Poster | Thread |
| Why do we sin? | | A friend of my two oldest boys went camping with us this weekend. Sitting around the campfire we were talking about God, and what Easter was all about... when this friend asked "Why do we sin anyway?"
Good question, eh?
I thought for awhile, and stumbled around a little... and then said "Do you want your parents to love you because they want to, or because they have no choice?" I then explained that I believe God made man with freewill to choose whether he will love and obey God because love that is forced is not love at all.
Anyone have any other thoughts on this question?
Krispy |
| 2005/3/28 11:39 | |
| Re: Why do we sin? | | It is simple, we want to be the king and ruler of our own selves. We want to be boss!!
This is a quote from Winkie Pratney
"WHAT IS sin? Sin is not primarily the THINGS you DO. It is a state of will. It is a CHOICE of a strong ultimate end in life. It is intent of purpose wrongly and selfishly directed. It is denying God's right to be God in your life. His Holy anger flames out against sin because it destroys all that is beautiful and good in life. Man living in slavery to sin is a hollow mockery of the holy being once made in God's likeness and image. Yet we see Man from his first selfish choice forge an unbroken chain of deceit, pride, lust and rottenness.
Without God in His rightful place as Center and Director of the heart, nothing a man can do will spare him from the righteous wrath of the King of Kings. All his actions, deeds and works are made for selfishness. Aware of his defiance of God's right, but choosing to be ruled by desire, a sinner lives supremely to please only and ultimately himself. Every heartbeat of the life he borrows from God, he flaunts his rebellion in the face of ever-increasing guilt and coming judgment."
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| 2005/3/28 12:28 | | dann Member
Joined: 2005/2/16 Posts: 239 Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada
| Re: Why do we sin? | | The "desire to sin" is alien to the human race, and only entered in through Adam's disobedience.
Sin, in this sense, is that resident indwelling desire to fulfill our own lusts - whatever they may be. It is that well from which springs our anger, jealousy, etc. Normally a person has no power to change these desires, since they do not spring from himself, but from the sin that is within him - he can only choose to obey these desires or deny them.
This is why Paul, in Romans six talks about "obeying sin" - he is talking about giving into the internal desire to sin.
Now - that internal desire to sin is not human - or at least not originally human - but something that came into humanity through Adam's disobedience - I repeat this because it is important to understand that the desire to sin is what is producing death in people - and it is what Christ came to destroy.
The Pharisees make a great example in this discussion. The Pharisees were religiously motivated men. They believed in God, and didn't want to go to hell - so they went about trying to obey God's law. They practiced a strict disciplined life whereby they suppressed sin - such that the outside of their cups were clean - that is, whenever they had a desire to sin, they didn't follow it through, but through supreme acts of self will, they suppressed that sin - they didn't obey it. For many of the Pharisees this was as good as they could do - they couldn't stop themselves from lusting, hating, etc. (that is, they could not deal with the desire to sin, or the inside of the cup) but could only stop themselves from acting on these sinful desires. They had come to a place where they believed they were keeping themselves from breaking the law of Moses; and they thought that this was what it was all about - pacifying God by not doing what they very much wanted to do. They thought this self denial was holiness - and imagined their own righteousness and ancestry had purchased for them a place in heaven.
They dealt with sin by suppressing it. The best they could do under the law was to not act on the indwelling desire to sin.
They still sinned in their hearts because there was nothing they could do about it. The law could not take away the desire to sin - it could only forgive through sacrifice.
Christ brought something new to the picture in that grace came through Jesus Christ. Not simply unmerited favor - any favor God had ever given mankind has been unmerited - and we have had plenty of that long before Christ - this grace that Christ gives can make powerless the internal desire to sin.
So, when we ask, why do we sin - we sin because we are obeying that internal desire to sin that came into the world through Adam.
The law could not deal with the desire to sin - it could only point out that sin was there. But the new covenant makes provision for this desire - this heart of stone (Ezek 36) this old man (Romans 6) - it can be taken away (rendered powerless) so that one no longer desires to sin. NOT that a person becomes better able to suppress sin - but that sin becomes weak and unable to impose itself on the believer. Not a better weapon to defeat the power of the enemy - but a disarming of the enemy so that the enemy no longer has strength to impose his will on the believer.
How does one receive this wonderful grace that enables us to be free from the very desire to sin? By grace through faith. We believe that this is the promise of God, and we receive the grace that enables freedom.
Now, God only gives this grace to the humble, so when we fail to receive it, we know immediately that we are not being humble before God in that moment, and we have to search and find where we were proud and exalting ourselves - then we repent of it and continue to believe that God is going to remove even the desire to do that sin.
This is, as far as I know, holiness 101. Every true believer has a desire to fellowship with God, but many have not been discipled in the process of how to have fellowship with God.
So why do we sin? We sin because we choose to obey sin rather than God.
When we finally understand that sin is something that is killing us - we can appreciate how God loves us - because we don't see God as an angry Diety punishing sinners - we see God as the compassionate lover of our souls working tirelessly to turn us away from obeying that which is producing death in us.
Dan /\/ \/\
edited for clarity...
_________________ Daniel van de Laar
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| 2005/3/28 12:41 | Profile | Angyl Member
Joined: 2005/1/26 Posts: 153
| Re: Why do we sin? | | Simple answer: We sin because we're stupid and we think we know what's best for us.
If we, as Christians and believers in an almighty and benevolent God who always wants what's best for us think that God is always right:
The only possible reason we could have for disobeying said God (sinning). is becasue we think we know better than He does how to handle things (such as our life and the planet. That, and the little matter of instant gratification/selfishenss would explain other sins such as sex before marriage, etc. ;-) |
| 2005/3/28 12:58 | Profile |
| Re: | | Good answers, tho a little deep for a 9 year old kid!
I think what he was really asking was why would God create us with the ability to sin? Why put Himself and us thru all the garbage?
Krispy |
| 2005/3/28 13:32 | | Angyl Member
Joined: 2005/1/26 Posts: 153
| Re: | | Quote:
I think what he was really asking was why would God create us with the ability to sin?
Well then you already gave the right answer to that; He wanted people to CHOOSE to love Him. He has angels that adore and praise Him all the time, but it's just not the same...
they have no choice in the matter. |
| 2005/3/28 15:10 | Profile |
| Re: they have no choice in the matter. | | Angels have free will. Lucifer was an angel, he had a free will.
What about 1/3 of the angels who rebelled against God? |
| 2005/3/28 15:50 | | Angyl Member
Joined: 2005/1/26 Posts: 153
| Re: | | As God is free to create vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, I believe 1/3 of the angels were similarly created by our God when He knew that his creation (mankind) would choose to follow evil.
If it were a simple act of freewill, we could easily expect to see about the same ratio of "saved" or "unsaved" angels that we see in humanity which would mean a WHOLE LOT MORE than 1/3rd of them would have followed Lucifer.
No, angels can NOT have freewill. At least not in the respect that we do, for if they did, God would still be casting out the occasional dissenter even today.
Last but not least in support of the argument; there is no salvation plan in place for the angels. They rebelled ONCE and are going straight to hell without chance of repentance. Why would that be?
I'm sure God knew just what He was doing when he made the 1/3rd that rebelled...
He was creating captains for those of us (humans) to follow if we choose not to follow Him. |
| 2005/3/28 16:06 | Profile |
| Re: | | Quote:
Last but not least in support of the argument; there is no salvation plan in place for the angels. They rebelled ONCE and are going straight to hell without chance of repentance. Why would that be?
I was going to bring that up... you beat me to it, Angyl.
I dont know why God created the angels the way He did... but "farther along we'll know all about it... "
Krispy |
| 2005/3/28 16:18 | | Angyl Member
Joined: 2005/1/26 Posts: 153
| Re: | | Quote:
I dont know why God created the angels the way He did... but "farther along we'll know all about it... "
Odd that you should mention that song today... Up until yesterday it wouldn't have meant a single thing to me because I'd never heard of it before...
until yesterday's practice, when our choir director said we'll be singing it for next Sunday's service and he singled me out to be part of a quartet leading the second verse... |
| 2005/3/28 16:54 | Profile |
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