v. 23 – hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.

Devotional:

If you are a parent or can imagine being one – How would
you feel if every day all day someone was following your child around telling them lies and trying to destroy all that you know they are capable of and taking away from them any possibility of being happy? You’d hate that, right? Of course, you would. Well, on a very small level, that gives us a small glimpse into how God feels about sin. Saying He’s not a fan of sin’s effects on His children would be a pretty dramatic understatement. Saying He hates it is more accurate – and even that is a feeble attempt at expressing it rooted in a futile language. If you believe the Bible, then it is clear sin is not a problem, sin is the problem.

“What is sin” is an important question to ask because every human I have ever met, myself the chief among them, thinks that sin is an “issue,” or at its most severe, it is a “struggle.” The cognitive human effort that seeks to pioneer a sense of freedom has led us down a path from which, apart from the divine intervening work of the Spirit of God, we can’t return from.

This effort has sought to redefine the parameters of human responsibility and God’s sovereignty. And at its very core, it is an attack on the foundation of what it means to be human. You see, if you do not have a right, concise, and biblically-whole definition of what sin really is, then it is impossible to treasure the grace that shines against the backdrop of depravity.

Is it possible that we have traded beauty for ashes by minimizing what sin really is? Is it possible that we are so good at justifying sin that we have created a definition of sin that works for us
but falls desperately short of biblically faithful? Sin is not just something we do or something we have done, and it is not just a mistake we made or an error in thinking or speech. There’s more gravity to it than that. It goes well beyond our limited constructs of cultural morality and even presses in deeper beyond the right and wrongs of the law. Sin is not some well-meaning attempt that failed or an activity that happens outside the body and is somehow separate from the intentions inside the human soul.

Sin is a state of being. It is a powerful force coded into our DNA. It is alive, it is aggressive, it is deceptive, and it is impossible to cure in and of our own efforts. It is, in a very practical sense, a deep rejection of God’s ultimate good and God’s glorious rule. In essence, sin is the non-supremacy of God who was made manifest in the person of Jesus Christ. So it is fair and right to say that, in essence, sin is the non-supremacy of Christ.

Sin, therefore, can be rightly defined as any feeling, thought, speech, or action that comes from a heart that does not treasure Christ over all things. It is a heart that gives preference to anything over God……ever.

So what is sin? Dr. John Piper offers us this definition:

Sin is the glory of God not honored. The holiness of God not reverenced. The greatness of God not admired. The power of God not praised.

The truth of God not sought.
The wisdom of God not esteemed.
The beauty of God not treasured.
The goodness of God not savored.
The promises of God not believed.
The commandments of God not obeyed. The justice of God not respected.
The wrath of God not feared.
The grace of God not cherished.
The presence of God not prized.
The person of God not loved.

I would add to Dr. Piper’s very thorough definition that sin is also the gospel of God not trusted.

That’s what sin is and God has such disdain for it that He, “shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). While we are clothed in the very thing God hates, instead of abandoning us to our filth, He volunteers Himself to become the very thing He hates on the cross so that we could forever be the thing that His Father loves.

It’s simply mind-numbing, isn’t it? If we loved God the way He loves us then we would hate sin the way that He hates sin.

One day we will see everything as He sees it – including sin. Until then, we hold tight to His mercy.

REFLECTION:

What misperceptions of sin have you had in the past and how did they distort your view of yourself?