4. Unity: The Plan of Redemption (3)

The Problem of Sin

Sin is bad. Nothing defines God’s character and His relationship to man as much as His absolute abhorrence of sin. God is God. God is holy. God is king. Any breaking of His law results in His absolute revulsion in response to rejection of His will. This rejection of His will is called sin (“sin is lawlessness” – 1 John 3:4).

Sin Separates us From a Holy God

Sin has dire consequences for God’s creation. The first and most significant consequence is that it immediately severs the spiritual relationship that God has with a person. “Your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden his face from you.” (Isaiah 59:2; Habakkuk 1:13, emphasis added) When one sins, God, because He is holy, must, as it were, turn His face away. To be separated from God, the essence of spiritual life, is so dreadful it is referred to in the worst possible term, spiritual death (Ephesians 2:5, “even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved”; see also Colossians 2:13; Romans 6:23; 1 Timothy 5:6). Because God is holy, any sin, regardless of its motivation, magnitude, or consequences, must result in separation from a holy God. To have our spirit-ual relationship with God severed, is as if the spirit inside our “container” has died.

Spiritual death is not the only result of sin. We all experience consequences of the first sin of humanity. Before sin, man existed in a perfect state of spiritual fellowship with God. As a result of Adam and Eve’s first sin in the Garden of Eden (referred to as “the fall”) we will all die a mortal death (Genesis 3:19). Our “containers” will not live forever. Mortal death will befall us all and is a reminder of the seriousness of sin. Other consequences of the first sin were pronounced upon mankind as well. Man has to work and women will have pain in childbirth. The earth is no longer a perfect place but now produces natural disasters which affect all creation (see Genesis 3:14-24). All of this occurred, because of the first sin. 

While spiritual and mortal death are consequences suffered by each individual, nothing has been done that would deal with sin, that is, remove sin or restore man’s spiritual relationship with God. All of this changed when man and woman first broke God’s law in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2-3).

God’s Justice Demands Life as Payment for Sin

There are prices to be paid when we break the judicial laws of our country. For example, when we are caught speeding, we may be required to pay a fine as restitution. If we murder someone, we may be required to spend life in prison or even be executed. These are penalties imposed by our judicial system, they are penalties imposed for the breaking of judicial laws. Likewise, there is a price that God requires as a judicial penalty or price for breaking His laws (sin). The price God requires for sin is as serious as its consequences.

The first command of God issued in the Garden of Eden clearly elaborated the judicial price for sin, “from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17, emphasis added).  Put in the plainest of words, the payment of death is pronounced as the price for sin. This is a judicial price for breaking God’s law. Life is the price! God pronounced death as the price for sin and His justice must be served. Adam and Eve surely suffered the consequences of sin—they died spiritually the instant they sinned, and they were destined to eventually die a mortal death (removed from the garden and the Tree of Life), but that did nothing to remove their sin, or pay the price for their sin—death. The New Testament flatly states that “...without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Hebrews 9:22, emphasis added).

Adam and Eve initially only had one possible choice that would allow them to commit sin. But it was a choice they had control over. When tempted by Satan, they succumbed. Genesis 3:6 describes it this way, “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.” This is the process that we all follow at some point, well described by James (James 1:14-15) “But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.”

God demonstrated repeatedly throughout the Old Testament the penalty for sin – the death of the sinner (Ezekiel 18:20, “The person who sins will die.”). God’s mercy is already demonstrated, to some extent, in that we are not all immediately struck dead (what we deserve) the instant we sin. God took no pleasure in the death of the sinners, He did not have a blood lust, nor was His justice administered capriciously (Ezekiel 33:11, “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live.”).

What we learn from the examples of the Old Testament is that sin is extremely bad. Sin is an affront to a holy God. It is so bad that God has pronounced the penalty of death on the head of the sinner. This price of death is on the head of every sinner.

We are all pronounced guilty because we each have sinned. Looking over the scope of history, the New Testament writers reflected this chilling and disturbing characteristic of man by observing that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23, emphasis added).

Man is in a very desperate situation: He has broken the laws of the God of the universe, this has separated him from a holy God, and the price of blood (death) is required by a just God! If one dies a mortal death in this condition he will be eternally separated from God (yet another consequence of sin)! Yet he is unable to pay the price for sin himself.