ROMANS 3<\/b><\/p>\n
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God<\/i><\/p>\n
(Romans 3:23)<\/i>.<\/p>\n
The history of David\u2019s fall provides an ideal place for us to stop and take a longer look at the biblical doctrine of sin. Beginning today and through next week we shall examine man\u2019s sinfulness in several dimensions, using material from R. C.\u2019s lecture series The Doctrine of Sin<\/i> as our guide.<\/p>\n
One of the best definitions of sin comes from the Westminster Shorter Catechism, Answer 14: \u201cSin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.\u201d (The word want<\/i> means \u201clack.\u201d) The beauty of this description of sin is threefold. First it refers us to the law of God, which describes His own personal character. Thus, it measures sin by a standard and provides us with a very practical way to understand any deviation from it.<\/p>\n
Second, it identifies sin as a lack of something. Sin is a negative. It involves a rejection of God\u2019s holy character. The words we use for sin clearly bring this out. Notice how each of the following words is formed by negating another word: un<\/i>lawful, lawless<\/i>, un<\/i>righteousness, ir<\/i>reverence, un<\/i>holiness, dis<\/i>obedience, un<\/i>godliness, un<\/i>cleanness, anti<\/i>christ. In Greek, the root meaning of the word for sin<\/i> means \u201cmissing<\/i> the mark.\u201d Romans 3:23 speaks of falling short<\/i> of God\u2019s glory.<\/p>\n
In Genesis 1, God announced that everything He created was, like Himself, good. Thus, it takes a good creature to commit a sin. Sin has no independent existence; it is a perversion of something good.<\/p>\n
If we go too far with the idea that sin is a lack of goodness, we might wind up saying that sin does not exist at all, and there is nothing to worry about. The Christian Science cult, for instance, maintains that sin is merely an illusion. In contrast, we say that sin is an active transgression<\/i> of God\u2019s law. Sin is cosmic treason.<\/p>\n
People are real, and the sins committed by people are also real. Because man is the very image of God Himself, human sin is a powerful thing. Sin in the abstract does not have an existence as some kind of substance, but sinful people definitely have an existence. Sin is real in the sense that sinful people are real, and sin is disastrous because it is nothing less than the image of God that is committing cosmic treason.<\/p>\n
CORAM DEO<\/b><\/p>\n
Psalms 85\u201387<\/p>\n
Romans 9<\/p>\n
WEEKEND<\/b><\/p>\n
Psalms 88\u201392<\/p>\n
Romans 10<\/p>\n
Look up Psalm 8. Read it carefully, reflecting on the greatness of man as the vice-regent of all creation. Then consider what it means for this greatness to be perverted by man\u2019s willful rebellion against God. Strive to see your own sins in this light. Determine not to be so ready to make excuses for yourself.<\/p>\n
For further study: Psalm 39 \u2022 Isaiah 53<\/i><\/p>\n
WEEKEND<\/b><\/p>\n
Psalm 99: \u201cHe Is Holy\u201d<\/p>\n
by Derek Kidner<\/i><\/p>\n
Overwhelming Majesty<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
By a curious shift of meaning, the modern world has largely drained the word holy<\/i> of its majesty. Applied to God it seldom suggests to our contemporaries the glory that is too dazzling to approach (cf. 1 Timothy 6:16); while applied to His servants it tends to taunt them with (in Milton\u2019s phrase) a fugitive and cloistered virtue. Perhaps significantly, we drop our voices at the words holy, holy, holy,<\/i> whereas in Isaiah\u2019s vision \u201cthe doorposts and thresholds shook\u201d at the sound of the seraphim\u2019s acclamation. (The great \u201cSanctus\u201d in J.S. Bach\u2019s B Minor Mass<\/i> does better justice to their praise!)<\/p>\n
The opening stanza of our psalm creates a proper sense of the Lord\u2019s tremendous presence as it leads up to the first of the three refrains of \u201cHe is holy\u201d (vv. 3, 5, 9). The mention of the attendant cherubim (v. 1) has already added its own warning against a careless or presumptuous approach, by its implicit reminder of their flaming sword at the gate of Eden, and their symbolic guardianship of the Holy of Holies, where their forms adorned its concealing curtain and overshadowed even the mercy seat (Exodus 25:17\u201322; 26:31\u201333).<\/p>\n
Not only in the psalm but everywhere in the Old Testament this formidable aspect of holiness is impressed on us. The first time the word holy<\/i> appears in Scripture is at the burning bush, where Moses is warned, \u201cCome no nearer; \u2026 the place \u2026 is holy ground.\u201d This initial lesson was soon to be thundered out at Mount Sinai and embodied in the ritual laws and in the very architecture of the tabernacle. In Isaiah\u2019s vision even the sinless seraphim covered their faces before God\u2019s holiness and glory, since not only as our Judge but as our Creator, He is simply too much for us in the full blaze of His being.<\/p>\n
Overwhelming Purity<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
The seraphim had no guilt to confess; but Isaiah had, and at once he knew it. Our second stanza (vv. 4\u20135), with its praise of God\u2019s moral perfection, shows why divine holiness drew so desperate a cry of \u201cUnclean!\u201d from this man. He was in the presence of absolute and dynamic righteousness, indeed of its ardent and personal source: its Lover, Upholder and Doer,<\/i> as our psalm\u2019s verse 4 acknowledges with its repeated and (in the Hebrew) emphatic Thou.<\/i> A later prophet would put it unforgettably: \u201cYour eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong\u201d (Habakkuk 1:13). So the repetition of the refrain, \u201cHe is holy\u201d (v. 5) has this special content; and as Scripture unfolds, it is this burning purity that the word holy<\/i> conveys to us above all, since it takes its color from the character of the living and true God.<\/p>\n
If this seems obvious, it is worth remembering that holiness outside the Bible may have little or no moral challenge, being concerned with cult rather than conscience, reflecting the disposition of the gods that are worshipped and the powers that are cultivated. Even the religious prostitutes, male and female, at Canaanite shrines, were called \u201choly\u201d men and women\u2014it was their actual title, as in the Hebrew underlying our versions of Deuteronomy 23:17. But see God\u2019s names for them in the next verse there: \u201ca whore or a dog.\u201d<\/p>\n
We used the expression \u201cburning purity\u201d because holy<\/i> is a word that cannot be secularized\u2014unlike even such noble terms as good, true, great, upright,<\/i> which have a limited reality at the natural level. One scholar has said, \u201cThere is always an energy in the holy which is lacking in the pure or clean.\u201d Both the Old Testament and the New have to remind us that \u201cour God is a consuming fire\u201d (Deuteronomy 4:24; Hebrews 12:29). For the second time we respond, \u201cHe is holy\u201d (v. 5).<\/p>\n
Redemptive Holiness<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
The remaining verses (vv. 6\u20139) make it clear that God\u2019s holiness cannot be torn away from His love\u2014nor indeed His love from His holiness. Because He is holy, He wills holiness for us, so that at last, as like facing like, we may \u201csee Him as He is\u201d (1 John 3:2). The once-for-all redemption that ensured this, and God\u2019s patient discipline that cultivates it, are classically expounded to us in Hebrews 10:14 and 12:10; but already they are glimpsed in this section of our psalm, as we contemplate its sample of human characters whom God listened to and took in hand, individually and collectively. Nowhere is His generosity and faithfulness\u2014His holy love\u2014more justly expressed than in verse 8: \u201cO Lord our God, you answered them; You were to them a forgiving God, though You punished their misdeeds.\u201d Then this formidable psalm ends with a call to worship which is both a rebuke to any casual attitude we may be tempted to adopt, and at the same time an assurance of the grace of God\u2019s covenant. The final version of the refrain is no longer the bare statement \u201cHe is holy\u201d but the declaration which makes room for us: \u201cfor the Lord our God is holy.\u201d So it\u2019s a psalm to sing! ■<\/p>\n
Derek Kidner, a leading Old Testament scholar and former warden of Tyndale House in Cambridge, England, has written three volumes for<\/i> The Bible Speaks Today series.<\/i><\/p>\n
monday<\/p>\n
august<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ROMANS 3 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). The history of David\u2019s fall provides an ideal place for us to stop and take a longer look at the biblical doctrine of sin. Beginning today and through next week we shall examine man\u2019s sinfulness in several dimensions, using … Continue reading “TREASON AGAINST GOD”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11518\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}