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January 21, 2018 |
| The Seriousness of Sin | ||
In a previous lesson1 we studied Psalm 90, where David speaks prophetically for Moses. One of the things Moses points out to God is how differently people see sin than God does. For people, he says, sin doesn't seem like a big deal and when we sin we soon forget. God, however, does not forget.
Under the Old Covenant the people had a visual reminder of the seriousness of sin, "A perfectly good animal was destroyed because of your sins". Under the New Covenant, where sacrifices are not required, it's easy to stop seeing sin as God sees it and to begin seeing it as man sees it. Therefore it's easy to forget the meaning of the symbolism of the sacrifice for sin, "God, in the form of Jesus, died so I wouldn't have to die." That's serious.
In this lesson we will remind ourselves of God's view of sin by looking at what the Bible says about the seriousness of sin.
But concerning the son, he said, "Your throne, oh God, is to the eternity of eternities. […] 9 You have loved righteousness and you have hated evil" (Hebrews 1:8-9)
If God is holy and he hates evil and we are called to be holy then we should also hate evil.
Intentional sin occurs when we know what is wrong but we willfully do it anyway. No matter what the sinful act may have been, the heart of the sin is idolatry of self. We loved ourselves more than we loved God. We know we loved ourselves more because we chose to obey ourselves instead of God.
In doing this we have raised ourselves up to be a greater god than God. This is not tolerable by God and thus we have made ourselves the enemy of God. We have also separated ourselves from God.
But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear. (Isaiah 59:2)
Noted preacher and author, A.W. Tozer said it this way.
No one has ever overstated the seriousness of the sin question. […] Sin is more than a disease. It is […] a capital crime as well. It is treason against the great God Almighty who made the heavens and the earth. Sin is a crime against the moral order of the universe. Each time a man or woman strikes against God's moral nature and kingdom, he or she acts against the moral government of the entire universe."2
When understood this way, it's easier to understand the seriousness of sin.
We choose not to look at it that way though. Instead we choose to understand the seriousness of sin as humans perceive it. "It's only a pencil", we say, "No one cares if I take it". We think this way because humans want to weigh sins according to their enormity, according to human perception. We think murder must be a worse sin than stealing a pencil because of the greater suffering it causes. But in both cases God sees idolatry of self.
Many Christians make up excuses to justify to themselves what they are going to do or have done. Another common way to paper over the guilt is to redefine God. We see that in phrases like "God loves me more than he hates my sin", "God knows that I love him", "God will forgive me for what I am about to do", "The grace of God covers me" (hyper grace), and "God's mercy exceeds his justice."
Some examples of excuses come from a recent Facebook encounter I had. People were commenting on an article about the Pope. Some parishioners were accusing a Bishop of being complicit in their sexual abuse by priests. The Pope had said these accusers had slandered (calumny) the Bishop because they had no evidence.
Many of the comments had horrible things to say about the Pope, for example "This [Pope is] the devil in disguise" and "what a complete POS". When I pointed out that they were slandering the Pope a few people found it necessary to justify what they were doing.
The reader should consider each of these and look for the point that is being made and the flaw in the reasoning.
The great danger in these excuses we tell ourselves is that we will believe them, not only that we would then sin, but that we would never seek forgiveness for that sin.
Here is my analysis of the bullet points above.
Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. 2 And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. (Leviticus 10:1-2)
These sons of Aaron probably didn't think what they were doing was such a bad thing. They probably never thought about how God would view their actions.
One of the clearest examples of the seriousness of sin comes from a realization by Jesus' disciples about what Jesus taught about remarriage being the sin of adultery (except in the case of marital adultery).
His disciples were saying to him, "If the accusations are thus between a man and a wife, it is not expedient to take a wife." 11 But he said to them, "Not every man can receive this saying, except he to whom it is given." 12 "For there are eunuchs who were born so from their mother's womb and there are eunuchs who became eunuchs by men and there are those who have made themselves eunuchs for the cause of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whoever can receive it let him receive it."(Matthew 19:10-12
The disciples realize that Jesus is inferring that it is better for a man (or woman) never to marry again than to remarry. Notice how they are weighing sin - it's more important not to sin than to never ever remarry.
Notice how Jesus agrees with them. He says those who refuse to remarry have "made themselves eunuchs for the cause of the Kingdom of Heaven." Their desire to be in the Kingdom of Heaven causes them to give up the companionship of a spouse for the rest of their life. That's the seriousness of sin.
So far we've looked at an example of how God responded to sin and a teaching by Jesus on the seriousness of sin. God does also say how he views iniquity, which is law-breaking, which is sin.
If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their forefathers, in their unfaithfulness which they committed against Me, and also in their acting with hostility against Me … (Leviticus 26:40)
God says he considers their sin as an act of unfaithfulness to him, and more than that, as hostility toward him.
Sometimes we know something is wrong but we haven't quite made the connection that we are doing that thing. We can do this because what we are doing looks a little different or perhaps we have deceived ourselves.
An example comes from the Facebook encounter mentioned earlier. People were commenting on an article about the Pope. People were accusing a Bishop of being complicit in their sexual abuse by priests. The Pope had said these accusers had slandered (calumny) the Bishop because they had no evidence.
Many of the comments had horrible things to say about the Pope, for example "This [Pope is] the devil in disguise" and "what a complete POS". They haven't realized that they are slandering the Pope. If you asked them if the Bible speaks against slander they would likely say yes, but they haven't made the connection to their own words being slander.
Sin is insidious. It sneaks up on us in quiet little steps. So how do we catch these?
Beware therefore, my brethren, lest there be an evil, unfaithful heart in any of you, and you depart from the living God; 13 But inquire of yourselves every day, until the day that is called today, lest anyone of you should be hardened by the deception of sin. (Hebrews 3:12-13)
This verse talks about the process of being hardened by sin and how that cause us to turn away from God. It also provides the answer - check yourselves every day. We need to review the things we say and do to see if they meet the standard. The sooner we do that the better but sometimes we need a little time before we can be objective about it.
1 http://skburton.droppages.com/2017-09-24%20Psalm90/P90
2 https://gbfc.org/blog/2015/5/3/how-serious-is-sin-to-god