Sin - a Deep Seated
Infection of Nature
Sin is the reversal of the [God’s] order. It is to put ourselves first, our neighbour next, and God somewhere in the background.
Sins White as Snow
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It is important to observe that the first commandment concerns our duty to God, and
Not our duty to our neighbor. We are to love God first; and then we are to love our
Neighbour as ourselves.
So God’s order is that we put him first, others next, self last.
Sin’s characteristic is the desire to get.
THIS BASIC SELF-CENTREDNESS AFFECTS ALL OUR BEHAVIOUR.
We have high ideals but weak wills. We want to live a good life, but we are chained in the prison of our self-centredness. However much we may boast of being free, we are in reality but slaves.
Sin is a deep-seated infection of nature. It lies at the root of our personality. It controls our ego.
IN FACT, SIN IS SELF.
Indeed, the Bible is full of references to this infection of human nature or ‘original sin’.
It [original sin] is a tendency or bias of self centredness, which we inherit, which is rooted deeply in our human personality, and which manifests itself in a thousand ugly
ways.
It is not so much certain acts or habits which enslave us, but rather the evil infection from which these spring.
In this respect Jesus Christ is at issue with many modern social reformers and revolutionaries. Certainly we are all influenced for good or ill by our education and environment, and by the political and economic system under which we live. Certainly too we should seek justice, freedom and well-being for all men.
Yet it was not to a lack of these that Jesus attributed the evils of human society, but to man’s very nature, what he called our ‘heart’.
All the sins we commit are assertions of the self against either God or man. The Ten
Commandments, although a series of negative prohibitions, set forth our duty to God and others.
As we strive to keep these Commandments, he clearly shows how our human nature works against us in ways most never realize.
Mr. Stott writes:
Man’s highest destiny is to know God, to be in personal relationship with him.
This situation is tragic beyond words.
MAN IS MISSING THE DESTINY FOR WHICH GOD MADE HIM.
What man needs is a radical change of nature,what Professor H.M. Gwatkin has called
‘a change from self to unself’. Man cannot work it within himself. He cannot operate on himself.
AGAIN, HE NEEDS A SAVIOUR.’
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