SOLVING THE SIN DILEMMA

                                                    SOLVING THE SIN DILEMMA

 “There is none righteous, no not one... For all have sinned, and come short of the Glory of God.” Romans 3:10, 23 

 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is Eternal Life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:23 

 “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Romans 8:3-4 

SIN THE RELENTLESS TYRANT

  Sin is the burden of every human, regardless of location, age, generation, situation, or gender. It is the curse of the human race and has brought a curse on creation itself. Sin is falling short of the will and purposes of God, runs contrary to His Holy nature, and is always harmful. Typically sin has an appeal and is therefore easy to surrender to. Our lusts, appetites, personal value, are tied up in the realm of self gratification which is where sin thrives. The opposite to sin is obedience, and love for God and the love for others. As the Scriptures say, "Love works no ill to his neighbor." Romans 13:10 Here is a quick run down of sins that the Bible refers to: Idolatry, witchcraft, blasphemy, murder, sexual immorality, lying, stealing, greed, drunkenness and drugs...

  Because of the assumed importance embraced by our self-gratifying disposition, we tend to downplay, at times, the seriousness of some of our actions (but not the actions of others doing the same thing), since we feel that there is justification for our behavior. So, we not only struggle with the temptation, but the reasoning behind our actions. This adds to the difficulty since it incites the internal conflict that wages war within us - the desire to do what is right fighting the urge to sin/disobey, the apostle Paul pens the struggle like this,..."For I know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me (that is in my flesh) dwells not good thing:  for to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would, I do not, the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I  that do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me." Romans 7:14-21.

  Now what Paul is writing about is what he (or rather the Holy Spirit) calls "the LAW OF SIN AND DEATH."  Romans 8:2 Like the laws of nature, it is locked into our nature as fallen human beings. Let me point our here that God has given us tools even before we came to Christ that, to a certain extent, enabled us to combat this evil. We were created in His image and likeness, which in spite of our fallen nature, has the desire to do what is good and right in spite of our carnal tendencies. Furthermore, we have been equipped with a conscience and a mind capable of understanding at various levels, His general will concerning right and wrong. I also want to mention here that even though it may appear to some that by His grace He has granted some leeway regarding a continual tendency to fall into sin, in Christ through the power of His Holy Spirit has removed that excuse..."Therefore there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the Law of Sin and Death...For if you live after the flesh, you shall die: but if you, through the Spirit do mortify (put to death) the deeds of the body, you shall live." Romans 8:1-2,13. PLEASE BE ASSURED - THERE IS ALWAYS A STRUGGLE AND WE ALWAYS NEED HIS GRACE AND MERCY!!!

  What I want to emphasize in this is that God is not granting us a license to sin, but has more than amply supplied in Christ Jesus, an escape..."There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is Faithful, Who will not allow you to be tempted above that you are able; but will with the temptation also make ape, that you may be able to bear it." 1 Corinthians 10:13. In light of this,  the reflection of where our heart might be at is scary - our actions reflects at least to some extent the values, inclinations, and intents of our mind and heart "But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed." James 1:14. I want to again stress at this point, that because of this struggle and the sometimes possible negative outcomes, WE CAN NEVER TRUST IN OUR OWN GOODNESS, our righteousness is solely and completely from Him - PRAISE HIS HOLY NAME!

GOD SPEAKS INTO THE SITUATION 

  In Genesis 4:7, God speaks to Cain in this manner, "If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin crouches at your door, and its desire is for you, and you must master it." AMP This is very interesting. God is giving, at the very cradle of the human race, the first lessons regarding sin. He first told Adam (his father), that in the day that he eats of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that he would die, thus declaring the WAGES OF SIN (Romans 6:23). Now here with Cain, He is revealing a little further the living, active nature of sin and our dutiful struggle against it. He describes sin as almost having a living personality of its own, and in a real sense, because it is an active part of our very human nature, it does. Now, what is wonderful is that though we are basically fighting ourselves, God our Wonderful, Loving, and Understanding Heavenly Father is actually distinguishing us from our sin. How beautiful is that!!! He did not design us as sinners, our sins are our choice, whether by ignorance, weakness, or by defiance. This also shows His intention to work with us against it right from the beginning. Don't you just love Him!!! 

DEATH, THE WAGES OF SIN

  I want to be so careful here, so as not to give the wrong impression of this situation. First of all, we must always remember, that the last enemy of the human race to be destroyed is death. "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." 1 Corinthians 15:26  "And He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of His people shall He take away from off the earth: for the Lord has spoken it." Isaiah 25:7-8

  As mentioned before, the first part of death is to be cut off from the Presence of God, which Adam and Eve experienced the very day they first sinned. Genesis 3:23-24,  Psalm 5:4, Isaiah 59:2, Ephesians 2:5 Then following the spiritual death, their natural death.It is also important to note that after they had sinned and realized that we are naked outside of their God given righteousness so that God gave them skins to cover them with. "Unto Adam and his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them." Genesis 3:21 In doing this He established another law, " And almost all things are by the Law purged by blood; and without the shedding of blood is no remission/forgiveness." Hebrews 9:22. God required a blood sacrifice in payment for sin. Our sins required a death.

  Another aspect we must consider about the wisdom and love of God is that even in His judgments, He often tucks away blessings and a lead for redemption. We can see this clearly when He was listing to Eve her punishment, He gave a hit to His plan of salvation regarding her seed, which is Christ Jesus. Furthermore, He made a move to save them from themselves - "And the Lord God said, 'Behold, the man is become as one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.' Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from where he was taken. So He drove out the man, and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way to the tree of life." Genesis 3: 22-24 The mercy of God here is also reflected in the death penalty by keeping us from living forever as sinners. Living forever as unredeemable sinners would be a living hell for everyone. Sin temporarily breached His eternal design for us, and death was placed to end it.(I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing an be added to it, and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere Him." Ecclesiastes 3:14.) Furthermore, this means that His redemption will be an ETERNAL REDEMPTION! How beautiful is that!? So death has an important role to play in our situation. Death puts and end to sins activity, but is not meant to put an end to us. Again, DEATH IS OUR ENEMY JUST AS SIN IS OUR ENEMY. They are two sides of a coin. Note that sin left unbridled will surely lead to death in itself "Then when lust has conceived, it brings forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death." James 1:15. 

  There was another issue that the Lord had to deal with. The longer man lived in his sinful condition the worse he became, which is why He had to destroy the world by the flood. The earth was so filled with corruption and violence that He regretted creating us Genesis 6:5-6,11-12. To that point, man lived to almost a thousand years, so He shortened our life span...And the Lord said, 'My Spirit shall not always strive with man. for that he also is flesh, yet his days shall he a hundred and twenty years." Genesis 6:3

 From this passage of Scripture we lean a few more things. God deals with us by His Spirit. He is also declaring that we are also spiritual beings, but our flesh gets in the way and tends to dominate our actions. Furthermore, our flesh not only drives us into unreasonable and immoral behavior, but also causes us to resist and fight against God, to the point where God may have to sometimes let up for our sake - "For I will not contend forever, neither will I be always wroth, for the spirit should fail before Me, and the souls which I have made." Isaiah 57:16 This also indicates that He will not force or change our will. The choice remains ours, thus guaranteeing us as freewill agents. So He had to devised another way to break the bond between us and our sinful nature. The thing is, is that while we are in our sins, we cannot afford to die. If we die in our sins without any plan of redemption, we will be cut off from God our Heavenly Father forever! This is so interesting. Let's summarize our situation at this point:

- We are enslaved to a sinful nature.

- Our sin separates us from God. Isaiah 59:2

- Our flesh in its corrupted state not only caves to sin, but dominates our choices and behavior.

- Our flesh resists and opposes our Creator. Romans 8:7

- Sin must be paid for by death.

- Death is not only the penalty for sin, but is also puts and end to sin - "For he that is dead is freed from sin." Romans 6:7.

- But death, like sin, is our enemy, and death was not a part of our original design or purpose for us.

- Mankind needs help against this law of "SIN AND DEATH" and the solution cannot come from us since "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." We cannot change our nature, nor remove our sins.

- God will not force our will, so He will have to change our nature

- Man is not able to endlessly strive with God over our behavior

- If we die unredeemed from our sins, we would be cut off from God forever. But God intends to     remove death, and nor is it His will that any perish John 3:16, 2 Peter 3:9. 

- But all have sinned and will therefore die. GOD HAD A PLAN - PRAISE HIS HOLY NAME!!!

THE LAW & DEATH ARE NOT WONDERFUL COMPANIONS

 God introduced the Law, which contained the 10 Commandments and all the details of God's righteous standards, washings and sacrifices. What is the actual value of the Law with regards to challenging the Law of Sin and Death? The Law teaches us what God calls right and wrong, good and evil, and in natural values, what is clean and unclean, especially with regards to ceremonial cleansing. It also points out the just penalty for our sins. So the Law declares to us what in our behavior is sinful, and provided a minimal means of temporal and very partial cleansing, which depend on much work and sacrifice on our part to hold back God's wrath against our sins and iniquities "For the Law having a shadow of good things to come, and not  the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? Because that the worshipers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins." Hebrews 10:1-4

 Furthermore, breaking the Law, even with regards to the sacrifices, can mean the death penalty. Not only that, following the Law in every detail will not eliminate our sins, let alone change our sinful nature. Finally, even with the law we are still separated from God in the end, and again, most any breach ends in death.  So any attempt to attain righteousness and purity before God Almighty by the Law is futile. It actually only points out to us that we are sinners and we deserve to die. Now here is a problem. God has placed within us the desire to live, in fact eternally, and that is as it should be "He has also placed eternity in our heart." Escclesiastes 3:11 It is also safe to say that God has placed in us the earnest desire to survive and fend death off a long as possible. What is more is that the Lord emphasizes the sacredness of Human life right from the beginning "And surely your blood of your lives will I require at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man.Whoso sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for IN THE IMAGE OF GOD made He man." Genesis 9:5-6. Then, of course, in the Ten Commandments of the Law He spelled it out clearly  "You shall not kill/murder." Exodus 20:13. This would also include suicide. We belong to God, not ourselves. So God has set the penalty for sin - DEATH! He also, under the Law, set the breaches of the Law to be punished by death. The only way for sin to be eradicated is death. So sin must be destroyed, and that by death. We cannot kill ourselves, and only under the breach of the Law is death allowed to be executed. We cannot change our nature, and again God will not force our will. We are designed to be with Him and live with Him forever, and because of our sins we are appointed to die and thus be separated from Him unless the sin can be removed. Our sins must be paid for, and this requires death. Our nature must be changed, yet our will will remain in tact. And death must be eradicated as well. But what kind of sacrifice or life can pay for all the sins of all the world for all time? What kind of life can do such a thing? Look at this - "No man can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for him - the ransom for a life is costly, no payment is ever enough - that he should live on forever and not see decay." Psalm 49: 7-9 Not only so, but what is required is to be able to change our nature without altering our free will, and furthermore, do it so perfectly that we can be guiltless, sinless, so as to be able to live with Him forever as we were originally designed. So we can't do it, the Law can't do it, nor can any other creature do it, but the death of a man(human) is required, because the sinners are human. WOW, WHAT OBSTACLES!!! Like Jesus' disciples exclaimed, "Who then can be saved? But Jesus beheld them, and said to them, 'With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible." Matthew 19:25-26 OK,SO WE NEED HELP, AND IT HAS TO COME FROM GOD HIMSELF, But what could be better?! 

  THE GOSPEL - THE SALVATION OF GOD

 JESUS CHRIST, THE SON OF MAN, THE SON OF GOD!

"For God so loved the world He gave His Only Begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16

 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is Eternal Life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:23 

 "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness  of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Romans 8:3-4

"But when the fullness of time had come, Go sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the Law, to redeem them that were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, 'Abba, FATHER.'" Galatians 4:4-6

This is so infinitely beautiful! Lets's summarize this:

-  Our sins have been paid for! Through His death on the cross, Jesus Christ paid for the sins of the world. "Behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world." John 1:29

- The death penalty for sin needed to be paid for by a human, Jesus Christ was fully Human- the Son of man. Matthew 16:13

- According to the Scriptures (Psalm 49:7-9), no human could pay for the sins of another, but the Son of God, Who is also God, and Who created us, could. John 1:1-3,10

- The Holy Law of God had to be fulfilled - Jesus, the sinless Son of God fulfilled it perfectly. "He became sin for us, Who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."

 2 Corinthians 5:21 "Think not that I am come to destroy the Law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy , but to fulfill." Matthew 5:17

- He did not change our will, but He did change our heart and our nature. "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will  take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will  give you a heart of flesh." Ezekiel 36:26,

-  He placed His Spirit in us to work with us in our battle against sin, the flesh, the world, and the devil. All of whom He defeated through His work on the cross. "In the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world." John 16:33 

- In doing so He has also given us a new nature without forcing our will."If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature/creation. Old things have passed away, behold all things have become new." 2 Corinthians 5:17 

- With the sins having been washed away by His blood, the separation between us and God our Heavenly Father is removed, and He now lives in us by His Holy Spirit as we were originally designed.

- No only so, but because sin is removed, so is death, and now in Christ Jesus we have eternal life. Hallelujah! "Jesus said to her, 'I Am the Resurrection and the Life: he that believes in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever lives and believes in me shall never die.'" John 11:25-26

- This also means the complete redemption of our body and the resurrection - 1 Corinthians 15:51-54

- He adopted us as His children, having sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts

- Furthermore, in His Son Christ Jesus, all the promises of God are yes and amen. 2 Corinthians 1:20

WHAT A GOD, WHAT A LOVE, WHAT A SALVATION!!!Sin and Death are no longer our masters by faith in Jesus Christ, but forgiveness, redemption, salvation, and eternal life have been placed at the forefront of our hope and expectation. It has all been done for us from beginning to end. Nothing can be added to it, and nothing can be taken away from it. All that is left for us is to receive it by faith and abide in Him. Praise His Holy Name!  He loves you so MUCH!!!

  HE IS THE ONLY WAY, THE ONLY TRUTH, THE ONLY LIFE! John 14:6 HE IS OUR ONLY HOPE, OUR ONLY SALVATION! Come on, let's take up our cross and follow Him!