What's The Big Deal About Sin?

What’s the big deal with sin? To be more precise, exactly what is it about our sins that would warrant the kind of attention that the church world gives to the subject? Some who don’t understand the message of grace think that those of us who teach it believe that sin doesn’t matter. Nothing could be further from the truth. I hate sin. I hate it when I see it in my own life and I hate it when I see it in the lives of those I love. The wages of sin is still death. That hasn’t changed. Sin has a withering effect on a person that will relentlessly and progressively strip one of the best things life has to offer and leave nothing but emptiness and meaninglessness in its place.

The question that needs to be readdressed in the modern church world is, “Why do we hate sin?” It’s my viewpoint that our reason for opposing sin is most often totally different than our God’s reason for being against it. The religious reason for hating sin looks so noble at first glance, but misses the point altogether.

What is the reason most Christians believe sin is to be hated? Because it is wrong. To many of us, the core issue of sin is a moral one. Sin is evil and thus should be avoided. In regard to sin, we judge others and ourselves on the basis of the moral implications of our behavior. The consequence is that we tend to view the whole mater in the judicial sense of innocence versus guilty.

I don’t believe our Father in heaven sees sins through the lens of morality. To Him, it’s not a judicial matter calling for a Judge. It’s an organic matter crying out for a Great Physician. God isn’t squeamish about sin because it nauseates Him to see it. He doesn’t recoil from sin the way Superman would avoid kryptonite. Our God has already conquered sin. He has vanquished it by the finished work of the cross. He isn’t intimidated by it in the least.

The idea that our God has a moral purity that causes Him to shy away from the sinfulness of humanity is wrong – dead wrong. Some have argued that God “can’t look upon sin,” but that view is the result of taking scripture out of context.

When Habakkuk the prophet saw the sins of his day, he cried out to God, “You are too holy to look upon evil!” (See Habakkuk 1:13) Then he immediately asked in the same verse, “So why do you?” God saw the sins of the people then. He sees the sins of people today. He doesn’t run and hide in the closet when sin is around. To the contrary, He runs toward those trapped in sin to deliver them from it!

The reason God hates sin isn’t because of what it does to Him because it does nothing to Him. The issue of sin revolves around what it does to us! Your Father isn’t angry when you sin. He loves you and wants to see you free from that kind of self-destructive behavior. He wants us to walk in victory over sin – not because He wants to be sure we live morally, but because He doesn’t want to see us hurt ourselves!

When we understand that this is our Father’s mind and heart toward those who sin, it will change the way we see others who sin too. It will stimulate compassion within us, not judgment against them. We will want to love them back to spiritual health and see them free from the downward spiral of self-destruction, as opposed to judging them on the basis of moral wrongdoing.

Is sin a big deal? Yes, it is, but not because there’s a Divine Scorekeeper who is agitated that we’ve stepped out of bounds. It’s a big deal because when we sin we hurt ourselves and the One who loves us more than we could ever imagine wants nothing less than complete health and peace for those He loves.