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Sin

Preamble

The first book in the Bible, the book of Genesis, describes the origin of life and states "God breathed into man the breath of life and man became a living soul." The last book in the Bible, the book of Revelation ends with a description of a "pure river of water of life, clear as crystal." The Bible begins and ends with life and speaks of life in these terms... "everlasting life, abundant life, newness of life, endless life." It speaks of a book of life, the light of life, a crown of life, the tree of life, a fountain of life, and the water of life. The insistent and recurring message of the Bible is that people may enter into life. On every page of the Bible life is the dominant theme. Jesus Christ declared "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will ... never die." God has set in our hearts the desire for this life. That is why we have a sense of unfulfilled longings, dreams, hopes, and desires.

But against this unending desire for life and fulfillment there is an element in every person that makes this true life impossible. What is this element? It goes by many names, but let us just call it what we know it to be: it is Sin. The testimony of all the Bible is that "the wages of sin is death," and that "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." These words are not to any one age or country, but in reference to the entire human race. Nowhere in the Bible is the impression given that any are free from sin. Quite the contrary, it expressly states "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us."

The whole plan of redemption presupposes that man is fallen, totally lost and incapable of saving himself. That is why Christ said he came to seek and to save those who are lost. The work of Christ has no real meaning except upon the assumption that all people are sinners. Those who have no sin have no need of a Savior! But all have sinned, and all need a Savior.

If the wages of sin is death - and it is - then unless something can be done about sin there can be no hope of eternal life. The fact that the wages of sin is death may be very unpalatable, but it is very, very true. Death is always the outcome and outflow of sin.

To continue in sin is to continue in the ways of darkness and death, but to turn from sin and to seek after God is to follow after life. When sin is dealt with through the blood of the Cross, then the gift of God, which is eternal life, is received through Jesus Christ.

Let us understand a little about Sin - what it really is, and what it really does to a person. If sin is so powerful that it can separate us from a loving, caring God, it must be terrible indeed.

What Sin Does

1. Sin destroys. This is the fundamental, basic assertion of the whole Bible. Sin destroys. So long as sin is harbored in the heart, true life is impossible. The great Danish writer of the seventeenth century, Soren Kierkegaard,  said it well: "Sin is man's destruction. The rust of sin will eternally consume the soul and destroy it. Sin is not a passage through which man may once pass, for from it one would then flee. No. Sin is man's ruin because sin is an eternal fall from the eternal."

2. Sin induces blindness. Sin makes a person blind. Because of sin a person can look at the world God has made and not see God. Ephesians 4:18 says "They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts." Sin creates vanity of mind, darkens the understanding, and blinds the heart. Sin darkens a persons understanding so he does not know what God is saying. When God addresses him, he cannot hear, and because he cannot hear, he cannot discover the true way of life. The apostle Paul put it this way in II Corinthians 4:4: "The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." This is the nemesis of sin.

3. Sin is unclean. Sin corrupts and tarnishes all that it touches. Jesus Christ said "But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man unclean. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man unclean..." (Matthew 15:18-20). Perhaps the best commentary on sin is found in Romans and concludes with these terrible verses... "Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."

4. Sin promotes moral weakness. Where sin reigns, there is moral weakness. The devil is a hard taskmaster. Think of the way in which a particular sin takes hold of a person. If he allows himself to drift with it, that sin will eventually take complete control of him and never let him go. The devil will bind him ever tighter, bringing him into complete bondage. Sin binds. That person may think himself free, just as the Prodigal Son did, but he is a giant prisoner of despair. Sin makes a person a moral coward, weakens his fiber, and in the end totally destroys.

3. Sin induces hopelessness. If you take hope out of life, you destroy life. Some of the most profound thinkers have come to the conclusion that the very essence of sin is despair. Paul reminded the Ephesians that prior to their conversion they were "separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world" (Ephesians 2:12). This is the bitter result of sin - that people who were created for fellowship with God, repudiate His love continually, and do so without hope. Our cities are full of people like that. They have given up hope. To be alive is to have hope. But sin destroys life, therefore sin destroys hope.

4. Sin does one more thing. Sin enforces loneliness. Sin is selfishness, therefore sin separates us from other people. Pride is the central, typical, fatal sin. It is self-sufficiency, the exaltation of the human heart. Pride insulates a person from other people - and the older a person gets the more lonely he becomes. This is what happened to the Prodigal Son. He went out from his father's house to be with the nice people in the far country - oh, they were so much better, those folks he shared his wealth with. But in the end, we see the Prodigal again - separated from his father, separated from his friends, and also separated from himself. He is absolutely alone - and this is what sin does to a person. One might be surrounded by hundreds of people, but still absolutely alone. Sin has destroyed all fellowship with the Father and with others. It lets a person walk alone through life, and certainly leaves a person to go alone through death.

Summary

In this brief study of sin we have seen how destructive sin is. Everything we have seen is the wages of sin. The wages of sin is death, and those wages are still being paid in full. Sin is universal. The wages of sin is death. All die. Death is universal. Sin is still the destroyer of life. It brings blindness and so denies light. It brings uncleanness and takes away purity of heart. It brings weakness and denies strength. It brings hopelessness and takes away all hope of a golden tomorrow. It brings loneliness instead of love. These are the terrible consequences of sin!

Thankfully, the story does not end here. To find out what God has done about sin and the sinner, click here: Salvation

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