The Holiness of God

"God has no mixture of evil in Him. Sin has no mixture of good; it is the spirit and quintessence of evil; it turns good into evil; it has deflowered the virgin soul, made it red with guilt, and black with filth; it is called an accursed thing. No wonder, therefore, that God hates sin, being so unlike to Him, nay, so contrary to Him. It strikes at His holiness; it does all it can to spite God. If sin could help it, God should be God no longer" (Puritan Thomas Watson, "Body of Divinity"). 

Americans, even professed evangelicals, poo-poo the concept of sin. It is just a mistake or lapse, not a big issue. We are able to tell ourselves that because we have suppressed our awareness of what sin is. 

However, as summarized by Watson above, in his commentary on Question 4 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, sin is a serious matter to God. All sin and any sin. That is because sin is not merely a mistake or lapse, but is, rather, an assault on God's crown and holiness. It is a choice to act contrarily to His command and His nature. It is an attempt to make man sovereign by de-Godding the only true God. 

We see this in the original temptation of Satan to Adam and Eve: "You will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5). "Knowing," here, does not mean "knowing about." Adam and Eve already knew about good and evil, because God had warned them of the consequences of disobedience, especially in the eating from the tree. Rather, "knowing" in this context is used for "determining." Satan is tempting the first couple with the illusion of autonomy from the crown rights of God, including the right to define sin, i. e., of determining good and evil for His creatures. 

When we take this view of sin, that it is the attempt to dethrone the Creator, then we can understand why its judgment is so severe. Sin is an act of treason against God!