The Word of Truth
Sin
In our series on “The Word of Truth”
we have learned that the Bible is God’s written Word to us. And Scripture, the
Word of God, reveals to us who God is. He is the Creator, loving, righteous,
powerful and good. And it reveals who we are, creatures made in the image of
God[1] to
enjoy fellowship with Him and to have dominion over the earth. But if God is a
good and loving Being and if we were made to enjoy God and to love Him, then
why do we not naturally seek Him?
Why is there so much suffering and
sorrow in the world? Why is the news filled with wickedness, violence, hate and
greed? Why are relationships strained and families torn apart? Why is there
disease and death? Why, why do we live in a broken world filled with broken
hearts? The answer is a simple, deadly three letter word; sin.
We are all sinners by inheritance and
by choice and without God’s help we cannot escape this ignoble birthright. Our
sin nature leads to wrong attitudes and actions. We have tried to hide the ugly
face of sin by giving it other names. We have tried to blunt the power of sin
in our hearts through education, philosophy, religion and government. And we’ve
tried to remove the penalty for sin, which is death, by science and medicine.
Our motives have often been good and our attempts commendable, but sin rules
the heart. There is no possibility of escaping sin’s power and penalty as long
as we are the unregenerate[2],
unsaved descendants of Adam and Eve.
My goal in this teaching is to show
you the extent, origin, nature and consequences of sin. This will help us to
understand life’s troubles and heartaches. And hopefully it will cause us to
flee with urgency to God’s remedy for sin, the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe
the Bible is the Word and will of God. As such it is the best diagnosis of the
human condition. I pray that God helps us to take to heart what we learn in
this study. So let’s begin with the extent or power of sin over humanity; it is
universal.
The extent
of sin
The fool has said in his heart,
“There is no God.”
They are corrupt,
They have done abominable works,
There is none who does good.
2 The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men,
To see if there are any who understand, who seek God.
3 They have all turned aside,
They have together become corrupt;
There is none who does good,
No, not one.
“There is no God.”
They are corrupt,
They have done abominable works,
There is none who does good.
2 The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men,
To see if there are any who understand, who seek God.
3 They have all turned aside,
They have together become corrupt;
There is none who does good,
No, not one.
(Psalm 14:1-3)
The fool has said in his heart, “There
is no God,” but there is no one, fool or wise, who does good in the sense that
God is good. The use of emphatic phrases, “There is none who does good,” “They
have all turned aside” and “No, not one” makes the indictment about sin
universal. The wisdom of Proverbs declares,
Who can say, “I have made my
heart clean,
I am pure from my sin”?
I am pure from my sin”?
(Proverbs 20:9)
The
answer is no one. Wise Solomon wrote,
For there is not a just man on earth who does good
And does not sin.
And does not sin.
(Ecclesiastes 7:20)
And
the prophet Isaiah said,
All we like sheep have gone
astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way
We have turned, every one, to his own way
(Isaiah 53:6)
No one can make himself or herself
sinless. No one can do enough good works to outweigh their sins before an all
holy God[3].
And this condemnation of all humanity as sinners is not just the teaching of
the Old Testament. After quoting various Old Testament Scriptures showing that
every person is a sinner[4]
the apostle Paul makes a summary statement about humanity.
for all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God
(Romans 3:23)
Every human being lives under the
power of sin. And every part of our being is affected by sin: our intellect,
our emotions, our desires, our goals and motives, and even our physical bodies.
We sin from the smallest lie, to the most violent act, to never giving God the
honor and worship He is due, because this is who we are. There is a fatal flaw
at the center of our lives. The prophet Jeremiah wrote,
The heart is deceitful above
all things,
And desperately wicked;
Who can know it?
And desperately wicked;
Who can know it?
(Jeremiah 17:9)
And
the Lord Jesus Christ declared,
For out of the heart proceed
evil thoughts, murders,
adulteries, fornications,
thefts, false witness, blasphemies.
(Matthew 15:19)
Sin is in our nature. It’s like what
makes a poisonous bush produce poisoned berries. The heart of every man, woman
and child is corrupted by sin. This doesn’t mean that we are all as bad as we
can be. But it does mean that we will never be as good as we desire to be or
need to be before God. This is heart breaking, pride shattering truth.
So, how did this all come to be? How
did we get to be this way? To discover the answer we must go back to the
absolutely necessary and essential story of Adam and Eve.
The origin
of sin
In Genesis 2, you can read that God
provided everything mankind needed for a rich and happy life. You can see that
Adam and Eve were not grunting, primitive beings. They were intelligent humans
who had sweet fellowship with God and a harmonious life with one another. There
was only one prohibition in their lives. God told them not to eat “of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil.”[5]
The consequence for disobedience would be death. Then Genesis 3 gives us the
story of the origin of sin.
Now the serpent[6]
was more cunning than any beast
of the field which the LORD
God had made. And he
said to the woman, “Has God
indeed said, ‘You shall
not eat of every tree of the
garden’?”
2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat
2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat
the fruit of the trees of
the garden; 3 but of the fruit
of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God
has said, ‘You shall not eat
it, nor shall you touch it,
lest you die.’”
4 Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not
surely die. 5 For
God knows that in the day you eat
of it your eyes will be
opened, and you will be like God,
knowing good and evil.”
6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for
6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for
food, that it was pleasant
to the eyes, and a tree desirable
to make one wise, she took
of its fruit and ate. She also
gave to her husband with
her, and he ate.
7 Then the eyes
of both of them were opened, and they
knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves
together and made themselves
coverings.
(Genesis 3:1-7)
Contrary to God’s commandment Adam and
Eve ate the forbidden fruit. They did so willingly. No one forced them to sin.
They sinned because what was forbidden looked good. Sin always looks god or we
wouldn’t do it. The kind of fruit that was forbidden is unimportant. The
important thing is that Adam rejected the clear will of God. Led to believe
they would be more like God if they disobeyed His warning, Adam openly rebelled
against God.[7]
A sin nature was now in the federal head of the human race. And that sin nature
and its consequences have been passed on to every succeeding generation. We are
given the full explanation of this in the New Testament book of Romans.
Therefore, just as through
one man sin entered the world,
and death through sin, and
thus death spread to all men,
because all sinned—
(Romans 5:12)
Since the time of Adam the inherent
tendency to sin is now a part of our human nature. And the consequence for sin,
death, is now a universal experience. But, in mercy God brought forth another
man, Jesus Christ, who through his obedience to God provides forgiveness for
sin and a full redemption to everlasting life to all who trust in him for
salvation.[8]
17 For if by the
one man’s offense death reigned
through the one, much more
those who receive
abundance of grace and of
the gift of righteousness
will reign in life through
the One, Jesus Christ.
18 Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment
18 Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment
came to all men, resulting
in condemnation, even so
through one Man’s righteous
act the free gift came to
all men, resulting in
justification of life. 19 For as by one
man’s disobedience many were
made sinners, so also
by one Man’s obedience many
will be made righteous.
(Romans 5:17-19)
Sin and death entered our world
through Adam. But righteousness and life, everlasting life, comes to us by
God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ. But let’s go back to Genesis 2, in
order to understand the very nature of sin.
The nature
of sin
Something very essential is overlooked
if we simply say that the first sin was disobedience. So let’s go back and read
God’s commandment.
Then the LORD God took the
man and put him in the
garden of Eden to tend and
keep it. 16 And the LORD
God commanded the man, saying,
“Of every tree of
the garden you may freely
eat; 17 but of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil
you shall not eat, for in the
day that you eat of it you
shall surely die.”
(Genesis 2:15-17)
The forbidden fruit was given a name
because it stood for something. It was called the fruit “of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil.” The phrase “the knowledge of good and evil” has a
distinct meaning in the Old Testament. It refers to the ability to determine
for oneself what is good and evil, what is right and wrong.[9]
Only God has the ultimate authority to decide what is good or evil.
Therefore what God was forbidding was
not the eating of some arbitrary fruit, but what it symbolized. To eat from the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil would mean a rejection of God as the all-wise,
all-loving One who knows what is good for us. Therefore when the temptation
came Satan knew exactly how to tempt our first parents.
Then the serpent said to the
woman, “You will not surely
die. 5 For God
knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes
will be opened, and you will
be like God, knowing good
and evil.”
(Genesis 3:4, 5)
The essence of the fall and the
essence or nature of sin is the desire to not be dependant on God. It is the desire
to substitute our will for His will. All of our sins flow from our in-born
unwillingness to trust our heavenly Father. We want to decide what is good and
evil, and we have and we do to our own hurt. Now, what are the consequences of
sin?
The Consequences
of sin
The first consequence is that our
understanding of who we are has been distorted.
Then the eyes of both of
them were opened, and they
knew that they were naked;
and they sewed fig leaves
together and made themselves
coverings.
(Genesis 3:7)
Through sin innocence has been lost
and replaced by guilt and shame. When it comes to the truth about ourselves,
that we are sinners, we resist it. We have become experts at hiding, avoiding,
running from and covering up our real selves. We cover up our sins and pretend
to be what we are not. No wonder life is so hard. Secondly, our relationship
with God has been ruined.
And they
heard the sound of the LORD God walking in
the garden in the cool of
the day, and Adam and his wife
hid themselves from the
presence of the LORD God among
the trees of the garden.
(Genesis 3:8)
The first man and woman hid from God
because of their sin. And we have been running and hiding from Him ever since.
Scripture tells us that we do not seek after God, He seeks for us.[10]
And we are saved not because we love God, but because He first loved us.[11]
The third consequence is that our relationships with other people are strained.
We blame other people and circumstances for our troubles.
Then the LORD God called to
Adam and said to him,
“Where are you?” 10 So he said, “I heard Your voice in
the garden, and I was afraid
because I was naked;
and I hid myself.” 11
And He said, “Who told you that
you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of
which I commanded you that
you should not eat?”
12 Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to
12 Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to
be with me, she
gave me of the tree, and I ate.”
(Genesis 3:9-12)
Adam’s response to God about his sin
was “I’m not responsible. I am not to blame—she is!” What a tender-hearted,
protective husband Adam was. When the heart is filled with sin and rebellion we
are taken up with self-justification. We blame others. Through sin our
understanding of ourselves, and our relationships with other people and with
God are corrupted. No wonder there is so much misery and sorrow in the world.
And the ultimate consequence for sin is death.[12]
Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of
sin is death.” It is sobering to
notice the opening and closing words of the book of Genesis. Genesis 1:1 reads,
In the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth.
In
these words we have creation and life. Now the last words in Genesis 50:26,
So Joseph died…and he was
put in a coffin in Egypt.
In the beginning of Genesis there is
life; at the end there is death. The reason for the difference is sin. Is there
any hope to change all of this? Yes!
The remedy
for sin
There is a remedy for sin. There is
good news![13]
The first created man, Adam; the head of the human race sinned and lost a
perfect world. Out of His grace, mercy and love God promised that the seed of
the woman, another man, would come to crush Satan.[14]
He would also atone for our sins and save us.[15]
This man is the Lord Jesus Christ and he is the head of a new creation.[16]
Scripture says,
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal
life in Christ Jesus our
Lord.
(Romans 6:23)
There is a choice set before every
person in the world; set before you and me. The choice is this: follow in the
way of Adam and perish or follow Christ through the obedience of faith and find
peace for your conscience, purpose for life and hope for the future—the gift of
everlasting life.
[1]
Genesis 1:26
[2]
We escape the power and penalty of sin by being regenerated spiritually. When
we are saved by faith in Christ God washes us clean from our sins and gives us
a new nature and new heart through the gift of His Spirit within us. This makes
us a new creation, a child of God able to live a holy life and gain everlasting
life. Romans 10:9, 10; Titus 3:3-7; Ezekiel 36:26, 27; 2 Corinthians 5:17.
[3]
Romans 3:19, 20
[4]
Romans 3:10-20
[5]
Genesis 2:17
[6]
The serpent was Satan – Revelation 12:9
[7]
1 Timothy 2:14 tells us that Eve was deceived but Adam was not. Adam had full
knowledge that what he was doing was rebellion against God’s will.
[8]
John 3:16
[9]
In 1 Kings 3:9 Solomon prays for this ability so that he can rule well. In
Deuteronomy 1:39 little children do not have this sense yet. And in 2 Samuel
19:35 senile people have lost this decision making ability.
[10]
Genesis 3:9; Jeremiah 31:3; John 6:44; Romans 3:11
[11]
1 John 4:10
[12]
There is also the curse on nature and the toil and sweat of life – Genesis
3:16-19
[13]
The word “gospel” means good news.
[14]
Genesis 3:15
[15]
Isaiah 53:4-6
[16]
2 Corinthians 5:17
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