SIN

A Necessary Discussion of Sin

Most people are familiar with the expression, “the elephant in the room.” It describes an obvious and serious problem that everyone knows is present, yet no one particularly wants to acknowledge or discuss. Sin is very much that elephant in the room. For many people, both Christian and non-Christian, sin is uncomfortable to talk about because it forces us to consider something about ourselves that we would often prefer not to confront.

Yet sin is not merely an uncomfortable subject; it is a perilous problem that cannot safely be ignored. We may refuse to discuss it, redefine it, excuse it, blame someone else for it, become angry when confronted by it, or simply pretend that it is not there, but none of these responses makes sin disappear. If sin truly separates humanity from God and if, as Scripture teaches, the consequence of sin is death, then there may be no subject more necessary for us to understand.

Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”.

Christians themselves are not immune from avoiding the subject. In fact, believers can sometimes struggle to find the proper balance when speaking about sin. We can place so much emphasis upon the ugliness and seriousness of sin that people become ashamed to admit their failures and begin hiding them. At the opposite extreme, we can place so much emphasis upon God’s saving grace that we unintentionally diminish the seriousness of the very thing from which His grace saves us. Neither extreme serves us well. Grace does not make sin insignificant; rather, the seriousness of sin helps us understand the magnitude of God’s grace.

Neither should a discussion about sin become an opportunity for one sinner to stand above another. The purpose is not to identify everyone else’s sins while overlooking our own. Scripture gives none of us that privilege. Sin is one thing every member of the human race has in common, and the person speaking about sin stands under the very same standard as the person listening.

Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”.

1 John 1:8: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us”.

This is why awareness of sin should not itself be viewed as something bad. Quite the opposite. Recognition and acknowledgement of sin are necessary before anything can be done about it. A person who refuses to acknowledge an illness will see little reason to seek its cure. In much the same way, someone who sees no problem with sin will see little need for forgiveness, reconciliation, or salvation. Before we can properly appreciate God’s remedy, we must first understand the problem for which the remedy was provided.

This is one of the purposes of God’s law. The law does not create the holiness of God, nor does it make something sinful merely by pointing it out. Rather, it reveals God’s righteous standard and exposes where we fall short of it. Paul himself explained that without the law he would not have recognized sin for what it was.

Romans 7:7-12: “What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good”.

The uncomfortable truth is therefore also a gracious truth. God does not reveal our sin merely so that we might feel condemned, hopeless, or ashamed. He reveals the seriousness of our condition because the condition is real, and because He has provided an answer to it. We cannot understand why we need salvation until we understand what we need to be saved from. We cannot fully appreciate forgiveness until we recognize that there is something requiring forgiveness, and we cannot comprehend the magnitude of the Gospel while treating sin as something trivial.

For that reason, this discussion is not intended to leave anyone staring only at his or her failures. Nor is it intended to give Christians ammunition with which to condemn unbelievers or one another. It is intended to deal honestly with a problem shared by us all. Before considering where sin came from, what humanity inherited from Adam, how personal guilt should be understood, or how God has dealt with sin through Christ, we must first be willing to acknowledge the elephant in the room: sin is real, sin is serious, and every one of us has been affected by it.