SPROUL: When I sin I am challenging the authority, the dignity, the holiness, the power of God. I
am setting myself up as a law unto myself and that’s serious business.
God would have every right and would be perfectly righteous and just to snuff out the life
of every person who rebels against Him... Why doesn't He?
I think what is basically characteristic of our thinking is the idea that sin is not
a serious thing. Not really. Some sins may be indeed serious. But in general,
we think in terms of sin as being a peccadillo. Little, inconsequential, boys will be boys
type of thing. However, in the smallest sin nothing less than cosmic treason is involved.
If I steal a piece of bread, if I exceed the speed limit, if I say one unkind word
towards my neighbor, all that’s involved in that act is very, very serious indeed.
God designed this creation in such a way is that man was to love his neighbor as himself,
and to love God with all of his heart, all of his mind, all of his strength and all the rest. That
there was to be peace, the preservation of life, and harmony between men, and between man and God,
and that the universe was supposed to operate according to the reign and the rule of God.
Which reign is just.
Without sin in the world there is no injustice. There is no pain. There is no disharmony,
there is no war there is no suffering and all the rest. But in my slightest sin where I exalt myself
above my Creator and seek to have lordship over my brother I am contributing to the whole cosmic
complex of rebelliousness against God. When I sin I am challenging the authority, the dignity,
the holiness, the power of God. It is an act of cosmic rebellion. It is an act of cosmic treason.
I am setting myself up as a law unto myself and that’s serious business. The grossest,
rankest pagan in our society realizes that evil is destructive. And it’s not simply the
Christian community that is protesting human sinfulness. The secular community
is up in arms against oppression, injustice, and all the rest because we realize that
ultimately when I sin against a person, I take something of that person’s life away from him.
When I injure another human being, that’s very serious. And we’re all involved in it. But the
universality of it. The widespread character of sinfulness. In no sense mitigates the guilt.
Because our sin is commonplace, we have a tendency to think that therefore it is not serious.
But one of the most serious dimensions of sin is its commonplaceness and the casualness
with which we experience it and overlook it. But God never considers sin casually. Why does
God allow the continuity of existence on this planet? Why does He allow men to continue to
live in spite of their sin, in spite of their cosmic rebellion? God would have every right
and would be perfectly righteous and just to snuff out the life of every person who
rebels against Him and who seeks to disrupt the entire cosmos by that rebellion. Why doesn’t He?
The reason contemporary man gives to that question, “why doesn’t God snuff everybody
out?” is that they’ll say that God is just and righteous. He’s so just and so righteous, God
wouldn’t think of killing everybody. No, no, no, no, no. It’s not the righteousness or the concern
for justice that keeps God from destroying you and me, but it’s His passionate concern for redemption
that is the key to your preservation, and mine too. It’s the mercy of God.