Some Thoughts On Sin

·         God hates sin and unrepentant/unregenerate sinners (Ps. 5:5-6; 11:5-6)

·         Sin is evil. “The evil of sin is not so much seen in that one thousand are damned for it, as that Christ died for it.”(Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity: Contained In Sermons Upon The Westminster Assembly’s Catechism (Banner of Truth, 2000), 135)

·         Sin is rebellion against God, his laws, and his kingdom (1 Sam. 15:23; Prov. 17:11; Tit. 1:10)

·         Sin attempts to break or nullify God’s covenants (Is. 24:5; Rom. 1:31-32; Heb. 8:9)

·         Sin is unbelief and disobedience (2 Thess. 1:8-9; Tit. 1:15-16; Heb. 3:12).  “Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 are people of great faith... The problem is they believe in the wrong person and the wrong thing: they believe a creature rather than the Creator, and exchange the truth about God for a lie.  There is belief... in God- but it is belief in a falsehood about him.”(Steve Jeffery, Michael Ovey, Andrew Sach, Pierced For Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution (Wheaton, Il: Crossway, 2007), 112)

·         Sin endeavors to overshadow or darken the glory of God (Rom. 3:23).  “Every sin flows from the failure to treasure the glory of God above all things.”(John Piper, “Preaching as Expository Exultation for the Glory of God” in Preaching The Cross (Wheaton, Il: Crossway, 2007), 111)

·         Sin tries to stop or stall the work of God (Heb. 3:16-19)

·         Sin undertakes to besmear God’s attributes (Ps. 106:7-8; Jude 15)

·         Sin, as described above, is not an entity in and of itself; it is our nature (it is our godlessness) and characterizes everything about us: our thoughts, words, deeds, motives, desires, will, affections, actions, heart, soul, mind, and life.  “A veritable world of miseries is to be found in mankind, and we are thereby despoiled of divine raiment, our shameful nakedness exposes a teeming horde of infamies.”(Institutes 1.1.1) 

·         We would sin more however, we are restrained by God’s common grace and providence (1 Sam. 25:39; Ps. 19:13; Lk. 11:4; Gen. 20:6), and we may lack opportunities (2 Kings 8:11-13)

·         Sin has made mankind damnable, cursed, dark, idolatrous, adulteress (spiritually), guilty, impure, unholy, condemned, ungodly, and hell bound (Rom. 2:5-8; 5:6).  “Sin has blotted God’s image and stained the orient brightness of the soul... Sin stamps the devils’ image on a man.  Malice is the devils’ eye, hypocrisy his cloven foot.  It turns a man into a devil.” (Watson, Body of Divinity, 133)

Sadly, the book is not shut on sin.  Because of the pervasiveness of sin it has effects and consequences on other aspects that concern us.  Sin warps truth which leads to false gospels and false converts.  This results in false assurance. Some of these have been addressed, the others will be handled in time (Lord willing).