Before I shared Lee Strobel's video series on the proof of creationism, I shared several posts regarding the Bible. Those posts contained several proof sources that the Bible is indeed the inspired, infallible word of God. So far I have shared information regarding the Bible and the proof of science and prophecy. I promised to also share information regarding the proof of history and archaeology to conclude my posts titled "Examining the Bible". You can find those posts under the tab THE BIBLE.
However, because this is Good Friday (the day Jesus was crucified) and Easter is this weekend, I am shifting my focus to spending the next few posts explaining the central role of Jesus in the Christian faith and why it is that Easter is one of the most important holidays celebrated by believers. I'll never forget when I was in my twenties and pregnant with my 2nd child. I worked at a bank as a personal banker. It was Good Friday and the branch manager (my boss) told us she was leaving early to attend a church service for Good Friday. First of all I had no idea what Good Friday was nor did I even understand the true meaning of Easter. To me Easter was about dying Easter eggs, Easter egg hunts and baskets full of candy and gifts. Curiosity got the best of me and I asked her what Good Friday was. She explained that Good Friday was the day that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. If you read my testimony of faith than you know that it was at my job in banking that I first started to be introduced to Christianity as I worked with many Christians. I basically replied "Oh, I see" and turned around to return to my desk. That is when she said, "Debi, I'd love to have you and your family join mine for Easter service this weekend". I replied that I was not religious, didn't know what Easter was about and would feel strange going. She then told me that Easter was basically a love story. A story about Jesus taking the penalty for my sins and dying on the cross so I could live eternal life with God in heaven. I remember vividly thinking my boss was out of her mind. First of all, I did not believe in "sin" nor did I believe in heaven. I believed that we all created our own reality and were responsible only to ourselves when it came to matters of morality. Sin was nonsense. I lived by the concept of "if it feels right, do it" and believed I was a "good" person and that was enough! I also firmly believed in the idea of reincarnation. Heaven was a myth, we died and were reincarnated into another person. I was very sure of these beliefs and had no time for what she was talking about. This "encounter" with my boss at the bank was the first time in my life that someone had witnessed to me about Jesus. A small door was opened that day. It would take many more years however before I accepted her "story about Jesus" as truth.
You may be where I was in my twenties. Hearing about the concept of "sin" and either not understanding it or believing in it. Trust me I get that! I was once in your shoes. The purpose of this post is to discuss what sin is and what it's role is in us being accountable to God. I'm hoping that at this point, if you have been a regular reader of this blog and have read my posts on the Bible; that perhaps you have come to the point at which you can acknowledge that the Bible is what it claims to be-God's word, his revelation of truth, written for us. Doing so gives you the peace and assurance that comes with knowing God went out of his way to communicate with us, revealing himself as our loving heavenly Father.
But this is also challenging, because the Bible presents us with some very sobering realities. The first of these realities is that God is not only loving, but also holy. The word, holy, seems like sort of an old-fashioned one-we don't hear it much anymore. But the Bible presents it as a vitally important concept, because it tells us that God is absolutely pure and separate from anything that is tainted or stained by impurity, described in the Scriptures as sin.
We live in a culture where the concept of sin has become entangled in legalistic arguments over right and wrong. When many of us consider "What is sin?" we think of violations of the Ten Commandments. Even then, we tend to think of murder and adultery as "major" sins compared to lying, cursing or stealing. The truth is that sin, as defined in the original translations of the Bible, means "to miss the mark." The mark, in this case, is the standard of perfection established by God. Viewed in that light, it is clear that we are all sinners. The Apostle Paul says in Romans 3:23: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
This truths brings us face-to-face with a serious difficulty: God's standard of righteousness is something that none of us can live up to. Specifically, both the Old and New Testaments present a clear message from God that tells us "You must be holy because I am holy." The problem with that is obvious: we are not holy!
We are sinful people, plain and simple. Yes, the Bible says that originally we were created good; God does not create evil. But starting with the first human beings, right down to you and me, we have all rebelled against God in various ways. We've chosen our own path and ignored His will for our lives. We've become sinners.
Lest there by any doubt, just watch the daily news. The human race is marked by violence and immoral behavior, crimes large and small. Our wars destroy countless people--estimates say well over 100 million were killed in the twentieth century alone. Then there's the growing reality or terrorism, with its murder of innocent civilians, including women and children of all ages. Human trafficking and the growing worldwide sex trade. Governmental corruption. Corporate fraud. Immorality and abuse among clergy. Tax evasion, employee theft, students cheating on exams, job applicants lying on resumes. Abuse of our bodies, each other, and the planet. The stories and the statistics concerning our sinfulness are staggering.
The Bible predicted that society would become increasingly like this. Look at this prophetic description in Timothy 3:2-5, written by the apostle Paul some 2,000 years ago:
For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. They will betray their friends, be reckless, and be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. They will act religious but they will reject the power that could make them Godly.
It's easy to read a passage like that and tell yourself that although that may be a good description of the world as a whole, that its not true of you. Remember God sees our impure thoughts, our mixed motives, our ugly envy, our insincere sentiments & our disingenuous gestures. Worse still he sees our PRIDE, which the Bible describes as being among the most destructive of all sins-though it's the one that is often the most transparent to us. Ultimately it is our pride that convinces us that we are really not that bad and that we really don't need God after all.
You might ask why God simply won't forgive someone who comes to Him and apologizes sincerely for their sin. When we sin, we are rebelling against God. The reason sin is rebellion against God is because He made us in His image and wrote His laws on our conscience. Revelation 21:17 says that "nothing impure will enter heaven because God is absolutely Holy and righteous and evil cannot exist in His presence." Psalm 5:4 says, "you are not a God who takes pleasure in evil, with you the wicked cannot dwell" In God's absolute and complete holiness He is simply unable to be in the presence of sin and therefore He can't just simply say "That's OK child, you are forgiven just try harder next time" Because he loves us so much and wants to be in fellowship with us but can not if we are in sin (and we all are!) it is easy to see why God developed a hatred for sin. In His hatred of sin God has said "the wages for sin is death" (Romans 6:23) The whole human race is under a death sentence because "all have sinned" (Romans 3:23)
Since our sin condemns us, God, in His great love for us sent His son Jesus to die in our place so that through Jesus we can be forgiven and enter into His presence. "God's own law says that death is the penalty for sin so He cannot simply forgive as "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness" (Hebrews 9:22) Therefore, to make a way to forgive us, God put the sins of the world on Jesus who shed His blood as though HE were the guilty one. So now, when anyone repents of their sins, God forgives them and accepts Jesus' death as punishment for sin. In this way God has satisfied His own law which says that sin must be punished by death.
To make it possible for us to enter into God's presence Jesus had to die to pay the penalty of death for sin. Jesus' death satisfied God's law and allows Him, as our just Judge, to forgive us when we repent and accept Jesus as our Savior. Some may say that "all paths lead to God", but as can be clearly seen by what I have presented in this post their is only ONE path to God and that path is through Jesus.
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