SIN
I have realized I do not truly understand the sinfulness of sin. I have always been the good kid and just known that sin is bad. So I have began a study of how God views sin, and what Jesus says about sin. I only have two days of study under my belt, but I have never been more thankful in my life! Instead of trying to piece together my random thoughts on this topic, I am going to let you read a few lines from Studies in the Sermon on the Mount by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones.
“Indeed the incarnation would never have been necessary were it not for sin. The problem of sin is as profound as that. To tell mankind what to do is not enough. God had done that in the law given through Moses, but no one had kept it. ‘There is none righteous, no, not one.’ All the exhortations to men and women to live a better life had failed before Christ ever came…Whatever else sin may be, it is at least something that could be dealt with only by the coming of the eternal Son of God from heaven into this world and by His actually going to the death of the cross. That had to happen; there was no other way. God, I say with reverence, would never have allowed His only-begotten, beloved Son to suffer in the way He did unless it was absolutely essential: and it was essential because of sin.”
I know that isn’t anything any of us haven’t ever heard before, but lets not take it for granted. I am overwhelmed by the love of my Creator again today.
It really is amazing. Even before Moses and the Law, Adam and Eve sinned. They didn’t have the long list of do’s and don’ts of the Exodus, they didn’t even have the 10! They had one commandment: Do not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But even then in the 1st generation, pride rose up and they chose apart from God, they sinned. They needed a Savior. The mystery of iniquity… pretty crazy stuff!
The other part of sin though, is the amazing work of the Cross to blot out sin from our record. He paid the ultra consequence in order for us to be with Him forever. This is the mystery, Christ and the Church together as one. Forever.