Sin

I like to think of myself as a good person. There are a lot of bad things I haven’t done, as well as some altruistic deeds I have done. How though, can we really define good? How good is good enough? How bad is too bad? Can I do enough good things to compensate for the bad?

 

Most people think about their own sin in one of two ways; either we are so sinful God could never love us, or we aren’t so bad that God wouldn’t love us. Neither of these perspectives are true, nor do they consider what God thinks about our sin. Sin, means ‘to miss the mark’ , it means to fall short of the standard of holiness that God sets forth in the Bible. However, it is much more than breaking the ten commandments. Sin, as Jesus reveals to us, is an issue of the heart. The Bible alone shows us the true condition of our heart. Consider the following verses:

 

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. (Romans 3:23)

 

“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” (Romans 3:10-12)

 

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8)

 

We are all sinners. We all miss the mark; God has set the standard, and that standard is holiness. Our personal sin, as well as the sinful nature we inherited from our first father, Adam, has created a chasm between us and God that we are utterly powerless to bridge.

 

Here is what makes Christianity utterly distinct from every other world religion; what we could not do for ourselves, God did for us.

 

“For the wages of sin are death”… (Romans 6:23a)

 

From the very beginning of the Bible we see this is true. Adam and Eve disobey God and suddenly they are aware of their nakedness and they are ashamed. “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them” (Genesis 3: 21), and the first sacrifice for sin was made.

 

Throughout the Old Testament, animals were given as sacrifices for sin. Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest could enter into the Most Holy Place of the tabernacle “and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people” (Hebrews 9:7), “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9:22).

 

All of this was just a shadow of what was to come. The blood of animals could never really take away our sin. While the animal skins covered Adam and Eve’s nakedness, they were still exposed before a holy God. In the same way, animal blood covered the people’s sins, but it didn’t take away their sinful inheritance.

 

“But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

 

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

 

“But when Christ appeared as a high priest…he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of His own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Hebrews 9:11-14).

 

“And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?…And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed His last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom” (Mark 15: 33-34, 37-38).

 

“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53: 4-5).

 

God dealt with our sin problem by pouring out the wrath we rightly deserved, on His Son Jesus.

 

Salvation does not depend on us. We can never be so good that we don’t need His grace, and we can never be so wicked that we are beyond the reach of His grace. The truth is, every one of us is in desperate need of His grace and mercy.

 

“If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved” (Romans 10:9-10).