God's Character (14)
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Please turn to Exodus 34. Ever since the beginning, God has been accused of being this angry, tyrannical, out to get us, wrathful God who enjoys sending people us to Hell. Of course, none of that is true, but those accusations tend to center around this idea that God doesn’t really like us, and because of our sin, He just wants to punish humanity. Ideas like that stem from misunderstanding the loving and compassionate nature of God and minimizing the destructive and deadly nature sin. If we can comprehend the horrific destructive and deadly consequences of sin, and why God hates sin so much, then we can comprehend how loving and compassionate He really is. Let’s spend some time looking into some “bad words” of the Bible, which will help us understand God’s character a little better.
The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
Last week we mentioned that
The root meaning of the Hebrew word forgiveness (נָשָׂא nā·śā) is the lifting up or the removal of something.
Biblically, we understand this as pardon of our spiritual debt and guilt before God. Some may be thinking what debt are you talking about? Scripture tells us that all have sinned – we have all violated a relationship with God and others (more in a moment).
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
When we violate God’s laws and fail to love Him and our fellow humans, we incur a debt.
– an unpayable debt because if we’re guilty, we cannot make ourselves unguilty.
I found this word incur to be of interest. Perhaps it will expand our understanding of wages.
According to M-W, the word
The Latin root, currere, means “to run.” Add “in,” and incur literally means “to run into.”
So, when a person sins, he or she incurs, runs into, brings down upon oneself, a deserved consequence (i.e. debt, guilt, and death – separation from God).
As I already stated, if we’re guilty, we cannot make ourselves not guilty, thus the need for forgiveness. God, through His mercy will lift up or remove our iniquity, transgression, and sin. He will justify us, declare us not guilty, and pay our debt in full through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I think Paul said it best -
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?
Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
That’s forgiveness. Last week we also looked at this word iniquity (not to be confused with integrity).
Iniquity (עָוֹן - ʿā·wōn) – The core meaning is to be bent or crooked.
Iniquity is about interacting with or treating people in a crooked, deceptive, dishonest, wicked manner? Keep that in mind as we look at transgression and sin (even though they are distinct, they overlap).
Transgression (Heb. פֶּשַׁע, pě·šǎ / Grk. Παράπτωμα, paraptōma) is betrayal of a relationship. It is the breaking or violating the trust of others.
– especially of someone who should be able to trust you. If we go back to Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, we see iniquity, sin, but mostly transgression. Paul alluded to this in Romans 5 when we wrote about Adam’s trespass or transgression. How so? Adam and Eve violated God’s trust. They betrayed God, turned their backs on His loyal love by listening to and submitting to the adversary. They elevated the serpent, the devil, to be first in their hearts. They betrayed the loving Creator. In one way or another, we have all done this.
If you have ever been betrayed, you know how horrible and devastating and deep it stings. Let’s say you go to a mechanic and he’s crooked and charges you extra for things that are not even wrong. That’s iniquity – and makes you angry. But transgression is deep and personal, because trust has been broken.
Have you ever betrayed someone else? Before you answer too quickly, understand that iniquity, transgression, and sin can be word, thought, deed – external and internal. For example, Jesus said if you’ve lusted you’ve committed adultery. So we can transgress – betray someone’s trust without their knowledge. Pornography, emotional affairs, lying ….
If you haven’t started feeling bad yet, let’s talk about sin.
Sin (Heb. חַטָּאָה, ḥǎṭ·ṭā·ʾāh / Grk. ἁμαρτία, hamartia) – means to miss the mark (The Great Commandment).
What mark? The “mark” is the Great Commandment.
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
This is the great and first commandment.
And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
So we see that
Sin is a failure to love God, others, and self genuinely, morally and truthfully.
It’s also a failure to respect and recognize our fellow humans as God’s image bearers.
But wait – there’s more.
Sin is also the elevation of self at the expense of others.
– even if it’s just a little. A.W. Tozer in his book The Pursuit of God puts it like this –
“To be specific, the self-sins are self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love, and a host of others like them.” ~ A.W. Tozer
– again, at the expense of others.
Are we done yet? No, there’s more.
We can put sin in three categories.
1) The sins that we do.
Word, thought, deed - violations against God and others. These sins need forgiven through the cross of Christ.
2) The sin we have.
This is the sinful nature that resides in the human heart and fuels our desire to do sin. This is what needs cured and crucified. We need the blood of Christ and the indwelling empowerment of the Holy Spirit to give us victory over sin. Then, there is
3) The sin that stalks.
Scripture sometimes speaks of sin, singular, as an entity or a monster that seeks our demise.
Is it not true that if you do what is right, you will be fine? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. It desires to dominate you, but you must subdue it.”
In Romans, Paul wrote about sin seizing the opportunity to kill him.
So why does God hate iniquity, transgression and sin? Because
All sin damages or destroys every relationship it touches. Something always dies.
because of sin! What is this death? It’s a separation of relationships. Sin destroys, it severs, it separates our relationship with God, with each other, with self and with creation.
but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.
Sin does not separate us from God’s love – but it does cause a division in the relationship – and all relationships.
So what do we do?
We receive the only provision from God that takes away iniquity, transgression, and sin. In the OT, it was the sacrificial system – the blood of goats, bulls, and lambs. But now, the old sacrificial system has been replaced by Jesus Christ, the lamb of God.
My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.
He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
This is all about being reconciled to God – the One who loves us. Even if you know God, sin still damages the relationship. God wants an unhindered healthy, whole, and pure relationship with Him so that we can love God, neighbor and self the way He intended. The only way that I know to be reconciled to God is through Jesus Christ.
If you’ve never met Jesus, and had your sins forgiven, lifted off and removed from you, you can meet Him today. Confess, call, repent, trust, receive this free gift of grace. Maybe today is the day to be free from sin and begin a new life in Christ.
Maybe you know Jesus, but you’ve been hiding iniquity, transgression, and sin. Because of that, God is distant, personal relationships aren’t what they used to be, life is miserable. Maybe today is the day – confess to God, confess to another … and be free from sin.
Pray
Communion
