Chapter 04: Guilty!
Chapter 04: Guilty!
God is the Creator and all-powerful King of the universe. He fashioned all nations and takes care of every individual. It is consequently not only our responsibility, but also our privilege to glorify Him and render unto Him grateful and joyful obedience. A God-given conscience outlines for us what is right and wrong; moreover we were taught the Ten Commandments from our infancy. Undoubtedly our main duty is to love God with all our hearts, and to love our neighbour even as we love ourselves. In the beginning, when the Lord created our first parents, Adam and Eve, He placed them in the Garden of Eden. Their whole blessedness depended on their obedience towards Him. “The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."” 47 Perfect obedience leads to life and friendly fellowship with God; disobedience brings misery and death. The options were laid out clearly.
Adam ate the forbidden fruit. He disregarded God’s command and thus became a sinner, guilty before his Maker. Adam’s transgression brought a curse upon the whole creation. Not only so: since Adam was the representative head of the human race, his sin is justly reckoned as the sin of all. Scripture teaches that “through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation... by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners.”48
We are sinners by nature. Just as seeds taken from a corrupt tree give rise to similarly corrupt trees, even so, as Adam’s descendants, we were conceived sinners, exactly as our father was. Every person makes decisions according to his own will, nobody compelling him, but, being a sinner, all his thought, words and actions are tainted with sin. As it was in the days before the Flood, it could be said of every individual that “every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”49
Man holds an inflated opinion of himself. “Weaknesses” and “mistakes” brushed aside, he is convinced of his essentially “good heart.” Scripture, however, presents an altogether contrary diagnosis: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.”50 Is it conceivable that spiritual good can issue out of a deceitful heart? Do we pick figs from a bramble-bush, or grapes from thorns? Even so, man born enslaved to sin cannot produce acceptable righteousness before the thrice-holy God.
How Serious is My Sin? The vileness and gravity of sin appear from God’s just punishment meted out to the sinner. “The wages of sin is death”51 - not only physical death, but spiritual death as well, that is, the exile of man from the comfortable presence of God in the conscious and eternal punishment of hell. Whatever sin it might be, its inevitable payment is death. There is no such thing as a “venial” sin, which supposedly is not serious enough to deserve death.
Some sins are worse than others and there will be different degrees of punishment in hell.52 Anger or a lustful look are not as serious as murder or adultery. Yet Jesus warns us that anger deserves punishment just as murder does, and a lustful look is just as punishable as the act of adultery.53 Moreover, the Lord makes no distinction as if some sins deserve death while others do not. Every sinner deserves to be punished in hell forever. This truth must be etched upon our heart. By our sins we challenge the sovereign and holy God, the fount of all blessedness. He sits enthroned in His Temple, surrounded by holy and spotless seraphims, who nonetheless cannot endure to gaze upon the brightness of His glorious majesty. They hide their faces and unceasingly say, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts!” Can we begin to comprehend the heinousness of our rebelliousness and treasonous heart in defying the will of the one true and living God? Undoubtedly, God is upright and just in meting out punishment for sin - every kind of sin! - and its punishment is nothing less than the darkness of death, the eternal separation from Him who is light.
People underplay the issues: “What’s so baneful in enjoying a bite of forbidden fruit? After all, it looked quite inviting. Was God really prepared to punish Adam with death simply for tasting a piece of fruit?” God had solemnly warned his creature, “You shall surely die.” Satan begged to differ - “You will not surely die.”54 In my career as a medical doctor I frequently meet face to face with death. I have seen adults, elderly and even infants die. Death’s chill, the tears and sorrow, constantly remind me of Satan’s deceit and of the sinfulness of man. Whom are you going to believe: God, or the father of lies? Don’t be led astray: every transgression of the Law of God is deadly sin.
All These Things Have I Kept! The hour will come when you will appear before God for judgement. “He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained.” “For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ… So then each of us shall give account of himself to God.”55 Sobering and solemn thoughts, indeed.
What will the outcome be? When God will search your innermost being and all your deeds, do you think He will pronounce you righteous or will He condemn you? The sin of every man is evident. You have often striven against your own conscience. Nevertheless, the sinner is prone to excuse himself. He shifts the blame on someone else, “She forced me”; he minimises sin, “God will certainly overlook a white lie”; he hides himself in the crowd, “Everybody else is does the same”; and such other banal excuses. The religious person has an even greater problem because his “goodness” blinds him to his own wicked and ungodly heart. In the Gospels we read of a rich young ruler who excitedly ran to meet Jesus. He prostrated himself before Him and asked: “Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?”56 Perhaps you too are driven by an earnest desire to rid yourself of hell’s punishment and obtain eternal life. Consider carefully, then, the Lord’s reply:
“If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments... You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, honour your father and your mother, and, you shall love your neighbour as yourself.”57 A fearful answer, I should say! How can we ever enter into life? Who among us has ever kept the commandments of God? Scripture itself indicts us all: “There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.”58 To the extent that Christ’s directive is terrifying, the youth’s response is ridiculous. He bragged: “All these things I have kept from my youth.” How come? If he had never lied, certainly he did lie then! Christ brought him face to face with the perfect Law of God and yet he did not perceive the filthiness and enormity of his sin. Only then did the Lord Jesus put His finger on the sore spot. Since he pretended having obeyed the second tablet of the Law, it would never have crossed his mind of having broken the first tablet, introduced by the all-comprehensive commandment, “You shall have no other gods before Me.” The inquirer thought he was worshipping the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; he professed to detest pagan idols made of wood and stone, but tucked away in his heart, the youth cherished another "god." Jesus therefore told him: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”59 Emmanuel, "God with us," extended a personal invitation to him, to obey the foremost commandment and be loyal to Him. The youth could not: his allegiance was elsewhere, he was serving wealth, his "god." So he departed, without realising his sinfulness and much less who the "good Teacher" really was, the true God, Redeemer and Life. The Lord Jesus wants you to examine yourself thoroughly in the light of the holy Law of God. Don’t brush this exercise aside, saying, “I’ve committed a few mistakes, but all in all, I’m good.” Every sin, whether heinous or apparently petty, is essentially breaking the Law of God; it is an upstart against God’s wise and benevolent government. Do you still congratulate yourself, saying conceitedly, “I’m fine as I am”? If so, God despises your pride and hypocrisy. As long as you consider yourself righteous, Christ will not save you. Should you think that your sin may be treated lightly, you will see no reason of applying to the unique Doctor for the soul. Jesus said: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”60 To be brief, had Adam never sinned and if we had, without the least failure, obeyed the Law from birth onwards, we would obtain life. As the apostle Paul says: “The man who does them shall live by them.” In reality, everyone is born in sin and the matter of fact is that no mere man ever kept the whole Law without defect. That’s why the same apostle continues: “But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident.”61 Had the Law been the only entrance into life, you would have had no possibility to enjoy God in heaven. Our transgressions will witness against us and will bar our way to heaven. The Law Brings Us to Christ
Since we cannot earn life by our obedience, then what’s the whole point of the Law? Paul explains one of its main purposes as follows: “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”62 The Law resembles a mirror. Looking steadfastly into it you will come to realise how spiritually unclean you really are, but of course it cannot wash you clean. To employ another simile: the Law acts like an x-ray, penetrating beyond the surface and revealing your heart, sick unto death, but it cannot heal you. Only the Lord Jesus Christ is able to wash sinners from their filth and give them a new heart. As a teenager I remember reading the Sermon on the Mount. I was much impressed and resolved to adopt it as my rule of life. I did my very best, but it eventually dawned upon me that the more I endeavoured to keep the standard, the more my frustration increased and my failure became apparent. How could I ever be perfect even as the heavenly Father is perfect? But the Lord was teaching me a simple yet profound lesson. Simple, I said, but so difficult a lesson for a “good” teenager to grasp. The “good” teenager is a guilty sinner! Then I began to appreciate the Lord Jesus Christ; I began to understand what the Bible means when it speaks about the grace of God manifested so bountifully on Calvary. Only then was my soul ready to flee to Christ for refuge.
Initially God deals with man on Mount Sinai, creating a wholesome fear of judgement and a sure conviction of sin. God again deals with the sinner on Calvary’s hill. There He bestows full forgiveness, freedom and life. God’s use of His Law would have reached its fundamental purpose: “Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.”63