What do you think most of the world thinks about sin? Not much. It is the largest fatal “salvation” mistake the world has ever committed because it is an “eternal mistake.” How many religions on Earth even talk about sin and what it truly means? Only one I know of – Christianity.
God’s “Standard” is complete holiness, perfection, and no sin. Anything less than His standard is sin. Sin is “missing the mark,” and the mark is God’s standard.
Let’s try to look at an earthly example of how God views sin.
God has a glass of water, which is pure. Let’s say sin is such a powerful poison that if you put one drop of this poison in that glass of pure water, you would corrupt it. Would any of us drink a glass of pure water with even one drop of powerful poison in it? Of course not. We know God is God, and nothing can harm Him unless He allows it, but He refuses to dwell with any poison sin in His presence, which means “eternity.”
The glass of pure water “IS eternity,” and the poison is “us and the whole universe.” Even one sin from anyone is the poison that “corrupts” that “whole glass” of pure “eternity water.” That is looking at sin from God’s perspective.
Let’s now examine sin to find out why it’s such an abomination to God. Scripture does not “directly” say what I am about to reveal, but it does “support it.”
God dwells in eternity. You cannot have God without eternity, and you cannot have eternity without God. Eternity is not a “place.” Eternity is not “time.” Eternity “IS” God! God has no beginning or end. Eternity has no beginning or end. “God did not “create” eternity.” God and eternity are “connected” together. This means, “by definition,” God and eternity are the ‘same’ in this connection. This helps to explain why sin, even one sin, will never be allowed into eternity. This would mean that one sin would also be entering into “God” in His “eternity connection,” and that will never happen!
This also explains why whatever happens in eternity STAYS in eternity. Once you enter eternity, you are entering into “God” for which there is no turning back. Turning back can only occur in the universe with time. There is no revolving door between eternity and the universe. God made the universe to be “separate” from His eternity because it “allows” sin. He added “time” as His method to save us. Sin can only occur here.
Have you noticed how “much” the Bible talks about sin and how our salvation at death is simply “no sin” to enter eternity with God or “sin” to enter eternity without God.
Before God created angels and humans, God always enjoyed eternity with no sin. Sin seems to have a “negative” effect on God in some way we don’t understand when it enters the eternity part of God, and this is why not even one “toxic poison” sin will ever be allowed into “eternity God.”
God always enjoyed no sin before angels and humans. How could He not? He IS no sin. Do you think God has to put up with and tolerate sin just because there are now angels and humans? His first priority “always” with His angels and humans is, ‘I have to make sure there is ‘no sin’ between any angel or human being I have a personal relationship with.’ Why? Because eternity God can only enjoy His eternity with “no sin angels” and “no sin human beings.”
He dwelt in eternity without sin before He created angels and humans, and He makes sure He will also dwell in eternity without sin “after” He creates angels and humans. For these reasons, eternity will never allow sin to exist inside of it. The Bible says the wages of sin is death – eternal death. Entering eternity at death with “no sin” means you enter God’s eternity. Entering it “with sin” means you enter hell’s eternity, a place without God’s presence.
What the world is “missing” and not understanding is how God and eternity are connected and how it’s this connection that will “never” allow even one sin to enter into God in eternity.
When you examine sin from “this frame of reference,” it sheds a whole new light on the consequences of sin from God’s perspective and even our own perspective! However, the world looks at it differently. The world does not see sin as any kind of poison. To the world, having to measure up to God’s standard of complete holiness, perfection, and no sin is ridiculous. The world does not look at sin as any kind of problem, but if they did, they would look at it from a human perspective vs. God’s perspective.
The human perspective says, ‘If we want to spend eternity with God, we have to do it ‘ourselves’ by being good, nice, doing more good deeds than bad, etc. We don’t need God’s help!’
Doing good deeds is a “works” program that “includes” sin. It’s like putting your good deeds and bad deeds on a scale and making sure your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds. A major problem with that is two-fold: One, how can you ever know for sure if your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds? Shouldn’t you know that before you enter eternity? And two, good deeds do not get rid of sins. Each person with a sin nature is the same thing as that “one drop of toxic poison” to God in eternity.
The world thinks that if we do good works and are wonderful people, the good deeds will just “cancel out” the bad, toxic, poison sin in us. It won’t. That is impossible. There is nothing we can do ourselves to make the sin poison go away – “NOTHING!”
Let’s look at two extreme examples of the way the world looks at how to spend eternity with God in heaven.
Someone like Hitler is so evil that he will most definitely go to hell, and someone as wonderful as Mother Teresa will most definitely go to heaven, right?
Is that true? Both are born spiritually dead and will stay that way no matter what they do on Earth if they do not come to have a personal, intimate relationship with God through Jesus. Why? Their sin they cannot get rid of.
The only way to “salvation to reach heaven” is to go from being spiritually dead forever to being spiritually alive forever. This can only happen when all of our sins are “removed forever.” The most amazing thing is what God had to do to accomplish that.
As we already know, God created us human beings to have a personal, intimate relationship with Himself, but that is impossible due to our sin nature. Anytime God enters into “any” relationship with an individual or a nation, such as Israel in the Old Testament, the first thing that has to happen is to deal with the sin problem. To do this, God set up what is called the “law of atonement.” This is where an innocent, sinless blood sacrifice is “allowed” to pay the price for the sins of another.
The Bible tells us the wages of sin is “death.” There is “always” a death associated with any sin. It is either the death of the sinner or the death of the “innocent, sinless blood substitute” in place of the sinner. Blood is necessary because there is “life” in that blood. God is showing us how “severe” sin is.
The way God dealt with the sin problem with the nation of Israel is He set up an animal sacrificial system where millions of animals were sacrificed over two thousand years to pay the price for the sins of the people of Israel in order to atone for their sins and enable a personal relationship with Him. Only animals could accomplish this at that time because their blood is sinless blood. That’s because animals are not created in God’s image like humans are. Human blood could not do it because of our sin nature. But it has to be done over and over because animals are not created in God’s image and are not laying down their lives for us out of love.
God says in John 15:13 (NIV), “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” This verse sets the stage for Father God’s love to send His Son, God Jesus, to lay down His life on a cross to save the human race from their sins. Through the sacrificial system, God was showing the people of Israel that sin is something He will not tolerate. There can be no sin between God and anyone He has a personal relationship with.
Through animal sacrifices, God was also showing Israel they needed a Savior’s sacrifice to replace once and for all the animal sacrifices.
The so-called way of righteousness with the nation of Israel is called the law. The only way to be saved was never to break even one of God’s laws, which is impossible when you have a sin nature. Thus, they had to keep doing animal sacrifices to pay for their sins and stay in a relationship with God. God allowed this type of relationship with Israel to last around two thousand years.
So, what’s the big deal about sin? It’s eternal life with God or eternal life separated from God, and there is no bigger deal than that.
(To not self-plagiarize, this article was taken from my revised Conversational Style God’s Plan for Heaven, Eternity and the Universe Explained.)
Maranatha, Lord Jesus!
The post So, What’s The Big Deal About Sin? :: By David Cogburn appeared first on Rapture Ready.
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