Good Morning!
In the sermon this coming week we are going to see the highpoint of Creation in many ways. Just as the Sabbath Day closes out the first six days, Genesis 2:25 gives a sweet testimony to what life is like after the wedding between Adam and Eve. It’s almost like the end of a rom-com after all the various threads are tied in a neat little bow. As the camera pans out, we see the main characters sitting on a park bench with marital bliss in their eyes. Things could not be better.
The Bible describes the situation with the first man and the first woman in this manner:
“And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”
While this may be a funny way to say it what Moses is simply testifying to is that there was nothing wrong in the world at all. God’s creation felt no weariness, no spiritual weakness, no negative feelings whatsoever. Pure felicity was the rule of the day.
Adam and Eve had no need to protect their flesh from the weather, parasites, or from the wicked gazing of others. They were unabashedly comfortable in every way we can imagine. Everything was 100%. There was no shame anywhere to be found. All is good.
But all that was about to change.
Our catechism questions for this week, #14 and #15, summarize for us what happened:
Q. 14. What is sin?
A. Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.
Q. 15. What was the sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created?
A. The sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created, was their eating the forbidden fruit.
The reason why the Divines define sin before explaining what Adam did (and how both he and Eve were punished for it) goes back to what they are trying to do with the Shorter Catechism. Before they introduce a concept they give basic background on what the concept means.
So let’s do the same as we talk about the questions above.
1) Sin is more than just breaking the law. It is that, but it is so much more. “Want” is a word which means “do not have”, which is how we still use it. If you want something it is because you currently do not posses it. Sin in this way is a lack of ownership of the things of God. Next, the word “conformity” means that the sinner is not being obedient to the law, either in his heart or his walk. This is what it means to “love Christ”; to not only observe the goodness of His commandments, but to seek that our whole lives are organized around His will. The sinner is wanting in likeness to Jesus and he must be holy as Christ if he desires to be in Heaven with Him. (1 Pet. 1:15-16).
It’s part of the reason why we talk about the work of Christ as not only taking away the amount of sin we’ve committed, but that He also changes our heart and mind to desire that which is in conformity to the design of God in His word. (Ezek. 36:26).
That is one of the reasons why the Scriptures use the putting on of clothing to describe the application of the work of Christ to the sinner. For instance Paul says this in 2 Corinthians 5:2-4:
“For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life.”
There we see that the putting on of “our habitation which is from heaven” means that in the gospel we actually are being positioned back into a place where our mind and soul finds rest in a similar way to what Adam and Eve experienced, yet in some sense our situation is better because we have Christ. Those who were naked and afraid are now dressed and at rest. While it is true that we will not know the kind of earthly peace they understood until our glorified state when we are united to Christ by faith we do now receive a foretaste of that good gift. It is sufficient for what we need. Even though it may not be completely realized until all sin is done away with, both that which still exists in us in the old man, and the way we experience sin as the creation groans under the its weight (Rom. 8:20-21) it is surpassed by the joy we have in the Lord. (Phil. 2:16).
2) To turn to the second part of the 14th question, the actual breaking of the law of God, that type of thing is pretty straightforward. If Jehovah says, “Do Not Commit Adultery” and we have relations (or desire it in our heart) with a person who is not our spouse, whether we are married or unmarried, then we have broken the law of God and sinned. It is not complicated. We can try and weasel our way out of it, but sin is not that hard to grasp. It’s just that we don’t like to deny the flesh.
A question we need to ask at this point is do we comprehend what we are doing when we transgress the holy law of God? When we sin? Is it abhorrent to us? Do we hate it?
Back in September in adult Sabbath School we looked at Leviticus 1 and what was required of those who did break the Lord’s commandments in the old covenant, and while I’m not going to repeat all of that it is worth considering the main part for our purposes today.
The man who committed the violation was required to provide the sacrifice and kill it himself. Shed blood was an essential part of the process. And you had to do the actual act of slaying the heifer or dove or whatever, because it was your sin that made the giving of the animal’s life necessary. It should give you pause to think that my doing x made this poor sheep die. It was my fault, not his.
It was a somber and serious event.
So was the death of Jesus Christ for your sin. Your sin made His death necessary, just like the ram’s. One of the things we need to ask ourselves before we make the conscience decision to do something God has told us not to is: Is this worth the slaying of the Lamb? Is my desire to steal from my boss, lie to my spouse, disobey my teacher, cheat on my taxes, engage in idolatry, break the Sabbath, ignore my responsibilities to my kids, etc... greater than my love for my Redeemer, and for my neighbor?
We all sin and fall short, but it should not be this way. We should hate sin.
Though even in this we cannot forget that despite our sin we still see the love of God for His people, for He has provided a sacrifice for it that in a million years we could never earn, and because of this our response to the gospel should not be to continue in sin, but to destroy it and live in light of our thanksgiving for Him.
This desire for holiness must be the life of the believer. Because of Christ!
In closing, we see here one of the needs we have in taking advantage of public and private worship. In order to put to death sin and cleanse our hearts we need to use the means God has given to us. Filling ourselves with the words of Christ, singing the Psalms, reading godly literature, and joining together with brothers and sisters in the Lord to confess sin and mortify the flesh as one body is of great help in this fight. If we neglect these things than our war against the old man will be a losing one. You can’t score a touchdown if you’re not playing in the game.
While I am not a huge fan of some of the ethos’s of an organization like Alcoholics Anonymous they do have the right idea when it comes to having a sponsor. A person you can call when you are struggling and being tempted by your sinful flesh to violate the law of God is very helpful. We have this in our pastor, an elder, or even a fellow believer you trust. Doing this kind of work is necessary if we are going to take sin seriously. If you are struggling this morning PLEASE call someone, text, carrier pigeon, whatever and get a hold of me or someone. Sin is never worth it.
But faith in Christ always is.
Here is a bit more to read:
https://gracegems.org/26/deceitfulness_of_sin.htm
Y’all have a blessed day!
In His Strength,
Rev. Benjamin Glaser