that apart from Gospel.

Now this is important because the necessity of the cross is becoming more controversial than ever right now. Even from within the Church, the concept of the atonement (especially penal substitution) is being challenged. Many believe God can’t punish sin and send people to Hell so everyone must be saved. Many believe the cross wasn’t necessary because there are other ways to God, and many believe we are already saved and just need to realize it. People just don’t believe they need a savior. No one is rushing to the bookstores asking how to be reconciled to God. No one is asking how to understand the depth of the cross; no one is seeking to understand what Jesus has done for us. It doesn’t sell. We want to know how to “Have our Best Life Now” or when the rapture is going to happen.

Sometimes we forget and need to be reminded of what God has done. Sometimes we need to repent because we have gotten off track and replaced Christ with some form of idolatry. At some point we had to believe for the first time, and for those who have never placed their faith in Jesus, the command is to repent and believe for the first time. Whatever your situation, the Gospel is always just as important.

At the very center of the Gospel is the concept of substitutionary atonement, there are other aspects of the Gospel that are very important as well but I wanted to talk some about substitution since we are approaching the season of Lent, maybe I’ll talk about the other aspects later. I wanted to show how the Bible talks about sin, and our need for atonement, and how Jesus redeemed us from the penalty of sin by providing atonement for our sins. Before we can understand the full depth of what Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross we must first understand the situation that he saved us from. So, for now I will show how the Bible describes sin and follow it up with another post on how Jesus plays a crucial role in each situation.

I read a book a while back called “The Truth of the Cross” by R.C. Sproul, and in that book he writes that the bible describes sin in at least three distinct ways. Biblically, sin is described as a debt, it is described as a state of enmity, and it is described as a crime.

Sin as a Debt

The first way the Bible talks about sin is debt. In Matthew 18:21-35, Jesus taught that Christians have a duty to forgive others’ debts because God forgave us of our debts. Also, the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6 says “and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” So how do we incur a debt against God and how does that relate to sin? First off we have to understand the role of God as Sovereign Lord over creation. Sovereignty implies that God is the author of our lives and therefore has authority over us. If a person has authority over someone else it means that they have the right to impose obligations that we must meet. So if God imposes obligations on me, I owe obedience to Him, and if I fail to obey, I incur a debt.

So, just think for a moment, if a perfectly and completely Holy God imposes moral obligations on us, what is required of us? This is the crux of the problem as R.C says, because we owe God perfect obedience. If I am responsible to be perfect, and I sin once, what must I do to be perfect? What do I have to do to become perfect once I have been made imperfect? The truth is, we can’t make that one little spot clean, it is impossible.

The bigger problem is that we are not just basically good people with a few minor spots and blemishes, the Bible describes us as being corrupt to our very core, every part of our being has been tainted by sin, our minds, hearts, desires, our will has all been tainted by the fall. We are by nature children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3), our righteousness is as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6),we are hostile to God and cannot submit to God’s law (Romans8:7-8). By nature of the above, we have incurred an infinite debt that is impossible to repay.

Sin as Enmity

The second way the bible talks about sin is as an expression of enmity. Sin is an expression of hostility towards God; it is a violation of the personal relationship we are supposed to have with God. When we sin, we do not communicate love towards God; instead we are rejecting him and openly declaring our hostility towards Him. The Bible also explains that God has never violated us, he never treats us unjustly, and he never breaks a promise. We are the ones that violate the relationship and show ourselves to be God’s enemies. That is important because a lot of people, even Christians, misunderstand this. You find people all the time who are angry at God because they feel they have been treated unfairly or unjustly. “How could God allow this to happen to me?” “If God were really good, then he would recognize all of the good things I do and treat me accordingly”. In the realm of human relationships, if someone violates me, it is fair to bring that before God and ask him to make that situation right. But it is never legit to claim that God is unjust for allowing that to happen. When it comes to sin, God is always the injured party, ultimately all sin is an offence against God (Psalm 51:4). As a result of our sin, our relationship with God is broken and we have become separated and alienated from him.

Sin as a Crime

Third, the Bible describes sin as a crime. We have seen that God has the right to impose moral obligations on us. Those moral obligations come in the form of laws we are demanded to obey. When we don’t conform, we are breaking the law and committing a crime against God. In this understanding, God acts as the Judge. When we fail to obey, God has an obligation as a just judge, to bring judgment on us and punish all crimes. God’s justice, just like his holiness, is a perfect justice. He does not compromise his justice or his holiness, so sin must be punished.

In each sense, God’s demands must be satisfied or he is obligated to bring judgment. So how are we to satisfy the demands and obligations God has required of us? The truth is there is nothing we can do to merit righteousness. There is nothing we can do to repay our debt, nothing we can do to reconcile ourselves to God. The ransom price is infinitely high. The only thing that can satisfy the demands God requires from us, was also provided for us by Him. The only person to ever completely fulfill all the requirements and obligations of law, the only person to never incur a debt, never rebel against God, never commit a crime, was the God/Man, and it is only by his blood we have atonement for our sins. Only a sacrifice of infinite worth is able to ransom slaves from an infinite debt.

Only after we have a correct understanding of God and his character do we really come to understand the depth of our depravity and our utter dependence on what Martin Luther called an “alien righteousness”.

I have shown briefly that the Bible describes sin in at least three distinct ways, next post will be the good stuff as we learn how Jesus plays a crucial role for us in each case.