Exposition by Max A Forsythe
Question 14:
Q: What is Sin?
A: Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.
I once knew of a young man who was discharged from the Navy for a breach of security. Had he given information to the Soviets or even the News Media? Had he caused harm and damage to the naval forces of the United States? Had he revealed any security codes by improper and careless use. No, in all those cases. The problem that I was allowed to hear was that as an early computer operator in the seventies, he kept searching and reading electronic files for which he had no business knowing! Of course he had been warned time after time, but like some of the early hackers, curiosity ended his career.
One juvenile hacker recently was legally barred from the internet and world wide web for one year while he serves his probation. In California in the late seventies, another teenager was taken to court for having penetrated the security of a major bank where he had rearranged several million dollars of deposits. However, because he had not placed one thin dime in any account of his own or any one he knew, his attorney was able to get him off because there was no California law against what he had done. No law, no crime - the court ruled. You had better believe that there was a flurry of such laws introduced all across there United States, because of our ex-post facto clause in the amended United States Constitution. That particular clause prevents prosecution for any crime committed before that crime was against the law.
Currently, many states are hurriedly redefining their marriage laws and regulations in light of how the State of Hawaii may soon legitimize Sodomite coupling as equal to our traditional contract marriages, which have been around since Adam and Eve were joined together by our Father God. Now there is an estranged community whose concepts of revealed law and the common sense laws of clans, tribes and nations hold no final authority because those laws rub them and their powerful lobby the wrong way. They would argue the Mosaic law is more restrictive that those of Greece and Rome. Yet, even without the 10 Commandments and their development in the legal books of the Torah, the God of heaven made clear His judgment almost a 1,000 years before the law was given, by raining fire down upon Sodom and Gomorrah.
One of the points that I'm getting at is that you don't need a Philadelphia lawyer to interpret God's law so as to allow you to continue in sin. Every human who ever lived has validated his own desires with exceptions to the law of God. Also, if the recorded law were the only obstacle to sinful behavior, a smart lawyer might be able to argue that the law by its existence creates sin! I would think that this line of thought must be very popular with a lot of people today, even as we remove any and all biblical insights from public knowledge. I am not making this nonsense up. I have met people who are purposely ignorant of God's laws and regulations because such knowledge might spoil their weekend or ruin their career. And of course in the public sector we are never ever to violate the most sacred commandment of the 20th Century.
If you haven't heard it, it goes something like this: "We have absolutely no right to inflict our value system on anyone else!" By the way, that only gets said to people who actually have values and core beliefs. This is why the public is more upset with a former FBI agent who resigned from his career on principle, than they are with the shenanigans he observed, interpreted and reported. Don't get me wrong, I do believe in the biblical principle that there ought to be two witnesses to something before a case may be made. And he violated that principle enough times, that his whole public testimony is thus clouded.
Now, I think that I have led you on long enough. All of these observations so far deal withlegitimate known laws which sadly are misunderstood in our day and time. We have not even begun to consider the other principle defining sin which makes all of the cases and arguments thus far unworthy of consideration. And that other principle definition of sin is "any want of conformity unto ... the law of God. I tried to explain this principle to may some students one winter. I started with the commandment against adultery. I tried to show that this commandment revealed to Moses was nothing new, it was only a statutory declaration of the one man - one woman principle established at creation. We call this contract marriage a covenant of companionship. Now, what the Edinic and Mosaic commandment is really saying is that sexual relations are forbidden outside of the marriage covenant. Thus, from the dawn of creation any lack of conformity to the one man - one woman relationship was and still is sin. My other audience certainly understood how beastility, phedophilia, sodomy, and adultery fit into my argument. But plain and simple fornication they were unwilling to allow into the argument.
What if ... , they argued case by case. I pointed out that the Old Testament had a ready answer for randy youth and that was immediate marriage or charges of rape which could lead to execution. Foul play most of them argued. If they had to marry any one they ever "know" in the biblical sense, they would certainly be a lot more careful in their practice of "knowing"! Now, we are not a secular audience here, and this is far from being a congregation of the liberal presbyterian church, so we do not have to argue pointedly for you to abide by these adultery definitions!
And yet, there is in this catechetical definition some concerns about sin that Thomas Watson felt were important. I can just imagine making his arguments in a public place today! Dr Watson outlines four things that would show us how great an evil sin, any sin really is:
First, the origin of sin is from the devil. 1 John 3: 8 tells us "He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning." Remember from last week just who it was who tempted Eve? So it is for every one who sins, they are willfully following after Satan.
Second, the very nature of sin is defiling. Sin pollutes the human soul. Sin is to the soul what rust is to metal. Once I had a bowie knife. I put it away and years later when I took it out, there was so much rust that I have never been able to get the knife clean enough to use again. For the human, a long accumulation of sin actually can kill the body as well as the soul. Fifteen years ago, a young man that I knew said that he wasn't going to worry about herpes, which was the scary social disease back then. When I asked him why, he answered that in ten years every single person would have it, so he might as well get used to it. I happened to notice that several young ladies who sat near him, began to sit elsewhere after that admission! At least they were going to have the good sense to avoid one pollution of the body and soul!
Of course, any intelligent pagan can carefully manage his life so as to avoid most of the obvious pollutions of the soul because they can see the evil effects of sin. This factor, the effects of sin is our third. Sin has degraded us. What theme was being sung at the political convention this week? The demeaning of the office of the presidency. I don't think it will sell too widely, but honest men and women can not help but cringe at the scandal after scandal that has been given birth in our very own White House. The full faith and credibility of these United States is at risk. Imagine if you will a major financial crisis where our smiling overaged teenage president has to ask the world to just trust him! How many times have men of character been tripped up by temptation and then loosing a job, an office, a family and even their fortunes! Sin, just as the Bible teaches affects more than just a single generation, children even to the third and fourth generation pay the price for their father's sins.
Our fourth and last fact about sin today is the heavy price paid for it. "Consider the greatness of thy sin, by the greatness of the price paid for sin," Augustine wrote many centuries ago. Well did Augustine understand the folly of his youth, even as C.S. Lewis seems to have understood it as well. Generally Christians have no problem with the fact that thousands and millions of people are damned to hell for their sins. Yet, let us pause and remember, the precious blood of the Lamb of God who was crucified because of your own particular sins!
Yes, you may very well be in a state of grace now, but what of those years when your sins were unrepentant? He paid the awful price for those sins we committed as well as for those deeds we now leave undone. I am reminded of a young man who waited in a car while his friend held up a convenience store. He saw what was going on from the car. He objected when the judge ordered him to serve some time and report to a parole officer. He judge observed that he should have gotten out of the car and walked, no he should have ran away from the situation immediately and then reported to the police. It isn't enough just to repent about the past, it isn't enough to avoid the worst relationships we once had, now that we are his, like James points out in his text today, we are to go on and do all of those things that we know we must do to give Him glory in our lives today and always.
May He give us grace to do all that we can do.
Resources Used:
Green, James B. A Harmony of the Westminster Presbyterian Standards.
(PCA) The Confession of Faith: The Shorter Catechism.
Watson, Thomas. A Body of Divinity, 10 Commandments & Lord's
Prayer
Places Preached:
Christ Covenant REFORMED (Presbyterian Church in America)
Box 132049 -- Columbus, OH 43213-8049
WSC014 18 Aug 96
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