Does Sin Even Exist

“I will certainly judge you because you have said, ‘I have not sinned.’” (God speaking through Jeremiah to Judah, Jer. 2:35b HCSB)

In a nation that is increasingly rejecting Christianity and the Bible, one must ask the question “what then becomes of sin?”  If sin is, as the King James Version of the Bible reads, “the transgression of the law” (John 3:4) but there is no validity to the Bible which is supposed to be God’s law what then becomes of sin?  Does it cease to exist?  Do those who reject the Bible as the word of the living God totally abandon the concept of sin?  If they do not then upon what basis do they propose to define sin?

If sin is not to be defined by God’s word and if sin is something other than the transgression of God’s law then:  (1) What is sin and how is it defined; what are the rules that if broken constitute sin?  (2) What authority decides these things?  (3) On what basis does that authority exist, that is how is authority established?  Is it political and/or military power that makes the authority so that sin is defined by power?  How is such authority obtained?  If the God of the Bible and his word are taken out of the picture then the authority cannot be of Christian origin so what is its origin?     

Without the acceptance of the New Testament as the authority for defining sin, the reality is there is no other alternative but man himself becoming the authority either as an individual or as a ruling party or institution made up of men.  The problem then becomes what man or what group of men for we know not all are agreed.  A democrat and a republican are likely to have far differing views on a whole host of issues that call for moral and value judgments. 

Likewise, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao had vastly different values than did Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Reagan so who becomes the authority?  Who decides?  When Christianity is removed from the field whose ideology or worldview do we follow?  Is it communism, Islam (Isis?), Hinduism, where do we go, what ideology or religion rules us?    

If we proclaim a world without sin since we reject Christianity, God, and the New Testament as God’s word, then the only lawman can break is manmade and solely dependent on the fist, the hand of power, for enforcement.  Why then should I obey your set of values even if you enshrine them into law when the only reason you were able to do so was that you had the power that I lacked to enforce your will?  Political and legal power that comes from man does not equate with moral superiority; it never has and never will.  Why is one individual to be respected over another as an authority figure on values if there is no God? 

In such a world, much like the one that seems to be developing here in the West, sin becomes whatever some man or group of men or even the culture itself says it is but men do not live forever.  A generation is soon gone and the next one takes its place.  What the prior generation called sin now becomes righteousness under their new rule.  Is this not exactly what we had with the gay marriage issue?  So will this present generation who is determined to have its own way minus God be praised by the next or will it be the case that it, in turn, will be denigrated for its narrow, restrictive, judgmental view on polygamy?

Liberalism once it gains momentum is hard to stop short of license.  Just because one has not yet arrived at his destination does not mean he never will.  A world without God is just that.  There is no moral persuasion, no fear of God, to hold a man back.  Only the gun can do that in a world without God.  Liberalism given time to reap what it sows eventually ends up in an ungovernable society.  When that happens democracy is lost either by revolution or force of arms by the party that has the might to step in and restore order.

Once we reject Christianity, the word of God as found in the New Testament as our guide for life, for the development of a set of values by which we will live, we have no firm ground to stand on for human values are ever-shifting.  Compare how Americans felt about such subjects as abortion, divorce, shacking up, having children out of wedlock, and homosexuality in the 1950s and compare it with how they feel about those same moral issues today.  Human values change with time unless they are based on that which is unchangeable – God’s word.

Not all change in societal values is bad for in the matter of attitudes about segregation change has been positive but when one builds his life on the public consensus of what is culturally correct at any given point in time he/she is building a life while standing on shifting sands that cannot be depended upon for stability.  Those same sands are sure to shift under you with time and are shifting inconspicuously under you as you stand on them in any given year.  And, as regards segregation, there would never have been segregation had the scriptures been followed.

One might wish to argue that Christians themselves have changed their views on moral issues over the years so that if you just take the word of God alone as your basis for building a moral life you are no better off than anyone else.  Sounds like a good argument but is it?

If I take a passage of scripture, say 1 Cor. 6:9-10, and quote it to you I ask has the wording of that passage when correctly translated changed in the last two thousand years?  Here is the passage:

“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.” (NKJV) 

Have some men who call themselves Christians rejected parts or all of the passage?  Surely so but the teaching (wording) of the passage itself is set in stone and will never change until the earth itself ceases to be.  Each individual either has to accept what it says, reject what it says, or take a smorgasbord approach to it taking this and leaving that but it says what it says.  (Yes, all men can repent.  The passage is talking about the unrepentant.) 

The word of God itself is never changing.  “All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass.  The grass withers, and its flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” (1 Peter 1:24-25 NKJV)  The Bible says what it says whether men will accept it or not.  The words endure forever. 

For the man who is willing to accept the word of God as a foundation for building a set of life values by which to live he can be assured he will not be building on shifting sands.  The word of God is written as if in stone even if what men do with it or decide about it is not.  Men get into trouble with the word of God when they begin to doubt it and that is generally brought on by pressures that develop within them, often unawares, from group or societal thinking or family pressures. 

Here is an example from my youth.  When I was young in the 60’s religious people were generally dead set against divorce and remarriage in my part of the world but when their children, people my age, the baby boomer generation, began marrying and divorcing and remarrying I noticed that the attitudes of the older generation were changing.  Had the word of God that they once believed on the subject changed?  No, but family problems got between them and the word of God so that they could no longer read it the way they once did and have peace of mind with regards to their children’s spiritual state.  They began to see things “differently” even though the word they read had not changed one iota.  

We are all constantly being pressured to read the Bible in a way that justifies what the Bible, as written, will not justify—justify the sins we do not want to be sin.  If we succumb to that temptation we end up cutting and pasting scripture and making a Bible that suits us.  We pick this scripture over that one, have the Bible writers in disagreement with one another, and we contort and distort it until we get it to read the way we want it to read.  But it does not have to be that way. 

Man can build a life (a value system) on the solid bedrock of the New Testament (the new covenant of Christ) if he is willing which is the very thing that cannot be done when building upon cultural consensus.  He can read the text and say “that is what it says” and so that is my foundation, the value I must incorporate into my life no matter what the culture of the time is. 

Even if all of society justifies you in building upon the cultural consensus in the time in which you live the very next generation may vilify you and your generation for the values it held.  Seeking justification from society and the approval of the society in which you live means what?  Well, in the 1930s and 40s in Germany it would mean you were a Nazi.  A society’s values should not necessarily be your own.  They must be weighed in light of God’s word. 

One cannot condone those religious bodies who call themselves Christian but whose doctrines change with every shifting cultural wind, who seemingly are ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, who one day believe this until it becomes unpopular in the culture and then the next day proclaim they believe just the opposite but a Christian does not have to follow the crowd, even the religious crowd.  He can follow what is in print, what will not deviate, nor leave him, nor forsake him but will be solid rock under his feet.  He can build a life built on a solid foundation, on the New Testament scriptures. 

Your blueprint for life is not the so-called history of Christianity, the doctrines of the church, or of church councils, but the always enduring, never changing New Testament of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  That is your solid foundation, not the ever-changing traditions of the Roman Catholic Church or of any other religious body or the values of the culture in which you live. 

And, rest assured, no matter what modern man believes about it Jesus would tell you that yes, sin still exists.

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The Modern Day American Mindset

Fewer and fewer people believe in absolute truth today (a postmodernism effect), believe the Bible is verbally inspired and without error, or that man must submit to its dictates or suffer the consequences if he does not.  Sin is now generally accepted, and no attempt is made any longer to hide it as long as the law of the land will allow it.  We abort babies (a holocaust), commit fornication (taken for granted these days), and become adulterers thinking God wants me to be happy or else we do not care at all what he thinks or, for that matter, even believe in him.  One of the things that have amazed me recently in my own neck of the woods is the push for gay marriage among groups of people whom you would have thought never would do such a thing which illustrates the state of mind of many who confess to be believers today.  (Let the reader note that this article was originally written before gay marriage became the law of the land.)

 

One man was quoted in a local paper as saying that there was no scriptural justification for denying gays the right to marry.  I just could not believe that a person who knew anything at all about the Bible could say such a thing as that.  Another wrote that he was a born again Christian and he was a supporter of gay marriage.  Please tell me how a person can read 1 Cor. 6:9-10 and get that we ought to support gay marriage.  "Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."(1 Cor. 6:9-11 ESV, my underlining for emphasis)  There is a footnote in the ESV for the phrase "men who practice homosexuality" which reads as follows:  "The two Greek terms translated by this phrase refer to the passive and active partners in consensual homosexual acts." 

 

Now I ask should we Christians be in the business of helping people sin by giving our consent to it and striving to pass laws to promote it.  If the passage above is not enough for you about God's will in this matter try Jude 6-7, Rom. 1:24-27, and 1 Tim. 1:9-10.  When I wrote on the subject, which I did, one lady wrote in telling me Jesus never said a word about homosexuality.  Is that right?  Did Jesus ever mention Sodom?  Check out Matt. 10:15, Matt. 11:23, Matt. 11:24, Mark 6:11, Luke 10:12, and Luke 17:29.  In most of these passages, Jesus is saying with regards to a specific city that it will be more tolerable for Sodom on the Day of Judgment than it will be for that city.  But I ask the question why does he use Sodom as a standard for comparison?  Was it not because it was infamous?  Had not all the Jewish people heard of what was done to Sodom and Gomorrah and why?

 

No doubt he used Sodom as a basis for comparison because all were aware of how evil it was and the consequences it reaped as a result.  Jude says Sodom and Gomorrah were to serve as an example "suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." (Jude 6 NKJV)  He gives the reason as well saying they had "given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh." (Jude 6 NKJV)  So don't tell me Jesus never talked about homosexuality.  When you talk about Sodom you are talking about homosexuality.  

 

Yes, I oppose the whole manmade concept of gay marriage and I do so on scriptural grounds but the thing that is even more troubling to me is the loss of faith in the word of God by those who call themselves Christian and yet opinionate that God approves what he has clearly condemned.  In the Old Testament, he even calls the homosexual act an abomination (Lev. 18:22, 20:13).  Where is the faith in statements of scripture that cannot possibly be misunderstood?

 

The words of the Bible seem to no longer have meaning among a certain class of people that would like for others to think they are God-fearing.  They speak of love and grace as though the commandments of the Bible can be tossed aside as of no consequence and God be mocked in doing so.  If they decide among men that an act is holy and righteous that overrides everything the Bible has to say about the matter.  Jesus spoke of just such a group when he said, "For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men." (Mark 7:8 NKJV)  I don't think any gay marriage advocate will ever have the gall to say that gay marriage is from God but if it is not from God where is it from?  Whose tradition is it?  To ask is to answer.

 

Eve had trouble accepting the word of God when presented with another option.  Today's generation ought to learn from history or do people ever learn from history?  Sometimes it seems we do not.  Eve set aside God's commandment on the say-so of another that it would be okay.  Are we not being told to do the same today?  We are when we deny the words from the passages I have quoted.  Read 1 Cor. 6:9-11 again and then take on the role of the serpent and tell people it will not matter.  Tell them like the serpent told Eve, "You will not surely die." (Gen. 3:4 NKJV) 

 

For those advocating gay marriage based on love the Bible says, "For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments." (1 John 5:3 NKJV)  You and I as mere men do not have a right to define love when God has already done so.  What are you going to do, are you going to override God?

 

To endorse gay marriage is a violation of the golden rule and of love.  "Just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise." (Luke 7:31 NKJV)  I do not want any man to encourage me to sin.  To do that to me is to sin against me and it carries a consequence.  "Jesus said to his disciples: 'Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come.'" (Luke 17:1 NIV)  Those who are presently encouraging gay marriage are encouraging people to sin and there will be a consequence. 

 

For those who think the homosexual act is sinful outside marriage, just as fornication is, but would be acceptable to God in a marriage relationship they need to give that a second thought.  There is a difference.  God has never condemned the sexual act between a man and woman as sinful in its own right.  In fact, God said to Adam and Eve "be fruitful and multiply." (Gen. 1:28 NKJV)  "Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge." (Heb. 13:4 NKJV)   But note the sexual act outside of marriage, fornication, is condemned so it depends on the relationship between a man and a woman, are they married or not?

 

That cannot be said of the homosexual act between man and man.  That act God has declared to be sinful in itself and that is the big, big difference.  As for marriage, the Bible refers to Eve as Adam's wife and thus a marriage designed by God.  Nowhere in scripture will you find God making a marriage between man and man.  Thus such a thing is an invention of men, and of men, not of God.

 

Postmodernism would say there is no absolute truth thus all my quoting of scripture amounts to nothing with a postmodernist.  That my friends is the day and age we live in and the mindset that seems to have captured so many of our people.  Let the Bible as the inspired word of God take a hike.  That is depressing to me to know we have come to that state of affairs.  Faith is now the invention of man, each making his/her own faith, making their own truth, thinking all the while that all is A-okay.  We will see.  We will see.  

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Rebellion Against the Word of God in America

 A couple of items in the news recently, the year 2013, caught my attention.  In New Jersey, Gov. Christie signed a bill "barring licensed therapists from trying to turn gay teenagers straight."  If you want to read the article it is still online as I update this article here in 2022 under the title "Christie Signs Bill Banning Gay Conversion Therapy in New Jersey."  You can do a copy and paste and Google it.

I quote from the article I read, "The Republican governor also said the health risks of trying to change a child's sexual orientation . . . outweigh concerns over the government setting limits on parental choice."  Also quoting from the same article, "Christie said he believes people are born gay and that homosexuality is not a sin."  California also has a similar law.

It ought to be obvious to anyone who knows the Bible and can read that homosexuality is a sin in God's eyes.  Here is what the Bible says, "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived.   Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God." (1 Cor. 6:9-10 NKJV, my underlining)  Does Christie get to trump God in deciding what is and what is not sin?

In Romans 1 we read the following:

"Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, . . .  For this reason God gave them up to vile passions.  For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature.  Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due." (Rom. 1:24, 26-27 NKJV)  Does Gov. Christie believe this passage teaches that homosexuality is not a sin?

Note from the passage just quoted that God gave these people up to uncleanness.  Now I ask you what was this uncleanness associated with?  Was it not with homosexual acts?  A homosexual act in God's eyes is uncleanness.  I do not mean to imply that homosexual acts would be the only kind of acts that fit into the category of uncleanness but certainly, they are included if this passage is to have any meaning.

Here are a couple of New Testament passages that associate uncleanness with sexual sin in addition to the one above.

Paul speaking, "Lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and I shall mourn for many who have sinned before and have not repented of the uncleanness, fornication, and lewdness which they have practiced." (2 Cor. 12:21 NKJV)  The word is clearly used in the context of speech about sexual sin.

Paul speaking again in Gal. 5:19 says, "Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness." (NKJV)  Here again, uncleanness is in a list of sexual sins and we already know that while homosexual acts are not the only acts of uncleanness they are nonetheless one type of such acts based on Rom. 1:24, 26-27.  Do Gov. Christie and the lawmakers in New Jersey as well as those in California think the unclean will inherit God's blessing?  But then do some of them even believe there is a God?  If they do, do they believe the Bible is the word of God?  If so do they believe he meant what he said or is he wishy-washy?

But I want to mention one other thing in the news just this morning, Sept. 4, 2013, which I saw on Fox News.  It seems in the state of Oregon a lady by the name of Melissa Klein had a bakery and cake decorating business.  When a lesbian couple planning on marrying came in asking her to make a wedding cake for them she refused.  What happened?  It got in the news and on social media and she was besieged by demonstrators and protestors carrying signs in front of her store forcing her to close her business (she moved it into her home).

She refused to make the cake for the couple out of her Christian faith.  Did she do what was right according to scripture?  Hear Paul, "Do not lay hands on anyone hastily, nor share in other people's sins; keep yourself pure." (1 Tim. 5:22 NKJV, my underlining)  "And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them." (Eph. 5:11 NKJV, my underlining)

Now hear John, "Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ (teaching of Christ-ESV), hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ (teaching-ESV), he hath both the Father and the Son.  If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed:  For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds." (2 John 1:9-11 KJV)  Would helping one commit sin be a thing God would look favorably on?

Solomon said, "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil." (Prov. 8:13 NKJV)  So I guess the lady was to hate evil by making the cake and profiting off it and by helping out those who were engaging in it?  Is that right?  She did what was right and separated herself from any association with the sins of others.  She did not help others sin by assisting them in doing it.

The main point I wanted to get at in this article is the fact that Christianity and the Bible and even God himself are under attack in America today.  I have never seen a time like this where it has been so pervasive all throughout society and throughout our government.  People simply no longer care what the Bible says.  They are no longer willing to accept it nor want anything to do with it.  They are writing their own bibles, that is to say they are guiding their lives by the rules they have set up for themselves irrespective of any religion.

They are like Gov. Christie who is supposed to be a Catholic but does not care what his church teaches or what the Bible says and will not allow parents of homosexual children to get professional help under threat of law for those who provide the help.  I truly believe Christians in America are headed for persecution both by the government (by law) and by a people, fellow Americans, who have rejected the word of God and decided like the children of Israel to go their own way without God.

(All underlining was done by me for emphasis.)

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Love Versus Love

In 1 Cor. 13 Paul talks about and defines love.  If we believe he was an inspired apostle of God then his words were the words of God.  He claims as much when he said earlier in the book, "These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual." (1 Cor. 2:13 NKJV)

All of us seem to have our own dictionary when it comes to defining terms.  We want words defined the way we desire they be defined even if it means we write our own dictionary.   Even the word "is," as small as it is, came into question as to its meaning if you remember the days of Bill Clinton.  The word "love" is a word we all seem to want defined the way we want it defined.

American society today has defined the word love in a way that is contrary to the way the Bible defines it.  Love for the adulterer, for the one engaged in fornication, for the active homosexual in America today means you tacitly embrace them in the very acts which the Bible calls sin.  And, we are afraid not to do it as the ones involved are often family members or friends whose love we do not want to risk by upsetting them.  The end result is we never rebuke the sinner and he or she goes on their merry way as if all is well with their spiritual being.

They are not to be rebuked for sin, in today’s society, but are to be treated as if they were righteous.  You seemingly are to rejoice that they have been made free to sin without stigma.  If a couple has a child outside of marriage you are to think how wonderful it is that they have a child.  This reaction to sin is now called "love."

Of course, that means our society would have condemned John the Baptist who refused to hold his tongue with Herod and Herodias but rather told Herod, "It is not lawful for you to have her." (Matt. 14:4 NKJV)  Today we want to do what Herod did and persecute the one who speaks out against sin.  We would say John the Baptist was a hater and intolerant, the only true sinner among the three, and that beheading was too good for him.

But how does God define love?  In 1 Cor. 13:6 Paul says of love, "It does not rejoice at wrongdoing." (ESV)  The Bible has declared adultery, fornication, and homosexuality to be sin or wrongdoing (1 Cor. 6:9-10) yet how many Americans rejoiced with the coming of no-fault divorce freeing up the adulterer from blame?  How many rejoiced with the most recent Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage?  That was seen as being merciful, tolerant, and a loving act, and it was about time they received equal rights and ceased to be discriminated against.  There was no point in discussing it with God for if he was to disagree he would be wrong and besides we define love nowadays, not God.  Yes, we have love versus love and the only question is whose definition will prove to hold up in the end.  Most of the world seems to be staking their claim on man, not God.

Our society has had a desire to redefine sin for we as a people have been unhappy with some of God's declarations on it.  Sin is no longer sin because of anything God has said in the Bible but sin is now what man declares it to be.  It is no longer what the Bible declares but what man declares.  It is what seems wrong in man's eyes, not in the eyes of the God of the Bible.   

"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" (Isa. 5:20 NKJV)

Woe, woe, woe to man.

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