SIN
Sin is a topic that our culture disregards, although it is the root cause of the deterioration of the culture in which we live. Those with spiritual awareness are familiar with the theological definition of sin as “missing the mark.” In the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord used a word in Aramaic for sin which includes both sins of offense, (Trespasses) and sins of neglecting to do what we ought to do. (Debts) (James 4:17) Romans 4:23 adds another to the list. “Everything that does not come from faith is sin.” The following comments from a devotional entitled “New Morning Mercies by Paul David Tripp characterize the personal aspects of sin.
“I wish I could say that sin always appears horribly ugly and destructive to me, but it doesn’t. I wish I could say that all the time and in every way I hate what God hates, but I don’t. I wish I could say that I always love to do what is right, but I don’t. I wish I could say that I never think that my way is better than God’s way, but I can’t. I wish my heart were forever settled with staying inside God’s boundaries, but it isn’t. I wish I could say that my war with sin is over, but it’s not.
Here’s the danger for me and for you: sin doesn’t always look sinful to us. It’s hard to admit it, but sometimes sin actually looks beautiful to us. The man lusting after the woman in the mall doesn’t actually see something ugly and dangerous. No, he sees beauty. The guy who is cheating on his taxes doesn’t see the moral danger of deception. He sees the excitement of having additional money to satisfy his desires. The woman gossiping on the phone doesn’t see the destructiveness of what she’s doing because she is taken up with the buzz of passing a tale. The child who is rebelling against the will of her parents doesn’t see the danger that she’s placing herself in because she is captivated by the thrill of her temporary independence. Part of the deceptive power of sin in my heart is its ability to look beautiful when it is actually terribly ugly.” Paul David Tripp, New Morning Mercies, Crossway, 2014, December 20.
The most direct definition of sin, however, comes from I John 3:4. “Sin is lawlessness.” A fuller definition of lawlessness and its effects are supplied by G. Campbell Morgan. “Sin is not a thing to be pitied. It is a thing to be smitten, to be punished. Its punishment lies in the line of its own activity. If a man will turn away he turns to death, for mark the last word of James, The sin, when it is full-grown, bringeth forth death. The man who is indeed alive, desires fulness of life, vision, sense of God and turns to find fulfillment for these things in the evil and pernicious ways of ungodliness, is not after God, he is attempting to get round God and win something which his nature wants without God, and he never succeeds. This is sin, not merely against himself, not merely against the community, but against the cosmic order. Sin as the willful choice of wrong is not a part of God’s cosmic process. It is rebellion. It is treason, It is chaos. Let every man who feels allurement to satisfy desire apart from the way of God know this, that when he turns in answer to it to the house of evil, to the method of wrong, he is not after God, but lifting the fist of rebellion in the face of God. There can be but one issue for all such high treason, and that is the nemesis and the ruin of alienation from God and the consequent cutting off of the possibility of all that man most seeks after.” G. Campbell Morgan, The Westminster Pulpit, Baker Book House, 1954-1955, Vol. 2, Page 73.
In view of the severity of sin and its effects on us and our relationship with God, it is critical that we look at sin carefully to understand its development in our lives. What is the genesis of sin? What are the methods of the enemy? What thought patterns lead to sin in our lives? For these answers we will look to the book of James and to the book of Genesis.
Sin is the answer to the suggestion that I break law to satisfy desire. The desire is not wrong. The temptation to satisfy that desire outside the will of God is not wrong. James describes the process in these following verses. “But each is one is tempted, when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death.” (James1:14-15) G. Campbell Morgan has these comments on this passage. “‘Dragged away’ is a hunting figure, and the word means seduced from safety into snares. The next word, ‘enticed,’ is a fishing figure, and includes the thought of a bait held out. The thought of the word enticed is ‘seduced by a fancied advantage.’ There is desire. Here is a suggestion that I shall satisfy that desire by being drawn away from the straight line I see in front of me. I am enticed by the bait that offers me immediate realization of the thing I am after. The desire is right; the peril is that I am asked to satisfy proper desire by breaking law. The temptation itself is not sin. When the will within us decides to turn from the life of rectitude, take the suggestion, lay hold upon it, seize it, and capture it, then the act is committed. That is sin. When I seize the bait, the hidden hook seizes me. The hook is not sin. The hook is the penalty, the first pang of hell. The sin is the deliberate choice of the will and the determined act by which I turn aside to answer, not my desire, but the allurement to the fulfillment of desire in an improper way. A man wins when he says, ‘Desire is perfectly right. It is right that I should desire vision and life at it fullest, but I must find these things along the line of law.’” G. Campbell Morgan, The Westminster Pulpit, Baker Book House, 1954-1955, Vol. 2, Page 72.
In the book of Genesis, we are also given insight into the method of the enemy. “The method of the enemy was full of all subtlety. He first asked a question which was calculated to create the sense of restricted liberty, and so cast an aspersion on the goodness of God. Whereas the limitation in the purpose of God was wholly beneficent, and intended to hold man within the only sphere in which he could make progress towards the largest and fullest possibility of his being; the enemy suggested that it was imposed by a desire on the part of God to keep man from progress and enlargement of capacity. Thus it is seen that at the back of the method of the devil is an aspersion cast upon the character of God. Man was made to question the goodness of law. By this declaration he created in the mind of man a question as to the goodness of the God who had made the law, and thus imperiled the relation of the will to God, as he called it into a place of activity outside, and contrary to, the will of God. When man, listening to his suggestion of evil, asserted his will, it was upon the basis of a doubt of the Divine Love, which he had allowed himself to entertain.” G. Campbell Morgan, The Crises of the Christ, Baker Book House, 1954-1955, Vol 2, Pg 14, 20. To allow myself to entertain, then, a doubt of the Divine Love is to initiate a pathway which leads to sin.
One of the statements of G. Campbell Morgan that he makes in the the above book is that “To know God is to know Love, to know Love is to love.” It naturally follows, then, that the best way to guard our lives against doubting the love of God is to deepen our relationship with Him. Hosea 6:3 states the following about the knowledge of God. “So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord. His going forth is as certain as the dawn, and He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain watering the earth.” (NASB) This verse speaks of the certainty and of the abundance of the Lord’s provision for us. The word “press” implies that effort will be required and that there will be opposition to that effort. As we press toward that knowledge, we will become aware that each step we take is governed by His Infinite Light and His Infinite Love. As we draw near to Him, our doubts of His Love will diminish and our wills will increasingly become one with His. It is my prayer that the Lord will lead you into further comprehension of the methods of the enemy and enable you to be triumphant over sin by the supply of His Gracel
In Christ, Richard Spann