Speaking Well of God
Presentation 4: God and Sin: Is He a Legalist?

[Edited transcript. This article preserves aspects of a spoken delivery]

Again, a privilege to speak to you.  And also to thank you for wonderful atmosphere, especially that created by my young friend here.  Thank you so much for your singing.  I also want to thank all of you for singing that beautiful theme song that our minister of music has composed.  The concept the God of life, beginning particularly with truth, sums up very much what we are saying through this week. 

You may have been wondering about the title for tonight.  Thinking about sin and whether God is a legalist.  Sounds strange doesn’t it?

God and the Existence of Evil

Let us go to a little story from my family.  It was one of those road trips.  I was driving and in the back seat were Paul and Rebekah. Ana wasn’t there.  I think it was Paul who began the question. 

“God is all powerful, isn’t that right?  So why is there evil, and sin, and suffering in the world?”

Then our daughter Rebekah picked up the same idea.

“So where did evil come from?  If God made everything He must have made evil.”

I said, “This is going to take a long time.”

My daughter said, “The trip, or your answer?  And don’t get so close to the car in front.”

“So what is it?” Paul asked. “Is God not powerful, or didn’t He make everything, or is He not good?  Or since He’s God, He could do whatever He wanted.  And don’t swerve so much.”

“Well,” I said, “God could have done whatever He wanted.  But what kind of God would He be if He didn’t have the power to fix evil and pain and death and He didn’t?  Plus He would simply be morally arbitrary.  Can even God decide what is good and what is evil?”

They thought about that one for awhile. 

Paul said, “No.  Even God is bound by what is right and what is wrong.  It has to be true for everybody in the universe.  Even God has to stay by that, He has to observe that, even God.  You know you’re speeding up while you’re answering.”

“And you’re over the line,” Rebekah pointed out. “You’re over the line on the road.”

I said, “I’m just getting distracted.  These are heavy subjects.”

“You don’t have to look behind you when you’re talking to us either,” she responded. “So maybe God didn’t make evil, but He for sure could stop it.  Are you turning here, or just trying to get us killed?  Because when you’re talking and driving, you know, you’re doing a little more…”

“Yes, God could stop it,” I said.  “To try and say that God is not all powerful is not the answer, so if God doesn’t prevent evil then He must have a very good reason.”

Deep thought from the back seat. 

“But, then, oh.”  A lot of thinking.  Then comes a little voice from the back sat, “So what is the answer?  What is God doing?  What is the reason for the existence of evil?  And please keep your eyes on the road!  Whatever the answer to the question is, we’d like to be alive to hear it!”

An illustration of the questions we all ask.

Death and sin

I remember when our first cat died, our very first cat.  It died when we were away on holiday.  So I couldn’t be blamed for that.  I was blamed for many things as a child, and generally rightly so.  But this time we were gone, so it wasn’t my fault that the cat died.  I was very upset that the cat had died.   I couldn’t understand why.  My parents tried to explain to me about death.  Later in life I’ve had to give the same kind of talk to our daughter, when her little hamster died.  She wanted to know why he wasn’t moving, why he wouldn’t wake up.  I said, “Rebekah, he’s dead.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means he won’t ever wake up.”

This is the tragic truth of our evil, sinful world.  It has sin, evil, and death.  Why? 

Okay, we need to go back and look at Genesis, Genesis chapter 3.  Let’s begin right there in the beginning, in chapter 3 and verse 1.

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord had made.  He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the Garden?’”

Already we see a misrepresentation of what God has said! 

“The woman said to the serpent, ‘we may eat fruit from the trees in the Garden, but God did say you must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the Garden, and you must not touch it or you will die.’”

You must not eat the fruit or you will die.  What does it say exactly? 

Does it say, “You mustn’t eat it or I will kill you.  I will execute you”?

No, it simply says, you will die. Death is a consequence.  I think we really need to emphasize this point because we think that God places a penalty on disobedience.  He is not imposing a penalty from outside.  He’s saying if you eat it, as a consequence, you will surely die.  This is what happens.  What does the serpent say?  He says, “You will not surely die!”

Now we see one big difference in the great controversy.  God says something, the serpent says the opposite.  And then the serpent gives a reason why. 

“For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Is that true?  Alright, let’s take a vote, who thinks that is true?  Okay.  Who thinks it’s false?  We have a divided vote, Pastor.  Then we have a third suggestion from Pastor Conrad, who says “I don’t know.”  So I think we have to say at this point it is more complicated than simply yes and no and don’t know.  Were their eyes opened?  Well, they kind of saw more than they did before, but it wasn’t good.  Did they become like God?  That was the temptation there:

“You will be like God; God is holding something back from you and you will be just like him if you just take the fruit.” 

Did they end up knowing good and evil?  Yes, they knew good and they knew evil.  And the serpent suggests that that’s what God knows good and evil.  As if God had created good and evil.  You see how subtle the serpent is?  There is a whole mixture in here of truth and of error.  In the end, Eve and then Adam chose to believe the serpent and chose to disbelieve in God. 

First sin

Alright, now let me ask another question.  Is this the first time that someone sinned?  Yes? No, yes, no. 

No!  You’re good Bible students.  We need to go to Isaiah 14 and look at verses 13 and 14.  This is under the story of the king of Babylon.  But if you look at the context, it doesn’t apply to the king of Babylon.  Let’s look at verse, let’s start at verse 12.

“O how you have fallen from Heaven.”  What did Jesus say?  He says he saw—what? 

“I saw Satan falling from Heaven.” 

This is the one who’s fallen from Heaven.  What is his name?  Morning Star.  Now we maybe need to do a little bit of Latin.  Lucifer, the one who brings light.  You know, why do we call Lucifer the one who brings light?  Isn’t that one of the names of the devil?  Lucifer.  It does mean the one who brings light.  That was his name before.  Morning Star, Son of the Dawn. 

Verse 13, “You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven, I will raise my throne above the stars of God, I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain.  I will ascend above the tops of the mountains,” verse 14, “I will make myself like the most High.”

What is Lucifer trying to do?  He’s trying to take the place of God.  Now here we have an incredible insight as to what sin really is.  It is this insane idea that I can do what God does.  I can rule, I can be the one in charge and it’s all about me.  It’s all about who I am, it’s about me. 

You remember when Jesus was taken out there, into the desert, in the temptations, and the devil took Him up onto a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world. 

“I will give you all this,” says the devil, “If you will bow down and worship me.” 

Who is Jesus?  Jesus is God.  Is God going to bow down and worship Satan?  How crazy can you be?  What does the devil want?  He wants God to worship him.  Do we begin to see what sin and evil is all about? 

The devil claims to know what’s best and says to Adam and Eve, “God is a liar.” 

The devil says that God can’t be trusted; in fact, He should be opposed and fought against.  The devil paints God with the devil’s character.  As a result, the devil begins this whole war that begins in Heaven and continues here on this Earth.

So now, if you were God what would you do?  Hm.  We’ve got a problem.  Maybe we could wipe Lucifer out, destroy him completely.  But you have everybody else watching.  Would they understand?  They have already seen the controversy begin.  They know what Lucifer has been saying.  Imagine if suddenly Lucifer isn’t there anymore.  They go to God and ask,

“God, what happened to Lucifer?”

“Don’t ask any questions.”

So they don’t ask any questions.  But they still talk about it. 

“Wonder what happened to Lucifer.  One day he’s here, then he’s not.  Do you remember what he used to talk about?  Maybe God didn’t like that.  So if you do things that God doesn’t like suddenly, poof, you’re gone.  Better do what He says; better do exactly what God says.”

You begin to see how the problem could develop and continue on.  Besides, I don’t believe that’s the kind of person God would be anyway.  He wants to be understood, He wants everybody to see what He’s truly like. 

So, God says, rather like I said in the car in the beginning, “This is going to take a long time.”  Because when it is God who is criticized and charged with acting wrongly, He simply can’t say, “Trust me.” 

That’s the problem.  You have beings in the universe who don’t trust Him.  So God has to take this long time of demonstration to show us what sin really is and what the result will be.  And this is why it is so important for us to understand what sin is so that we can understand how God makes it right. 

Sin and consequences

Okay, now you’re all good Bible students, so you all know the answer to this particular question.  What is sin?  Give me a Bible text.  Sin is the transgression of the law, right?  So when Adam and Eve broke the law, God punished them, right? 

Well, remember what we said back there in Genesis 3.  In 1 John 3:4 you can translate that that sin is law-less-ness.  It’s not so much you’re breaking the law, it’s that you choose to live without a law.  It’s as if you don’t even care what the law says.  It’s a bit like the cowboy stories, the cowboy movies from America?  You have all these people out on the frontier, there is no law.  Or the only law is the law of the gun.  That’s lawlessness. 

There’s another text that can help us here.  And that’s Romans 14:23:  “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” 

If it’s not of faith, it’s sin.  What is faith?  Faith is trusting God, yes?  So whatever is not of trusting God is sin.  So what is sin?  Distrust in God.  Which is what we saw right back there in the beginning in Genesis 3—because Eve and then Adam distrusted God and trusted the serpent. 

Okay, let’s see how God then is going to work out this issue of sin and evil.  Let’s look at another text—Matthew 25.  This is talking about what happens in the end to those who are wicked.  Right at the end of Matthew 25, the very last verse, verse 46.

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” 

Eternal life, how long is that?  Forever and ever and ever.  And that punishment, how long is that?  Forever, and ever and ever, that’s what it says.  I thought we didn’t believe in hell, Pastor.  Do we believe in eternal torment?  No we don’t.  So what do we do with a verse like this, eternal punishment?  It depends on what the punishment is.  For it’s the consequence; it’s not talking primarily about the time. 

What was the punishment, if you want to call it, that that the devil spoke about?  God said what? 

“You will surely die.” 

So it’s talking about the punishment that is death.  Now this end-time death, how long does it last?  It lasts forever.  It simply says, if you’re dead, you’re dead forever.  It doesn’t say that you’re going to be alive and experiencing pain forever.  It’s also not saying that this is a consequence of God coming and executing people. 

Sin pays a wage, what is it?   Death.  And the gift of God is eternal life (Romans 6:23).  That’s the difference.  If we think, then, that sin brings the consequence of death, how does God fix the problem of sin?  We’re going to die, all of us.  It’s a bit depressing, isn’t it?  I’m not trying to depress you here this evening.  However if this problem is not fixed, then there is no hope.  But God comes in and gives us His gift which is eternal life.  He’s not interested in executing punishment on us.  If He does nothing we die.  That’s the truth.  But if He comes in and gives us life, if He comes in and welcomes us back into that relationship with Him, the source of life, then that relationship is restored and we have that relationship with Him forever. 

Damaged pirates

I remember playing a game with my brother and sister.  We were pirates, pirates of the Caribbean.  And in my parent’s bedroom there was a wonderful piece of furniture that my mother had.  It had lots of drawers in it you could pull out, large drawers.  And it had a really beautiful, solid glass top to it.  I was up on the ship saying, “Land ho!” And “avast ye landlubbers!”  And “We’re the pirates!”  We would attack the Spanish Galleons, (not the Portuguese ones!), the Spanish Galleons.  We would capture them and we’d take all their treasure. 

After we had finished all our pirating we got into our bunks which were the drawers we pulled out. We got into our bunks and went to sleep.  The problem was when the three of us got into the drawers on the front, all the weight was on the front.  When we all got in the front, you know what’s going to happen...  You can see it!  The whole thing comes crashing down over us, and this whole, thick piece of glass comes right down on top of us.  It smashes into a thousand pieces on our heads.  You don’t feel so much like being a bold and powerful pirate anymore. 

“Mom, Dad, help!”

They had already heard the crash.  They come running up the stairs to see what’s happening.  They look and see what’s happened to their beloved offspring, covered in all this sharp glass. 

“Don’t move!” they shout.

My father runs downstairs and gets the vacuum cleaner.  He cleans it all up, he sucks up all the glass he can.  My mother is picking all these pieces of glass out of our hair.  In the end we are saved.  But we had to sit there for a long time, in a very unpleasant situation.  I’ve thought about that afterwards.  We are like that, aren’t we, all of us, aren’t we kind of shipwrecked like pirates covered in broken glass?  We can’t help ourselves.  Someone has to come in from the outside to rescue us.  There was a consequence to what we did.  My parents didn’t have to come in and punish us.  We were sitting there covered in punishment.  It had an automatic result.  Just like sin has an automatic result. 

When we have the Son, we have life.  He heals the damage that sin has caused.  He wins us back to love and to trust.  What a wonderful, loving Heavenly Father!  Let’s pray.

Heavenly Father we recognize that we are in that terrible situation covered in the sharp splinters of sin.  Only you can come in and rescue us and heal us.  We come to you again this evening with our broken hearts, with all the pain, with all our lack of love asking you to heal us, to make us one with you once again.  And as we trust in you, you will heal us from sin and evil and to give us eternal life together with you.  May we all be there, we pray in Jesus name, Amen.

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