Sin and It’s Consequence

KEY POINTS
  • What is Sin?
  • The Wages of sin
  • Seriousness of Sin
  • Why Death?
  • Impact of Sin

What is SIN?

The secular world hates the word ‘sin‘ because it is associated with divine judgement. Some governments in the western world, in its rush to disentangle itself from God and Christianity, have banned its use in public places. It is also considered a ‘hate-crime’ when the word is used. This reflects the majority of people who hate the idea of Someone who will stand over them in judgement. In their defiance they have declared themselves to be their own law-givers and have set themselves against God.

1 John 3:4 Everyone who commits sin commits lawlessness, for sin is lawlessness. (NABRE)

Sin is not just simply disobedience. It is the enthroning of our own desires above God and his laws, and thereby putting ourselves above Him. When we sin, it reveals the true condition of a heart that:

  • lacks honor for God
  • lacks worship of God
  • puts our desires above God
  • is hostile to the laws of God

It ultimately leads us to living a life that is outside of what God has established as good. Sin is not just in our actions. It includes our inaction, thoughts, attitudes, and desires.

Cost / Wages of Sin… Death

Adam was given a single commandment… don’t eat the fruit from that one tree. He was forewarned that death would come if he did! He had thousands of other trees to eat from… and yet, he broke that single law.

Genesis 2:16 The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely;
17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”
(NASB)

The New Testament puts it plainly…

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death.

Had Adam and Eve not eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, there would have been no death. No sin, no death.

The Seriousness of Sin

Why would God bring such an awful judgment on Adam and to the rest of mankind? Couldn’t God just have forgiven Adam? After all, many parents would forgive their children for such a simple act of disobedience right?

There are many problems with this thinking…

  • Firstly, it is foolish to think that we can bring God down to our level, and that He ought to judge as we would judge.
  • Secondly, we’re trying to create an image of God that fits our own likeness and our image.
  • Thirdly, we are now making ourselves out to be the judge over God because we think we can do better than Him. And many will use this as an excuse to reject Him or claim that he doesn’t exist.

This gives us a glimpse of God’s character. His standard of good and evil is far higher than ours. In fact God reveals himself to us through the Bible and through it we understand that He is perfectly good, holy and just. No evil exists in Him. In God’s eyes, evil – no matter how small, pollutes the entire person. It no longer meets the standard of good.

Why Death?

When God created Adam and Eve, they were created in ‘his image’ to be holy and good. They were predestined to live forever and to enjoy a beautiful relationship with God, with each other, and with the rest of creation. Their own desires led them to follow the path of death instead of the path of life. When they chose to disobey, they had full knowledge of the price of their sin.

Death is the the only way of stopping evil. Imagine if evil was allowed to continue forever without end if a person were to live forever. Adam lived to see eight generations after him and saw firsthand how evil the world had become. His son was murdered by another son. Scriptures record that mankind had become evil in all their ways. The evil within a person can only end when that person dies – that is why death was absolutely necessary. Sin comes with a terrible price… death!

Impact of Sin

  • Sin brought death into the world and to mankind. Death is the wages of sin. (Genesis 2:16-17; Romans 6:23)
  • Sin destroys our relationship with God (Genesis 3:23-24). The close fellowship which Adam and Eve enjoyed with God was no longer possible after they were driven out of the Garden of Eden.
  • Sin destroys our relationship with the people around us (Genesis 3:16)
  • Sin brought disharmony between the whole of creation and mankind (Genesis 3:17-19)
  • Sin is evil

Sin has the effect of corrupting and destroying everything it touches. It is why the image of God carried by mankind is also corrupted.

With authority given to mankind to rule over the whole earth, we have seen the spread of this corruption and degeneracy through the history of humanity. It has brought about wars, death, diseases, corruption, starvation, destruction to environments and other evils. The true source of evil and suffering stems from mankind’s natural inclination to sin. It is not from God

Genesis 6:5 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.