The gospel: what is sin?

Why does sin play a role in the gospel, and why is it important that we understand sin?

We must deeply understand that what has led humanity into the mess it is presently in—is due to sin. We have to go back to the original sin. You see, Adam was told by God not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam, as he reached out his hand for the forbidden fruit, knew full well that what he was doing was against the Lord God. He was not deceived like Eve. When he ate that fruit, he died in his spirit. Sin kills the spirit. We must also understand that all of us were in Adam, in his loins. He represented us as one creation, and in God’s eyes, we are all the same. The question is not whether you were in Adam’s shoes or not—and if you had sinned, but, by default, you would have made the same mistake.

Think of it like this: in “Star Wars,” there is what is called a “clone trooper.” These clones came from an original specimen. Now, say if the original specimen sinned and impacted every clone’s DNA beyond him, the clone cannot justify himself because he “did not commit the sin.” It makes no difference; the specimen and the clone are the same. The clone is the original specimen and vice versa. In other words, the clone would have done the same thing as the original specimen had he been presented the same scenario.

God took a serious risk of giving some of His creation free will, but He assured that He would have a plan to save them. So, we see in the original sin, sin is taking the free will and consenting to the temptation. It is a misuse of free will against God’s will. It is doing what you want and not what God wants.

The original sin impacted the human race. Ever since Adam sinned, the human spirit died to any relationship and communion with God; our entire nature changed; we have become one of sin. No human can avoid sin. It is deeply ingrained in us, in our very DNA. These bodies are full of sin, and our spirit is alienated from the life of God; our souls are constantly gravitating toward the flesh, the sins of the body, or toward the darkness of the spirit.

When the Lord God spoke to the Hebrew people on Mount Sinai, it was really the revelation of sin. What I mean by the revelation of sin was that God actually revealed the requirement for holiness by revealing His spiritual laws to mankind. Of course, at the advent of the Mosaic Law was originally for the Hebrews according to the covenant He was making with them, but nevertheless, the Law of Moses has gone across the whole world. We are all able to become deeply conscious of sin. All of us, no matter religion or practice, can see that we are guilty of breaking some kind of commandment at some point, and whether you break one commandment or many in the sight of God’s holiness, it makes no difference; if you break one, you break them all—you are a guilty sinner.

All the sins revealed in the Law are only an expression of our fallen condition. Everyone sins differently. The problem is not the expressive tree and fruit of sin but the seed. It has been part of the deeply embedded sin working in us to justify itself because it is “not as sinful as others.”

While the Hebrew covenant was a temporary pact God made with the Israelites that all pointed to a Savior who would come from their own race, we see that when God’s Son entered into the world through the womb of Mary, the Seed of the woman (Genesis 3:15), Jesus Christ had paternal DNA that did not come from the fallen Adam, but from the Holy Spirit.

It was then that now, sin would be redefined. Jesus Christ going to the cross was to fulfill the Law and the Prophets. Jesus Christ, as God and as a man, was taking on every single commandment that He Himself spoke and wrote to the Hebrew people thousands of years before His appearance. Jesus, at the cross, crucified every charge and ordinance that condemned us. And now, a greater conviction for humanity is required.

“He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment” (John 16:8).

The Holy Spirit is not just merely coming to convict you of a commandment you keep breaking. He is coming to convict you that, after all Jesus Christ did to atone for your sins, to shed His blood for your sinfulness, that you will not rely on His cross. The sin that we face is the fact that we are guilty of the cross. It is not a place where we only sorrow in how awful we are, but also in what awful torture Jesus Christ had to endure because of your sin. He is coming to reveal to you that at the cross, you have no righteousness before God. There is no good deed, no reformation, no evolution or advancement, that sin is sin, and your standard of righteousness is corrupted in the tree of knowledge. What you call good is evil, and what you call evil is good. You resist truth and rather delight in lies. Everything is twisted.

The cross is the revelation of our fallen sense of justice. Here we have the innocent being condemned as guilty, and we live our lives as if we have no sin. We justify ourselves. We make excuses. We think sex before marriage, pornography, homosexuality, smoking weed, and getting drunk aren’t “hurting anybody,” yet we deny that they did hurt Somebody, Jesus Christ. Or we take our past sins, shove them in a closet, and try to bury them by lying to ourselves while we go to church as if “we never did it.”

We constantly judge God and His righteousness, when at the cross, God was judging nobody. In fact, all of the judgment that was supposed to be directed toward us sinners and this wicked world was placed upon Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ suffered the condemnation. Not only was Jesus Christ suffering the condemnation, but He was condemning and judging the sinful powers that we inherited ever since the fall. The cross is the place where sin was judged, and Satan.

Jesus Christ sacrificed Himself; He gave up His life for you to liberate you from sin’s inner workings and sin’s curse. Jesus died not because He sinned, but because,

“All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten Son, was justified by the Father and the Holy Spirit. The Father deemed His Son innocent, that He never sinned, and the Holy Spirit bore witness to the Father’s righteousness and therefore raised the body of Jesus Christ from the dead. Jesus Christ entered into and became the first fruits of new creation life, an immortal body. Jesus stands as alive forever, justified from death, and,

“To him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness” (Romans 4:5).

You are coming to a cross where the work was already finished—that forever declares your works can never be enough to earn you salvation. You are coming to an empty tomb that declares, the cross does work! This is the beauty of the gospel! Despite your sin, God has provided the Lamb to be your substitute, to liberate you from the power of sin and to live freely as righteous as can be in Christ and escape death!

The Son of God when He became flesh, a baby, He had to be given a name, and the name He was given was “Jesus” because,

“He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).

Jesus Christ’s work saves you from sin; it does not keep you in it. Calling upon His name means you want to be saved from your sins, not die in them.