There has been some criticism about the Church not teaching enough on sin. The same thing has been said about my own teachings – that I teach an over balance of love and grace, and not enough about sin. Sin is considered to be the transgression of God’s law / commandments / word. 1 John 1:4 states that sin is lawlessness. In Matthew 4:4 Jesus told us we are to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. In the Garden of Eden, “the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat’” (Genesis 2:16-17a). So the original sin is taking it upon our self to know what is good and what is evil – eating it/digesting it so it becomes part of us.
If sin is lawlessness, what defines law is important when discussing sin. Some doctrines define the law as the words God gave to Moses (Ten Commandments, ritual/ceremonial, etc). That is done to limit the outpouring of the blood of Jesus and the covering of sin only so far. “I am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; and I will not remember your sins (Isaiah 43:25). In that passage transgression is the act of sin; and sin is both the offence and the punishment. God is the One who blots out our acts of sin, and does not remember the sin or the punishment. Giving law a boundary is a claim that the blood of Jesus, and so the grace of God, only goes so far.
God told Adam that on the day he would eat from the tree he would surely die. The snake told Eve, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:4b-5). After Adam and Eve ate from the tree,
“Then the Lord God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil'” (Genesis 3:22a). God proceeded to expel mankind from the garden so they would not eat of the tree of life in their fallen state. The penalty of death was on mankind. The only way sin made mankind like God was in judgment of what was good and evil – not the word of God, but the ideas of mankind.
Jesus re-emphasized that mankind was never given the knowledge of good and evil when He said, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you” (Matthew 7:1-2). Jesus claimed authority to reemphasize the first sin (His authority and blood goes that far). If we take God’s right to judge upon ourselves, then we have to live or die by our judgment (with what judgment you judge, you will be judged). Isaiah recorded that it is God who blots out and remembers no more; when we take it upon ourselves to judge, we have no authority to blot out or to not remember. I have no authority to judge another or myself, it was not part of the dominion given by God to mankind (just the reverse, it was withheld). In judging, I am eating a fruit from a tree God did not give to me as food – to be digested and become part of me.
In John 6:55-56 Jesus told us to eat of His flesh and drink of His blood (eat from the tree of life) – Jesus is to be digested and become part of me – “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). We cannot eat of both the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life – one is death and one is life. Our flesh cannot be filled with our own ideas of what is good and evil, and the Spirit of life. The manna (bread) and the wine (blood) are fruit produced by the tree of life. Jesus came and lived a life absent of the knowledge of good and evil by only saying and doing what the Father judged as good. In doing so He offers to take from us our knowledge of good and evil (our sin – offence and penalty), and offer us once again the tree of life. Our part is to believe and have faith in God’s judgment and sentence of life (open the gift of grace).
© 2012, Tim D. Coulter Sr.