The apostate church dwells heavily on the issue of sin. The true Church tends to dwell heavily on grace. It is easy to understand why both are so, since the former wants you to get to heaven on your own merit, and the latter wants the unbeliever to understand God’s grace.

In this issue, we will deal with the doctrine of sin, but we will not do so at the expense of the doctrine of grace. This, because the only solution to the sin problem is in the goodness of God, not in the reformation of the sinner. While it is important for every Christian to understand the nature and severity of sin, it is more important for the unbeliever to understand the single remedy offered in the Scriptures for sin.

It is not the part of the Christian to convict of sin as much as it is to offer the remedy of grace once the Holy Spirit has convicted the heart of the unbeliever of his sin.

While the Christian ought never be afraid to confirm the conviction of the Spirit, he ought never do so without also providing the only remedy.

This is not the proper heart or attitude of the Christian toward a sinner. While we might deplore the sin, we must recognize that our own hearts are as deceitful as anyone else’s, and that our need for grace is no less than the worst man’s who ever lived. Too often, we judge in order to justify our disdain for those whom we ought to love. Too often we use our judgment of others as a reason to have nothing to do with those to whom we ought to minister.

My friend, there is no sinner worse than myself. There is no sinner worse than you. James teaches that a single sin makes us guilty of the whole law (2:10). The Bible teaches that the law condemns the best man. It also teaches that grace saves the worst man.

Sin is not so much the individual acts as it is the rebellion in our hearts that spawn those sinful acts. It is transgression against God. It is anything that falls short of the perfect holiness of God. If you are going to consider yourself good and others bad, then you must be as good as God Himself, or you are as bad as the worst sinner.

There is no man, woman or child born on earth who does not carry sins that others can see clearly, and other sins that are private, hidden, carefully concealed. But not from God. So, who is fooled? God? No, we fool only ourselves when we judge others. While you may not be a drinker or a smoker or a drug user or a murderer, perhaps you do not see the evil in a little white lie, or a juicy bit of gossip, or a heartfelt resentment toward persons of another race.

We are not sinners because we commit sins. We commit sins because we are sinners. It is not a thing that we can change this side of the rapture.

Far better than the judge is the one who recognizes his own sin, and is quick to share the gospel of God’s grace with others who share his wretched estate in a mortal body of sinful flesh.

Did the original sin take place in the Garden of Eden? This is, after all, what most Christians believe. Even most sincere believers take it for granted that the original sin was the one committed when Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden fruit. It is not so.

And this is also the same sin with which the devil deceives unbelievers today. The apostate church is continually telling its members that they must be good enough if they want to get to heaven. And how good must one be in order to get to heaven on his own merit? As good as God is. Is it any wonder that the members of the apostate church have so little hope? A single sin is all it takes to consign a soul to the lake of fire. Without grace, there is no hope for the sinner. The devil has not changed his tactics since he fell, and yet men still fall for his lie. Setting grace aside, he tells them that they must be like God. And just as the first man and woman believed him, so do men and women today.

Christians often complain that they do not know what the will of God is in a certain situation. Often, it is because they do not want to know because it runs contrary to their own will. Or perhaps they seek to know too soon. God leads us day by day. The rule is: Give us this day our daily bread. Many is the Christian who has made a premature decision and then suffered the consequences.

We are not to worry about what the will of God is in a given situation, but to wait patiently for His leadership. And then, when we know what God’s will is, we are responsible to act in faith, not wavering because of doubts and fears. There has never been a Christian whom God would not lead if that person would simply let go and wait until he knew what God’s will was.

Christian, if you are in doubt about a particular decision, wait on the Lord. He will not leave you without guidance, but He wants you to trust Him and not your own reason. When the Word of God is clear, trust Him by acting immediately. When it is not, wait without worrying until you are certain of His guidance.

Sin is lawlessness, or spiritual anarchy. An unsaved sinner is like the ancients that Paul spoke of above. God does not exist in any real way to them, or He is irrelevant to them. They have turned their thoughts from God to serve the flesh, and can do nothing that is pleasing to God. Actually, their thoughts have never been turned to God in the first place. They were born unsaved, and remain so.

The Jews had escaped their bondage in Israel. God had empowered Moses, and he parted the Red Sea so that the Jews could pass over on dry land, and they began to wander in the wilderness. It was a desert place, dry and dusty, rocky and barren. They could grow no crops when they camped here and there in the Sinai peninsula over that forty years of their wanderings. This was the time when God gave them manna to eat and provided water from the rock. It was a grueling time, a time of testing before they entered the promised land.

Moses fashioned a serpent out of bronze and fastened it to a pole. Any Jew who looked on that serpent on the pole and trusted God did not get bitten. His physical life was saved. he did not perish. Jesus is saying that those who look upon Him when He is lifted up, bearing our sins on the cross, will not perish, but have eternal life. Moses gave the Jews mortal life; Jesus gives us eternal life. When Jesus died on that cross, He had my sins and yours in His flesh. He paid the penalty of the law for us, so that we through faith are saved. God did not die for some soup of sin, but He died for each and every individual sin that every person ever has or ever will commit. If that penalty is paid, then we are not condemned on account of them. That is grace — God gave us eternal life when we deserved condemnation.

This is what one must believe if he is to experience the new birth and the enlightenment that follows in the Word of God. this is what one must believe, if nothing else, if he is to get to heaven at all. But there is much, much more in the Word of God to believe. Our salvation depends upon that one article of faith: I am a sinner, and Jesus paid for my sins on the cross. But our blessing or chastisement depends upon how we handle and deal with the many other things that the Bible has to say besides the doctrine of salvation.

The unsaved sinner is the same from birth to death. He remains completely incorrigible in his attitude toward God, though he may be a preacher or teacher or a pope. The unsaved person remains the enemy of God all his life and dies lost and condemned by a God of whom he was afraid, whether openly or secretly. Many is the preacher who is only a preacher because he hopes thereby to gain favor with God by his zealous display of holiness.

The saved sinner hates the sin that remains in him in this life. It is abhorrent to him, but he cannot find a way to cease from sinning, for it is in the flesh. Here, we speak of deeds. These answer to the transgressions of specific injunctions under the law. The saved person continues to sin. But he also sins by failing to act on faith in certain situations. Faith demands that when we are instructed by the Word of God, we act immediately wand without question on faith. When we do not, it is sin. That kind of sin cannot bring blessing, but must bring chastisement. The Christian can only be blessed to the degree that he conforms to the Word in faith. Sometimes the faith required is great, but then, so is the blessing and reward. Conversely, when great faith is required, failure brings a commensurate chastisement. jesus paid for our sins, but we are blessed or chastised in this life, not according to our sins, but according to our faith. Whatever is not of faith is sin.

“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). In this verse, Paul paints a beautiful picture of the Christian life - a picture so beautiful that most Christians find it unrecognizable. This is the life of one energized by the awesome power of God Himself living in him.

A lot of us seem to understand this picture only in theory. Why is application of this truth so difficult? It is difficult because we try to apply this power in moral situations - merely issues of right or wrong - in our own strength. Should I steal this or that? Should I lie or tell the truth? Yet making correct moral choices does not contribute in any way to spiritual growth. Making correct moral choices is the result of spiritual growth. “I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16).

For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish (Gal. 5:17). This is the struggle with sin. Yet being led by the Spirit, we are more than conquorers. Daily submitting ourselves to His will, to His life in and through us, we yield the peacable fruit of righteousness. This picture of life in Christ Jesus is meant to be applied, not in “religious” connotations, but in everyday life. Not in our own strength, but in His.

The more we accept by faith our new identity in Christ, the more His behavior will be manifest in our lives. Our sanctification is achieved as we accept, as Paul did, Christ’s life and presence in us. Our sanctification, just like our salvation, is rooted in our identification with Jesus. Resting in God’s grace and allowing his Spirit to transform us into the image of His Son - that is what makes us grow!

What is sin and where did it originate? Webster’s dictionary defines sin as “a transgression of the law of God; to violate the law by actual transgression or neglect.” But if we serve a just and righteous God, why is sin in the world? Where did it start? Better yet, where does it stop?

In the human race, sin started in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. But the original sin started with Lucifer, who became Satan after his fall. He was created by God and beautiful in His sight. He was the head of the angelic realm, placed just beneath God Himself. But pride entered Lucifer’s heart and he wanted to be ruler over all. In Isaiah 12 we read, “For you have said in your heart, ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High’.” When Lucifer said, “I will”, sin began.

When leading man into the same sin Satan himself had entered, he did it by questioning God’s word. To Eve he said, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” Eve then told the serpent that they could eat of all the trees of the garden, except one. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. She told him that God had said, “For in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.” Satan, now having his foot in the door, blatantly denies God’s word saying, “You shall not surely die. For God know that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Eve, being deceived, takes the fruit and gives to her husband, Adam, who also eats. Expelled from the Garden and separated from God, they both did indeed die. From that time on, mankind has been sinful by nature and this is proven by the fact that all have died. “For the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).

“But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23). Because of His sacrifice, we do well to praise the One who was “wounded for our trangressions” and “brusied for our iniquities” (Isa. 53-5).

As for why sin was allowed, it is impossible to know fully, yet we do know that without God allowing Adam and Eve’s transgression, His grace could have never been displayed. All who believe in Jesus Christ have been made accepted in Him that we might all be “to the praise of the glory of His grace.”