What’s the infatuation with sin?

Some years ago I was invited to preach in a church in a neighbouring town. I preached on sin. Afterwards the pastor of that church called me aside and lovingly suggested that there was no need to preach on sin since Christ had died for our sin; rather we should concentrate on grace. He hadn’t listened to my sermon.

The trouble with us humans is that we live in a world with other humans who are more or less like us. The Bible says that all have sinned…so we can only compare ourselves with ourselves. Therefore most of us come to the conclusion, “I’m not so bad.” Once a person comes to believe he’s not bad, he then cannot accept that he has done much to deserve the judgement God has promised will me meted out to sinners (and especially a loving God).

In order to understand how desperately depraved I really am (which is exactly how everyone else is), I need to compare myself to God. Is this comparison reasonable? Yes, because the Bible tells us that in the beginning God created us in His image – that is, without sin and perfect. And it tells us that all have “fallen short of the glory of God,” meaning that we have dropped from perfection where we were created to the pit of sin we now inhabit.

The trouble is, we can’t see God so how is it possible to get a glimpse of His holiness and purity in order to make a comparison between Him and us? We can’t – in fact, if we could see God in all His holiness it would kill us because we would not be able to stand ourselves because of our sin and we would not be able to stand God because of His holiness.

Now I’ve said enough for one post but enough to give some thought.

Until next time, so long.