02.04. SIN AND ITS CURE

SIN AND ITS CURE Reading. Genesis 3:1-19.

      OUR Scripture reading gives God’s account of the origin of evil in the world, and also foreshadows the remedy for sin. That wickedness abounds is clear, whether we accept the Bible or not. Its terrible consequences in this life are manifest, irrespective of what its effect may be on our eternal destiny. But only from the Holy Scriptures can we arrive at the real nature of sin, and only there can we learn of the means of relief from its deadly bane.

Origin and Nature.

The Bible teaches that man was originally in a state of innocence, walked with God, and enjoyed communion with him. God gave him beautiful surroundings, healthy occupation, dominion over the lower creation, abundant provision for his needs. But one restriction was put on his liberty of action. Of the tree in the midst of the garden, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Adam was forbidden to eat, under penalty of death. Seduced by the serpent--or Satan in the form of a serpent (cf. John 8:44-46; Revelation 12:9)--Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, and induced Adam also to partake of it. As soon as Eve’s belief of Satan’s lit and disbelief of God’s truth led her to disobey the commandment of God, sin was in the world. The "Shorter Catechism" has a good definition: "Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God." The Apostle John tells us that "sin is lawlessness" (1 John 3:4), deviation from or contrariety to law. "Sin is disobedience to the law of God in will or deed." The Lord Jesus has taught us to look beyond the outward act to the inward feeling and motive. Other Scriptural descriptions of sin are: "All unrighteousness is sin" (1 John 5:17). "To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not to him it is sin" (James 4:17). "The thought of foolishness is sin" (Proverbs 24:9). "Whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Romans 14:23). Jesus summed up the requirements of God’s law in two great commands: Love God; love your neighbor (Matthew 22:37-40). We may therefore say that "any departure in thought word, or deed, from the rule of conduct which requires us to love the Lord our God with all the heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves, is sin." It has to be remembered that sin is an offence against God. Even our offences against one another are sins against God. David, when he had previously harmed another, yet said, "against thee, thee only, have I sinned" (Psalms 51:4). Remembrance of this is important, for it at once follows that there can be no pardon, no remedy, hut from God. The consequences of sin may be seen in our reading from Genesis. We note: (1) Guilt. Having disobeyed God, man at once passed from his state of innocence to that of guilt. Adam was conscious of this, for he tried to hide from God. (2) Banishment. God drove him out of the garden (Genesis 3:23-24). All sin tends to alienate from God. Sin results in loss of communion and favor. "Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you" (Isaiah 59:2). (3) Death. God had distinctly told our first parents that they would die if they disobeyed him (Genesis 2:17). The writer believes that the Scriptures teach that a penalty for sin was death, both spiritual and physical (Genesis 2:17; Genesis 3:22; Romans 5:12; Romans 6:23; Ephesians 2:1; 1 Timothy 5:6). Adam’s sin was of consequence also to his descendants: "they inherited a fallen nature, and became the subjects of sin, and its penalty death." Paul distinctly states: "Through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned" (Romans 5:12). Again he said: "In Adam all die" (1 Corinthians 15:22). We may have different theories as to sin and its results; but we must not explain these texts away. The least they can mean (and they may mean much more than this) is that "all sinned in Adam as being in him. Adam, in committing his first sin, and as to its penalty, death, stood for and represented the whole of his posterity." As to the universality of sin and guilt, we have again the word of God: "There is none righteous, no, not one" (Romans 3:10). "There is no distinction; for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:22-23). The universal necessity of conversion, as taught in the Bible, is another proof (John 3:3; John 3:5), Man’s Helpless Condition.

It was utterly beyond man’s power to regain his primal state of innocence and communion with God. No one who has once sinned can in any way atone for that sin. He cannot make up by being specially good in other directions. We are told that "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is become guilty of all" (James 2:10). If a man perfectly kept God’s law then and only then would he be beyond the need of pardon. "He that doeth them shall live in them" (Galatians 3:12); "Cursed is every one who continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them" (Galatians 3:10). Now, no mere man: ever thus perfectly kept God’s law. ’All have sinned" (Romans 3:22), and so, "by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight" (Romans 3:20). Man’s own efforts being thus excluded as of no avail, we are limited to one way of justification. God must pardon if man is to be saved. Interposition must come from the divine side. The sinner can not say how and on what terms he shall be saved. The rebel cannot compel his insulted King to receive him, or dictate the terms of peace. No one can atone for his own or his brother’s sin: "None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him" (Psalms 49:7). Salvation, says Paul, is "not of yourselves" and "not of works" (Ephesians 2:8-9). "Salvation is of the Lord." Death is the wages of sin; the eternal life, if it is ever ours, must be the free gift of God (Romans 6:23). We have, then, God’s Remedy for Sin.

As soon as man sinned, God foretold the coming victory over sin and the author of it. To the serpent, the Lord God said: I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed: he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel" (Genesis 3:15). The application of this can hardly be limited to the natural antipathy existing between men and serpents! We have thus early in human history set forth the great conflict between the Christ (the true seed of the woman) and Satan. The Savior would come to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). He would crush the head of Satan, i.e., indict fatal injury, break his power over man. Yet he himself would be bruised and hurt, but not fatally "Satan bruised Christ’s heel in Gethsemane and on the cross but Jesus Christ gained the victory over Satan, and will utterly defeat him." Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for the sins of men on the cross of Calvary. What could not be attained by works comes to us: by grace (Romans 4:4; Romans 11:6). The salvation which we cannot have as wages comes as a gift (Ephesians 2:8). It is not essential or here desirable to enter upon theories of the atonement. It is necessary to notice some of the things which the Scriptures say as to our redemption. The Bible statements are all we know of the matter. How the death of Jesus availed to save may be beyond our comprehension, the fact is the clearest and most blessed in the Bible. The Son of God, leaving the glory which he had with the Father before the world was (John 17:5), came to earth, assumed the form of a servant, perfectly obeyed the law which man failed to keep, and became obedient unto death. Holy, harmless, undefiled, he made sacrifice of himself (Hebrews 7:26-27). Men are redeemed "with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ" (1 Peter 1:18-19). Christ "died for our sins" (1 Corinthians 15:3). He "his own self bare our sins in his body upon the tree" (1 Peter 2:24). "The Son of man came ... to give his life a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28). "There is one God, one Mediator also between God and men himself man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for ail" (1 Timothy 2:5-6). "He tasted death for every man" (Hebrews 2:9). "He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world" (1 John 2:2). He was made sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). He became a curse for us, and hence redeemed us from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13-14). His blood cleanseth from all sin (1 John 1:7). We are "justified by his blood" (Romans 5:9). We are "reconciled to God through the death of his Son" (Romans 5:10). These facts, and not any human theory as to these facts are what we steadfastly believe and teach. There seems to be some need for a special emphasis of three points: (1) The death of Jesus for the world’s sin was not an after thought. We have seen the promise given as soon as sin was committed (Genesis 3:15). Christ’s sufferings were ordained in eternal purpose. If men by wicked hands did crucify and slay the Son of God, he was also "delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23). He was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8) . (2) We must beware of speaking and thinking of God’s work in our redemption in such a way as to imply that the Father was an angry God who needed to be reconciled and appeased in order that he might love mankind. The Bible on the contrary, so far from teaching that the Son’s death won over the Father to love the world, declares that "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son" (John 3:16). "God commendeth his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself" (2 Corinthians 5:19). We do not need to beseech the Father to be reconciled to men: "We beseech you, on behalf of Christ, he ye reconciled to God" (2 Corinthians 5:20). Let us hold no view of the atonement which is incompatible with these great texts. (3) As little, however should we disregard the plain fact that the justice, of God, and the majesty of his law land Person, had to be considered in the provision of a remedy for sin. That sin was no light thing is seen in this, that only the blood of the Son of God was in value precious enough to redeem. The claims of justice were satisfied, and God’s law magnified, in the atoning death of Christ. We rightly speak of the cross of Christ as the "trysting-place where heaven’s love and heaven’s justice meet." Consider one passage, Romans 3:24-26, specially the clause "that he might himself be just and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus." Justice alone would condemn all sinners; mercy alone might pass over sin. But justice and mercy are troth exalted in the justifying of the man who believes in the Son of God as Savior. While the death of Jesus is to us the highest exhibition of divine love, and results in winning our love and turning us from a life of sin to a life of righteousness, yet none of the "moral influence" theories of the atonement are adequate. One important question is suggested by Romans 3:1-31. If God could only he shown to be just in forgiving such a man and on such a condition, what becomes of the man who rejects the Savior? He has shut himself off from hope. He has spurned God’s love, and rejected the plan which justice as well as love devised for his salvation. No man will stand justified before the throne of God at last, save on the ground that the Father has accepted him through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus our Savior.

QUESTIONS.

1. When and how did Sin come into the world? 2. Who was the tempter of our first parents? 3. What is sin? 4. Do we sin against man or God? (Give texts in proof). 5. What were the results of Adam’s sin to himself? 6. (a) Are we in any ways affected by Adam’s sin? (b) If so, how? 7. What is God’s remedy for sin? 8. Are there any men who do not need a Savior? (Give texts). 9. For whom did Christ die? 10. Would one sin condemn a man? or could he make up for it by later holy conduct? 11. Explain Genesis 3:15. 12. Do you think it is a fair representation of the atonement to say that Christ appeased in his death the wrath of a just and angry God? Refer in your answer to the Scripture teaching.