Many people today find the old religious ideas about sin highly annoying. They might say ‘How dare you mention sin to me when religious people are doing the same things. Anyway, we don’t need that bigoted stuff anymore. We are now a tolerant and pluralist society. If there is a God, he is the first to understand human weakness.’ So, if sin really has gone for good, we had better be sure we’re not fooling ourselves.
- WORLD IN TROUBLE
If sin really has vanished down the drain of spent and useless ideas, one question to face is why is there so much trouble, heart-ache, fear, hatred and violence? If the world has become a better place for dumping all the narrow and judgemental religious beliefs, why do we still not like what we see? Are we content just to try to make it all normal, and not worry any more about such things? For a start, if you try to normalise everything that you intensely dislike, that will not solve anything. For where will you decide to draw the line – will it just be subjective; particular dress styles or holiday locations, or the things which deeply offend you, like child sex abuse, rape, murder, domestic violence, and serious drunkenness and anti-social behaviour?
All these sorts of offensive behaviours point in one direction – they are in breach of the law of God. Yes, we are personal, moral beings with a conscience; a sense of right and wrong, even if much of that has become distorted without a true moral compass.
- MORAL LAW STANDS
So, has sin really gone for good? No, not at all! Some people have the idea that Jesus’ death has cancelled the moral code of the Ten Commandments, and so, as we are now able to receive the forgiveness of sins and get right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, the Commandments are done and finished, and we have no further need for them.
As the Apostle Paul seems to teach this, it may help to consider where he is explaining about Jewish and Gentile believers being one ‘by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances’ (Ephesians 2:15). So, have the requirements of the law now been abolished, so that Christians are free to live as if there was no moral law?
Let’s be clear, any view that teaches that the moral law has been abolished by Jesus’ death is flying in the face of the clear teaching of Scripture. The moral law in its teaching on love for God (see Deuteronomy 6:5), obedience, faithfulness and true righteousness, is a revelation of the eternal, unchanging character of God.
- UNDESERVED GRACE FOR MORAL REBELS
So we see, when the Apostle reminds the Christians at Ephesus how God had saved them by his undeserved favour, because when it first came to them, they were ‘dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked’ (Eph. 2:1).
Do you see – they were trespassers of God’s law; condemned before God, and had no place to stand in his presence. All they could do was to cry for mercy and flee to Christ for safe refuge. Now, clearly, if Jesus’s death had abolished the law of God, the Apostle would have no need to mention how they had been trespassers. Remember, the Christians in Ephesus had all become believers in Christ a good number of years after Jesus’ resurrection. But, if God’s moral law had been abolished, they would no longer have been sinners, since ‘sin is lawlessness’ (1 John 3:4). And if they were no longer sinners, they would not have been in urgent need of salvation. Abolish the moral law, and you abolish sin. That is a fatal error. If you think Jesus’ death abolished the moral law, then you fall for the fatal error that you no longer need to be saved from sin, when that is precisely why Jesus came into the world – ‘to save sinners’ (1 Timothy 1:15)!
- A WALK IN THE SPIRIT – FULFILLS THE LAW!
So, what then was abolished in ‘the law of commandments expressed in ordinances’ (Eph. 2:15)?
Clearly, the many detailed civil and priestly or ceremonial instruction and commands, which were wonderfully fulfilled in Christ. All the detailed instructions about the sacrifices and the appointment of priests and their duties were certainly abolished by Christ.
But clearly, the moral law still stands, because after the Apostle explained how the old civil and ceremonial law was fulfilled in Christ, he goes on to quote and apply the commandment ‘Honour your father and your mother’ (Eph. 6:2). The teaching of that command in now spiritually understood and put into practice as young Christians walk in the Spirit, who is the Holy Spirit.
In summary, sin has not gone away and either you have trusted in Christ, who died to bear the just penalty of sin, which reconciles you to God and gives the strength to combat and overcome sin, or else you are still spiritually dead in sin and urgently need the Saviour.
So, despite what secular ideas there are, sin has most certainly not gone for good. One day, it will be banished completely. Until then ‘God… now commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead’ (Acts 17:30-31).
