No Cover for Sin

Americans have come to loathe the concept of sin. The popular  preachers, such as Joel Osteen, refuse to use the word. Even the supposedly-great Billy Graham, while he used the word, did not define it, or point out the sins of unbelievers, and even allowed unrepentant apostates to share his podium. So, when I say Americans, I don't have to limit my intent to professed unbelievers, but include even professing Evangelicals, a word that comes from the Greek word for "gospel."

Sin has come to mean, not wickedness, but error or even social injustice. We no longer think of it as it is presented in Genesis 3, rebellion against God and a despising of His word. We no longer talk about it as something which brings God's proper judgment: "Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine: the soul who sins shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4). Rather, we expect God to put our sins in a balance, with the acts that are good, in our own eyes, on the other side. And every person believes that his good deeds will outweigh his bad deeds. While that is the view of Islam, it is not the biblical view: "Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it" (James 2:10), and, "No one does good, not even one" (Romans 3:12, quoting Psalm 53:3).

That is the problem with the objection of atheists, that God is supposedly unjust to send people to Hell just for not believing in Him; since Christians have taught a false view of sin, atheists have taken refuge in a false sense of their goodness. To the atheist, or any non-Christian, I give this warning: at the Judgment, you will not be excused by what men have told you, but rather you will be judged by what God has told you, even if you have refused to hear. To the supposed Christian who fails to warn of sin, I have these words from God: "If I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand" (Ezekiel 3:18).

To both groups of people, I give my own warning: There is no salvation in excuses. There is only salvation in the blood of Jesus, received by grace through faith alone.

"The penalty of the law was no vulgar ill, to be appeased by a few groans and tears, by agony, sweat, and blood. It was the wrath of God, which, when it falls upon a creature, crushes him under the burden of eternal death. It is a blackness of darkness through which no ray of light or hope can ever penetrate the soul of a finite being; to all such it must be the blackness of darkness forever. But Jesus endured it, Jesus satisfied it, Jesus bowed beneath that death which the law demanded, and which sinks angels and men to everlasting ruin, and came victorious from the conflict" (James Henley Thornwell, "The Necessity and Nature of Christianity," emphasis in the original).