“In very many evangelical and confessionally Reformed churches these days, sin is a rare topic.” This is the conclusion of Dr Cornelius Plantinga,1 an American academic. Indeed, we are told that “he sees ‘less and less’ sin-related material every year”. Even if these statements do not come as a real surprise, they ought to be matter of serious concern. The idea of sin is by no means a side issue in the Bible. The actual word sin is used 448 times, and if we include variants such as sinned, the figure rises to 833. If we were to add on the usage of words such as iniquity and transgression, the number would be significantly higher.
Besides, if the idea of sin is neglected in public worship, much that God has revealed about Himself will of necessity be neglected. He describes Himself as “the high and lofty One . . . whose name is Holy” (Is 57:15), and holiness is a total contrast to sin. And Habakkuk, an inspired prophet, thus addressed the Lord: “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity” (1:13). Habakkuk recognised God’s perfect purity, so that He could not look on – or, have regard to – iniquity. Now, it is obvious that human behaviour and attitudes are out of line with God’s purity; in other words, human behaviour and attitudes are sinful. Preachers are seriously neglecting their duty when they do not set before their hearers both the holiness of God and the seriousness and the danger of sin.
God is our Creator and so He has a right to our entire obedience; He has a right to expect from us perfect obedience to every detail of His law – and His law reflects the holiness of His nature. He is God, the supreme Being, and we are to honour Him by seeking to keep all His commandments. Every departure that we make, even from the least detail of these commands, is sin. One of Solomon’s Proverbs tells us that “the thought of foolishness is sin” (24:9) – every foolish thought, every thought that does not fully reflect the infinite wisdom of God revealed in Scripture, is sinful. What a sense we would have of the seriousness of sin if we had even a small insight into the infinite holiness of the great and glorious Being who made us!
1Reported in an article in Christian Post and reproduced on the Banner of Truth website.
Dr Plantinga examined the content of contemporary songs used in public worship and noted that there are “very few penitential songs”. He concluded that the “biblical tradition of lament, which is all through the prophets and the Psalms is gone, just not there”. But clearly, if present-day churches were to confine themselves to the use of Psalms in their worship – and scriptural principles indicate that they ought to – they would be much less likely to drift away so drastically from a biblical stance in other parts of their services. How deficient public praise must be where Psalm 51, for instance, is never sung!
In view of what he has said, it is not surprising that Dr Platinga believes that “the Apostle Paul would not feel welcome in many Evangelical churches today”. Paul would have too much to say about sin for such churches to receive his teaching warmly; it would leave congregations feeling thoroughly uncomfortable – unless the Holy Spirit was to apply, with remarkable power, the truth Paul proclaimed, convicting them of the sinfulness of their hearts and lives.
How would people in the average Evangelical congregation today react to Paul emphasising, as in Romans 3: “We have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin”? How would they react to him going on to give a sustained series of Old Testament quotations on the subject of sin: “There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. . . . And the way of peace have they not known: there is no fear of God before their eyes”? Paul, was not merely giving a description of other people; he very much included himself – calling himself elsewhere the “chief” of sinners (1 Tim 1:15). Nor was it merely a theoretical discussion; it had a practical aim: he was anxious that people would realise something of the serious effects of sin and its eternal consequences and so would seek the salvation that God has provided in Christ.
Perhaps no other generation of preachers has been so inclined to hold back on the doctrine of sin as ours. Dr Platinga believes that sin is so much neglected because Evangelical churches “avoid topics that may turn off non-Christians or new Christians”. This sounds like an unfaithful willingness to give in to desires similar to those expressed in Isaiah’s time: “Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits” (Is 30:10). They wanted to hear things which were smooth and left them feeling comfortable in their sins, even although these prophecies would be deceitful and false – and dangerous.
If people are turned off by confession of sin in prayer or by teaching about
it in a sermon, Paul would not recognise them as true Christians, nor would the pure eye of the all-knowing God, who searches the heart. Non-Christians too need to hear about sin; they need to believe that “it is an evil thing and bitter” to sin against God; otherwise they will never feel their need of Christ; they will never flee to Him; and they will never be saved. What did Paul tell his non-Christians hearers in Athens? He declared pointedly: God “now commandeth all men every where to repent [from sin]: because He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness” (Acts 17: 30,31). True, not many believed, “some mocked” and others, unbelievingly, said they would hear Paul on another occasion. But some did believe, and one thing should be obvious: had they not heard about sin and the divine call to repent, no one in Athens would have found salvation.
Perhaps it does not need to be pointed out that John Calvin too preached plainly the doctrine of sin. Yet let us hear him, as he expounds 1 Timothy 1:15. “Although men be ignorant,” he insists, “yet have they for all that no excuse before God but . . . their sin and iniquity is so horrible that they must needs confess that He might justly cast out His lightnings against them”.2
For another example, let us take Charles H Spurgeon. Preaching on Luke 7:42, in a sermon entitled, “Bankrupt Sinners Discharged”, he declared, “We have left undone the things we ought to have done, and we have done the things we ought not to have done, and . . . we now stand liable to penalty, yea, we are condemned already. There is due to us from God, in vindication of His broken law, both suffering and death; and in the Word of God we find that the righteous penalty for sin is something utterly overwhelming.”
Again, a little later in the same sermon: “When I think of my life it seems to be like the sea, made up of innumerable waves of sin; or like the seashore, constituted of sands that cannot be weighed nor counted. My faults are utterly innumerable, and each one deserving death eternal. Our sins, our heavy sins, sins against light and knowledge, our foul sins, our repeated sins, our aggravated sins, our sins against our parents, our sins against all our relationships, our sins against our God, our sins with the body, our sins with the mind, our sins of forgetfulness, our sins of thought, our sins of imagination – who can reckon them up in order unto God?”3
We may be told that men like Paul and Calvin and Spurgeon, and many others that could be quoted, who laid such unwelcome emphasis on sin, belong to the distant past while we live in another age. But the fundamental fact is, as the Psalmist expressed it to God: “Thy word is true from the begin-
2 John Calvin’s Sermons on Timothy and Titus, Banner of Truth reprint, 1983, p 82.
3 C H Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Banner of Truth reprint, 1971, vol 29, pp 495,6.
ning: and every one of Thy righteous judgements endureth for ever” (Ps 119:160); so, in particular, all God’s pronouncements about sin will endure for ever; they are as true and as relevant today as they have ever been. God has not changed; His justice has not changed; He will, and must, punish sin. We ought to take these facts seriously.
God, in His kindness, is also making known to us the way of deliverance – through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died for sinners and, in dying, bore away their guilt. We should react to a Scripture verse, or a sermon, about sin much as we would expect people to react to the realisation that they have a serious illness: they should face up to the fact and seek a cure immediately, if that is available. And, as just stated, there is a cure for sin, through Christ Jesus.
The Bible tells us: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn 1:8,9). So, recognising the evil of our sin and its consequences, we are to confess it to God – at the same time looking for deliverance to Christ Jesus, as the one Saviour whom God has appointed. Christ gave the assurance: “Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out” (Jn 6:37).
Thus Samuel Miller, one of the first professors in Princeton Seminary, was on a solid scriptural footing when he spoke as follows to what was presumably a group of preachers: “Be not afraid to tell men, with all plainness, of their total depravity by nature and of that state of condemnation and wrath under which they lie while strangers to the grace of Christ. Be not afraid to sound in their ears the thunders of Sinai, as well as the still small voice of Calvary. Be not backward to proclaim the humbling and self-denying, but most glorious, doctrines of free and sovereign grace, however unpalatable they may be to some, or whatever your fidelity may cost you. Warn men boldly of every danger. Strive to bring them off from every false foundation. Give them no rest till they are brought humbled and trembling to the foot of the cross; and then, and not till then, pour into their bleeding wounds the oil of consolation, the balm of heavenly grace.”4
This is the kind of preaching that every congregation needs if the Church is not to degenerate everywhere into an institution where everyone is encouraged to feel good about themselves regardless of the lost eternity to which all unrepentant sinners are going. May God grant that such preaching would again become widespread and that the Holy Spirit would apply it to the conviction and conversion of multitudes of sinners!
4Quoted in James M Garretson, An Able and Faithful Ministry: Samuel Miller and the Pastoral Office, Reformation Heritage Books, 2014, p 34.