The Doctrine of Sin
Notes
Transcript
Why Do We Believe That? Week 9
Systematic Theology – The Doctrine of Sin
Let’s start with a quick recap of where we’ve been so far, we’ve studied...
The Doctrine of the Word of God
The Existence and Attributes of God
The Doctrine of Creation
The Doctrine of Providence
Today we move on the the Doctrine of Sin
Introduction
Two months ago when we began I had no idea that we’d be where we are in the series today… but it couldn’t have worked out any better given that this is the Sunday before Christmas.
Admittedly, this is not a traditional baby Jesus in the manger message - however you should see pretty quickly that it does go along with the Christmas theme very effectively.
OK, grab your LG’s and let’s dig in...
Question — Amidst all the problems in the world, what would you say is the most serious problem humanity is faced with today?
You watch the news, follow Twitter or Parlor, read the papers, talk to classmates, co-workers... so, what are they saying?
Well… some say the most pressing issue is…
· This Pandemic we’re in
· The Integrity of our Election Process
· Religious Freedom
· The Environment/Global Warming
· Racism
· Healthcare
· Social Justice Issues
· Immigration
· Political Corruption
· Education
And the list goes on and on.
And honestly, there’s a good amount of truth in each of these answers aren’t there?
But this is where the Bible steps up to the mic and silences the discord of cultural voices and declares that humanity’s most pressing problem isn’t structural, but moral, it’s not out there, but in here.
Humanity’s most pressing problem is SIN!
Let’s begin with...
The Fact of Sin
Contrary to what anyone thinks, believes, or says humanity’s most pressing problem is SIN.
You might ask… what is sin?
According to Scripture, sin is falling short of God’s STANDARD.
Sin is rebelling against God and his moral absolutes.
Sin is what has EVERYONE and EVERYTHING all messed up, and in turn is what has the structures of society all messed up, so...
The Problem of Sin is There is a Standard
But that creates another problem, doesn’t it?
Here in the 21st century, we live in a culture where sin no longer makes sense.
In today’s culture sin is labeled as oppressive, repressive and negative.
The problem with this line of thinking is when you misunderstand and/or ignore the disease, you’ll never arrive at a cure.
And this is the problem of sin... sin suggests there’s a standard.
That’s why we as the church...
Call abortion evil
We call lying, murder, adultery evil
We call pedophilia evil
We call the LGBTQ+ movement evil
We call these things (and many more things) evil because God’s Word defines them as evil.
But, our culture – secular society in a quest for freedom from the eye of God, has traded the perfect divine standard for the shifting standards of what makes individuals feel uncomfortable or emotionally harmed – which, ironically, never leads to liberty but to anarchy.
In contrast, Christianity teaches that sin is falling short of God’s standard and rebelling against him and his moral absolutes regardless of how that makes you feel.
Therefore, sin is the only way to make sense of this messed up world we live in.
Sin in the Biblical Story
We see the evident nature of God’s standard because sin is a central aspect of the grand storyline throughout the Bible.
How do we go from…
· Everything being good in Gen 1-2
· To expulsion from the Garden in Gen 3
· To murder in Gen 4
· To the refrain of Gen 5 being “and they died”
· Then the flood in Gen 6-9
· The tower of Babel in Gen 11…
· And on and on and on?
The answer is the sin in Genesis 3.
In fact, sin is such a dominant concern in the OT, that the writers use several words in Hebrew to try to fully capture what it means.
The most common word for sin in Hebrew [חטא ht’] occurs about 600 times.
It carries the sense of missing the target, failing, falling short of the goal.
The second most common term for sin [עָוֺן ‘awôn] is translated “iniquity” in older translations and “wickedness” or ‘perversion’ in more modern translations.
It has a root meaning of ‘bending’ or ‘twisting,’ presenting the image of distortion.
A third term for sin [פשׁע psh‘] is usually rendered, ‘transgression,’ ‘revolt’ or ‘rebellion.’
The word ‘crime’ is probably the best equivalent here... sin is criminal behavior against God and his law.
I could keep going... the Bible also speaks of sin as unrighteousness, ungodliness, and a debt that must be paid.
Sin is what makes us unfit for God’s presence.
But your sins have separated you from your God. They have caused him to turn his face away from you. So he won’t listen to you.
Sin, in short, is elevating self to the place that only God can fill.
This was the structural foundation of the first temptation… “you will be like God.” Gen 3:5
The Solution to Sin is Jesus Christ
The only solution to the problem of sin... (repeat) is Christ and Christ alone.
Listen to what John the Baptist said when he first saw Jesus…
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him. John said, “Look! The Lamb of God! He takes away the sin of the world!
This is why the Son of God was named “Jesus”...
She is going to have a son. You must give him the name Jesus. That is because he will save his people from their sins.”
That’s the solution, but to appreciate the salvation Christ brought us, we need to go back to the beginning.
The Fall: The Essence of Sin
Let’s go back to Genesis 3.
Again, we see that God made the world and everything in it… and said… “this is good.”
He made man and woman to express dominion over all he had made, to rule the earth and subdue it.
The serpent was more clever than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. The serpent said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat the fruit of any tree that is in the garden’?”
The woman said to the serpent, “We can eat the fruit of the trees that are in the garden.
But God did say, ‘You must not eat the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden. Do not even touch it. If you do, you will die.’ ”
“You can be sure that you won’t die,” the serpent said to the woman.
“God knows that when you eat the fruit of that tree, you will know things you have never known before. You will be able to tell the difference between good and evil. You will be like God.”
The woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good to eat. It was also pleasing to look at. And it would make a person wise. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her. And he ate it.
Then both of them knew things they had never known before. They realized they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made clothes for themselves.
What we just read describes how sin tragically entered the human condition.
It explains the prevalence of our sinful condition.
And it prepares us for how the God of creation shows himself to be the God of redemption.
This first sin, the eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, teaches us three things about all sin in general.
First, notice how their…
1. Sin Sought to Redefine the Basis For Knowledge
It gave a different answer to the question: “What is true?”
Whereas God had said that Adam and Eve would die if they ate from the tree (Gen. 2:17), the serpent said, “you won’t die” (Gen. 3:4).
But, Eve decided to disbelieve and deny God’s word and conduct an experiment to see whether God spoke the truth or not.
Please be aware that one of Satan’s most effective tools is to convince people that God’s word isn’t trustworthy.
Sin says, “you can’t follow God’s word; it’ll lead you astray, it’ll rob you of your freedom to live and enjoy life.”
Sin begins with believing a lie instead of believing God.
Please keep in mind that… “sin will take you farther that you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you far more than you want to pay.” EVERY TIME!
2. Sin Sought to Redefine at the Basis for Moral Standards
It gave a different answer to the question “What is right?”
God had said that it was morally wrong for Adam and Eve to eat from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Gen. 2:17).
But the serpent suggested that it wouldn’t be morally wrong to eat the fruit, and that in eating it Adam and Eve would become “like God” (Gen. 3:5).
And so, what did Adam and Eve do?
Eve trusted her own evaluation of what was right rather than allowing God’s words to define right and wrong.
The application here is to beware a self-made morality.
3. Sin Sought to Redefine the Basis For Identity
It gave a different answer to the question, “Who am I?”
The correct answer is Adam and Eve are God’s creatures, fully dependent on him and always to be subordinate to him as their Creator and Lord.
But Eve, and then Adam, succumbed to the temptation to “be like God” (Gen. 3:5), thus attempting (and notice I said attempting) to elevate themselves to the place of God.
Sin is forsaking God in order to find in yourself what you were meant to find in God. (repeat)
So, Genesis 3 teaches that God created humankind good – not flawed.
But Adam and Eve chose to disobey and therefore became flawed.
And because of their sin, God cursed mankind along with all of creation with the sentence of death… just like he forewarned that he would.
Suffering, sickness, death, natural disasters, PANDEMICS – none of these existed before Genesis 3, but are the negative results of the fall.
The Origin of Sin
So again, this raises a very challenging question... how and when did sin originate?
We see in Genesis 3 the first human sin, but... we also see the serpent wickedly tempting Adam and Eve.
Surely the serpent was sinning in doing this wasn’t he?
So as we discussed last week, first we must insist that sin doesn’t originate with God.
Sin and evil, in biblical theology, are totally alien to God
“His ‘eyes are too pure to look on evil’” (Habakkuk 1:13).
“He is light; in him there is no darkness at all’” (1 John 1:5).
“‘God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone’” (Jas. 1:13).
He is the Rock. His works are perfect. All of his ways are right. He is faithful. He doesn’t do anything wrong. He is honest and fair.
What we have here are hints in scripture that prior to this moment in the garden (Gen 3) there had been a previous “fall” among some of the angels in Heaven.
Not much is said about what happened, or why it happened.
The closest we get may be…
Some of the angels didn’t stay where they belonged. They didn’t keep their positions of authority. The Lord has kept those angels in darkness. They are held by chains that last forever. On judgment day, God will judge them.
God did not spare angels when they sinned. Instead, he sent them to hell. He put them in dark prisons. He will keep them there until he judges them.
Similar to what happened with Adam and Eve, it seems these angels were not satisfied with their proper place, but desired a higher position.
Therefore, pride and conceit bred rebellion.
Now listen carefully, please don’t misunderstand this… Satan is not some secondary deity warring against God.
Christianity isn’t dualistic in that sense.
We know for absolute certain that there’s only one God, Jehovah God.
Satan is but a fallen creature (a created being), a sinful angel.
This means that Satan’s fall, and Adam and Eve’s subsequent fall – which is the fall that the Bible focuses on because it’s what affects all of us, both occurred according to the sovereign plan of God.
So, let’s slow down and think carefully about this.
The Bible insists that God is sovereign, so sovereign that nothing that takes place in the universe can escape the outermost boundary of his control.
All things come from him. All things are directed by him. All things are for his good. May God be given the glory forever! Amen.
The Bible insists that God is the very standard of goodness.
That’s why theologians suggest that God stands behind good in such a way that everything good can ultimately be credited to him and that he also stands behind evil in such a way that what all that is evil is inevitably credited to secondary agents.
As we saw last week in the story of Job, Satan had no power over Job without God’s sanction; yet God is never the one who does evil.
He’s never the author of sin.
He governs all that happens, yet he’s never done wrong.
Although this is a mystery; while we know that the existence of evil and God’s goodness and sovereignty are compatible truths, Scripture doesn’t reveal exactly how they’re compatible.
So, at best it would be presuming, if not arrogant, to claim that we know and fully understand these secret things of God.
And as we just saw... listen, listen… the very first human sin involved trying to know hidden things and in order to be like God.
It pays high and eternal dividends to acknowledge and practice the fact that we’re the creatures, and God’s the Creator.
So, that’s the nature of sin and the beginnings of sin.
Now, let’s see what the Bible say’s about how sin has affected us.
A Theology of Sin: Seven Statements
1. Inherited Guilt: We Are Counted Guilty Because of Adam’s Sin.
Sin entered the world because one man sinned. And death came because of sin. Everyone sinned, so death came to all people.
Paul teaches that when Adam sinned, God reckoned the guilt of Adam’s sin to all people who would eventually descend from him.
Though we didn’t exist at the time, God, looking into the future and knowing when and where we’d exist, counted us guilty like Adam.
One man’s sin brought guilt to all people. So also one right act made all people right with God. And all who are right with God will live.
Many people were made sinners because one man did not obey. But one man did obey. That is why many people will be made right with God.
What Paul means is that all members of the human race were represented by Adam in the time of testing in the Garden of Eden.
And as our representative, Adam sinned, and therefore God counted all of us guilty “in Adam,” in the sense that Adam represented the whole human race.
Some “thinkers” have pushed back at this idea of representation.
And that’s OK… but if you think it’s unfair for us to be represented by Adam, then you should also think it’s unfair for us to be represented by Christ and have his righteousness imputed/accredited to us by God, right?
Wrong!!!
That’s exactly what Paul points out in Romans 5:12-21 where God deals with us either as represented by Adam (and thus guilty) or represented by Christ (and thus covered by Christ’s righteousness).
Again...
Many people were made sinners because one man did not obey. But one man did obey. That is why many people will be made right with God.
This is often referred to as Federal Theology, stating that God deals covenantally with humanity based on which figure represents us, either Adam or Christ.
2. Inherited Corruption: We Have a Sinful Nature Because of Adam’s Sin.
In addition to the legal guilt that God imputes to us because of Adam’s sin, we also inherit a sinful nature because of Adam’s sin.
This means that we’re born corrupt and therefore we commit actual sins.... and in doing so, we confirm the guilty sentence we’ve inherited from Adam.
I know I’ve been a sinner ever since I was born. I’ve been a sinner ever since my mother became pregnant with me.
David is so overwhelmed with the consequences of his own sin that as he looks back on his life he realizes that he was sinful from the beginning.
Even from birth those who are evil go down the wrong path. From the day they are born they go the wrong way and speak lies.
The inherited tendency to sin doesn’t mean that as humans we’re as bad as we could be.
Thankfully the constraints of civil law, the good gifts of family and government, the conviction of conscience (as we see in Romans 2) all flow from God’s common grace to all people, and provide restraining influences on humanity’s sinful tendencies.
We don’t sin every single moment of every day – but we sure do sin a lot every day.
3. Total Depravity: In Our Natural State We Lack Spiritual Good Before God.
From conception forward, in ourselves we have no worthiness and are morally bankrupt.
We’re born spiritually dead in our trespasses and sins.
Again, this doesn’t mean people are as bad as they could be or that we’ve lost the image of God.
We still bear his image, and people can do deeds that on one level are good and kind.
But because prior to the new-birth, were enemies of God, even these good deeds don’t please him, because they’re not done to honor Him.
Robert Reymond summarizes this doctrine well...
“Man in his raw, natural state as he comes from the womb is morally and spiritually corrupt in disposition and character. Every part of his being – his mind, his will, his emotions, his affections his conscience, his body – has been affected by sin (this is what is meant by the doctrine of total depravity).
His understanding is darkened, his mind is at enmity with God, his will to act is slave to his darkened understanding and rebellious mind, his heart is corrupt, his emotions are perverted, his affections naturally gravitate to that which is evil and ungodly, his conscience is untrustworthy, and his body is subject to mortality.”
We see this all through the Bible…
The Lord saw how bad the sins of man had become on the earth. All of the thoughts in his heart were always directed only toward what was evil.
The Lord was very sad that he had made man on the earth. His heart was filled with pain.
The Lord looks down from heaven on all people. He wants to see if there are any who understand. He wants to see if there are any who trust in God.
All of them have turned away. They have all become evil. No one does anything good, no one at all.
All of us have become like someone who is “unclean.” All of the good things we do are like polluted rags to you. All of us are like leaves that have dried up. Our sins sweep us away like the wind.
Paul tells Christians what their nature was before being regenerated by the Holy Spirit says in…
You were living in your sins and lawless ways. But in fact you were dead.
You used to live as sinners when you followed the ways of this world. You served the one who rules over the spiritual forces of evil. He is the spirit who is now at work in those who don’t obey God.
At one time we all lived among them. We tried to satisfy what our sinful nature wanted to do. We followed its longings and thoughts. God was angry with us and everyone else because of the kind of people we were.
4. Total Inability: In Our Actions We Are Unable to Do Spiritual Good Before God.
In great error, the gospel has been explained like this… Humanity is drowning in the ocean and so God throws us a lifeline which we then must grab onto as he pulls us out of the deadly waves.
Sounds nice doesn’t it?
The only problem is it’s not biblical! It’s false, it’s untrue, it’s impossible!
Humanity can’t grab the lifeline.
We’re incapable of approaching God and doing what he requires.
We’re not fighting at the top of the ocean, we’re dead at the bottom of the ocean, dead in our trespasses and sins.
Again, Robert Reymond...
“Because man is totally or pervasively corrupt, he is incapable of changing his character or of acting in a way that is distinct from his corruption. He is unable to discern, to love, or to choose the things that are pleasing to God.
As Jeremiah says, ‘Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil’” (Jer 13:23).
The sinful mind is at war with God. It does not obey God’s law. It can’t.
Those who are controlled by their sinful nature can’t please God.
Some people don’t have the Holy Spirit. They don’t accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. Things like that are foolish to them. They can’t understand them. In fact, such things can’t be understood without the Spirit’s help.
The god of this world has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They can’t see the light of the good news of Christ’s glory. He is the likeness of God.
5. ALL Humanity is Sinful Before God
Scripture testifies to the universal sinfulness of mankind and cries “no one is exempt.”
No one is above this description.
· David says, “No one living is righteous before you” (Ps. 143:2)
· And Solomon says, “There is no one who does not sin” (1 Kings 8:46)
· Paul says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23)
6. One Single Sin Makes Us Legally Guilty Before God
As we saw earlier, sin is personal opposition to God.
It’s not the greatness of the law that makes sin worthy of punishment, but the greatness of the Lawgiver.
Paul affirms that “the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation” (Romans 5:16).
James declares…
Suppose you keep the whole law but trip over just one part of it. Then you are guilty of breaking all of it.
God said, “Do not commit adultery.” He also said, “Do not commit murder.” Suppose you don’t commit adultery but do commit murder. Then you have broken the Law.
7. All Humanity Deserve God’s Eternal Wrath Because of Our Sin.
At one time we all lived among them. We tried to satisfy what our sinful nature wanted to do. We followed its longings and thoughts. God was angry with us and everyone else because of the kind of people we were.
Anyone who believes in the Son has eternal life. Anyone who says no to the Son will not have life. God’s anger remains on him.”
Sin is not only disgusting, filthy, and reprehensible to God… it rightly deserves God’s good and perfect punishment, Hell.
God disapproves of sin and rightly pours out wrath on his enemies who have disobeyed, refused, and scorned him.
Why will God definitely punish sin?
John Murray explains...
God will not be false to his own character: “To be complacent towards that which is the contradiction of this own holiness would be a denial of himself. So that is the correlate of his holiness.
And this is just saying that the justice of God demands that sin receive its retribution. The question is not at all: How can God, being what he is, send men to hell? The question is, How can God, being what he is, save them from hell?”
Conclusion
I’m thinking that question is a good place to end because it points us forward to what we’ll study next week, the Doctrine of Christ.
For those who don’t know Christ as savior and Lord, these harsh and ugly sounds of our shameful sin should lead you to tremble before God’s wrath.
But know this… there’s good news.
There was one man who never sinned.
Adam disobeyed the Father in the Garden of Eden, but Jesus obeyed the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Adam was exiled from the Garden because of his sin, Jesus was exiled from God’s presence on the cross.
Jesus drained the cup of God’s wrath and absorbed the fullness of our shame and guilt and transferred his righteousness to all who believe.
But if we fail to see sin as our biggest problem, then Christ’s sacrifice just seems pitiful and useless.
But when we rightly mourn our sin, then we can rightly delight in the Savior.
That’s what we’ll do next week as we study the person of Christ – our beautiful, sinless, matchless, gracious Savior, Lord and eternal reigning King.
Let’s pray.