Worship While It’s Warm

Let’s face it, we just don’t like to talk about sin. There is something rather disconcerting about the subject. In fact, I am of the opinion that teaching on the doctrine of sin is probably one of the least understood and most underrepresented topics in modern day evangelicalism, which reinforces the notion that it is better left untaught and out of discussions.

Yet, a solid biblical understanding of sin, what it is and how it has impacted us is critical to not only understanding our salvation, but also the sanctification process. Tim Challies gave an excellent treatment to this topic by denoting sin is not what we do but who we are due to the condition of hearts that are rebellious towards God. (link here). And I believe that the foundation of this rebellion will address the reasons that we don’t like to talk about sin and why it seems to be a missing link in modern day teaching. So a more appropriate title for this post would be the Problem with talking about sin…is sin.

The heart of this rebellion I believe is found in 1 John 3:4, which says that sin is lawlessness. And the lawlessness is a “lack of conformity to the moral law of God either in act, disposition or state” (Basic Theology, Charles Ryrie, page 243). Sin rejects God’s moral standards and is contradictory to God’s character and demands, and therefore, wants to act independent of His character and demands.

Sin, being imputed to us through the fall (Romans 5:12) puts us in a state of separation from God (Romans 3:23). So we see in this separation, our natural man rejects the things of God and cannot subject himself to God’s laws (1 Corinthians 2:14, Romans 8:7). Therefore, in our unregenerate state, we are in a state of lawlessness that wants to act independent of God. And don’t we see this played out in the focus of “goodness” as a criteria of heavenly attainment? The natural man will want to justify himself with being good apart from God.

When we come to saving faith in Christ, its because we realize that we are not good, that we are sinners. No matter how “good” we can be, it will always miss the mark of God’s standards. And so we consider Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, how He who knew no sin became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). Our trust then is in what He did. In Him and through Him and only because of Him, our dependence turns into compliance. When we see sin in context of the holiness and righteousness of God and the necessity of the sacrifice of Christ, recognizing and confronting it is not a problem.

However, after salvation, there is still a bone of contention. Paul indicates in Romans 7:21-23, that there is still a law at work in us, a principle of sin that wants us to do what?…commit acts of lawlessness. And its this very principle that will not want us to comply with God’s moral law and will want to act independent of God. But it follows in Romans 8 that our victory is found by virtue of what God has already granted to us through “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (vs 2). Thus, Jesus Christ must be central to our teaching for our understanding of living life in the Spirit.

So the problem with sin is that it wants self to rule. And that self-rule will not want to confront God’s moral law. The less we trust in Christ, the less we yield to the Spirit, the greater will be our aversion to confronting sin. I believe this is the reason why that for present day teachers, the further the teaching deviates from the centrality of Christ, the less likely that teacher will talk about sin.  So in a today’s christian culture, that focuses on new ideas and new formulas and talks more about Jesus meeting our needs than being our need, the issue of sin gets lost.  And why the topic of sin it is virtually non-existent in prosperity theology that focuses on gratification of the flesh as opposed to trust and surrender in Christ.