The Consequences of Not Taking Sin Seriously

Holiness is not an optional feature of the Christian life; failing to grow in righteousness will leave us outside the Promised Land.

Sin is No Big Deal, Right?

Rep. Nancy Mace took a brief turn through the news cycle recently when she joked about skipping sex with her fiancé so she could make it to the South Carolina Prayer Breakfast on time. The “controversy,” of course, was that Christians aren’t supposed to engage in such activities, even with those to whom they are engaged. I put the word controversy in quotes because of just how little it actually caused. The fact is that well over 50% of Christians in America see absolutely nothing wrong with engaging in premarital sex, even when the participants are not in a committed relationship.

It is important to note here that this is not necessarily to say that these Christians don’t consider premarital sex a sin. It’s that they don’t consider sinning all that big a deal.

For example, following the event, Mace tweeted, “I go to Church because I am a sinner, not a saint.” That is all well and good. (And I understand that Mace is a young Christian who is still learning and growing and I am very thankful for what God has done in her life the last few years.) However, the fact that she would think nothing of joking this way at a prayer breakfast about her living situation shows that she has imbibed the spirit of the seeker sensitive movement of which her Church is a part. It is one that uses lines such as “I understand we all fall sometimes, but God is about grace, not judgment, right? So I cut a few ethical corners here and there, God still loves me. As the bumper sticker says, ‘Christians aren’t perfect just forgiven.’”

I am very familiar with this attitude. As I explained previously, it is one I held for much of my youth. The underlying assumption is that it does not matter if you sin because sin has no ultimate significance. Sin does not keep you from having a relationship with God, and it certainly doesn’t keep you from getting to Heaven, so why worry about it?

This is a dangerous lie.

The Necessity of Holiness

I spent the last post arguing that the main point of the law is character development and I concluded by saying that holiness is an “essential part of our journey.” The post finished with a quote from the apostle Peter, who explains in his second letter that we should be adding righteous character qualities to our lives (2 Pet. 1:3-9). Notice that Peter concludes that passage by emphasizing just how essential it is to continue this process:

Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (2 Pet. 1:10-11).

According to Peter, as long as you are growing in righteousness, you will never fall and will receive a rich welcome into Heaven. But what is the implication if you are not becoming like Jesus? A plain-sense reading of the text suggests that those who do not grow in righteousness are in danger of falling and not receiving a rich welcome in the eternal Kingdom. I believe that is correct. In explaining the benefits of growing in righteousness, Peter is also issuing a warning about the peril of not growing in righteousness.

In this post I will expand on this warning and argue that the reason growing in righteousness is so important is that sin, at any stage in your journey to the Promised Land, causes a rift in your relationship with God and puts you in danger of not making it into Heaven. Only those who persevere in their relationship with God and thereby grow in holiness all the way to the end of the expedition get in.

Warnings from the Exodus Story

As it has throughout our study, the Exodus story provides us with our primary illustration of this truth. Many Israelites started out on the journey to the Promised Land, but very few actually finished and made it in. Even though these Hebrews escaped Egypt, passed through the Red Sea and experienced God’s miraculous provision in the desert, sin brought them down. As Paul clearly explains, this is an illustration of what can happen to Christians who allow sin to keep them from finishing the journey. After calling on his readers to run the race to the end and fight the war in such a way as to win rather than to lose, he explains why:

For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert.

Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry.” We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did – and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. We should not test the Lord, as some of them did – and were killed by snakes. And do not grumble, as some of them did – and were killed by the destroying angel.

These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! (1 Cor. 10:1-12)

Here Paul clearly uses the Exodus story to illustrate the gospel. He notes that the Israelite’s journey through the Red Sea was symbolic of the baptism that a Christian undergoes at the beginning of his or her journey. To extend the allegory a bit further, in order to get to the Promised Land, the Israelites also had to be freed from the power of Pharaoh and the penalty of God’s judgment and walk out of Egypt under the blood of the lamb. To get to Heaven we need to be freed from Satan’s power and the penalty of God’s judgment by getting under the blood of our lamb, Jesus. Baptism begins the next stage of the journey home, just as the Israelites were baptized in the Red Sea as they began a new stage in their journey. After making these connections, Paul explicitly states that we are to learn from the Israelites’ example so that we don’t repeat their mistake and “fall.” Paul doesn’t want us to end up dead in the wilderness rather than home in the Promised Land.

So what exactly did the Israelites do? Paul references several events, beginning with perhaps the most severe. “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry” is a quote from Exodus 32, a chapter explaining what happened as the people were waiting for Moses to come down from Mount Sinai. They built the golden calf. The episode concludes with Moses trying to make atonement for the people.

The next day Moses said to the people, “You have committed a great sin. But now I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.”

So Moses went back to the LORD and said, “Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold. But now, please forgive their sin—but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.”

The LORD replied to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book. Now go, lead the people to the place I spoke of, and my angel will go before you. However, when the time comes for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin.”

And the LORD struck the people with a plague because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made. (Exo. 32:1-35)

The people succumbed to idolatry and God blotted them out of his book. They made it out of Egypt, but they died in the desert due to sin. Why was God so harsh? The bottom line is that sin leads to death. Always.

Sin Equals Death

Satan’s biggest lie is that if we sin we “will not surely die” (Gen. 3:4). He used it on Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and has continued to try it on every person since. As our first parents and the Israelites learned the hard way, Satan is wrong. The truth is, “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).

Relationships are based on a covenant of trust. Breaking that covenant breaks relationship. Sinning against God breaks relationship with him in the same way that lying to or cheating on one’s spouse breaks relationship with him or her. One cannot commit adultery and think that everything is going to remain all right. Trust has been broken and a schism is the result. This is exactly what happens when we sin against God. Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden and the Children of Israel were not allowed to enter the Promised Land. Breaking relationship with God keeps us from his presence and being out of the presence of God is hell. Literally.

Now you might say, “But, Don, look at the rest of Romans 6:23. The wages of sin may be death, but ‘the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ Doesn’t that mean that our sin is now covered, or at least can be covered, by Jesus?”

This idea is common and often arises in the context of using this text as an evangelistic tool. People quote it to potential converts in explaining that although everyone sins and is deserving of death, God gives Christians the gift of eternal life through Jesus instead.

This is a severe misuse of this text. These teachers are essentially paraphrasing the verse something like this: “The wages of sin for an unbeliever is death, but a Christian can sin without consequence because of Jesus.” The only way to reach this understanding is to insert a conditional timeline to the principle that sin equals death: “The wages of sin used to be death for me, but since I came to Jesus I have become exempt from that rule.”

These interpretations are completely unwarranted and in fact result in a teaching that is exactly the opposite of what Paul intended. Paul is not telling non-Christians that they can escape the penalty of current sins by turning to Jesus. He is writing to Christians with a warning that they are not to use God’s grace as a license to sin because the unchangeable rule of the universe is that sin leads to death! This becomes apparent when you look at the rest of Romans 6.

You No Longer Have to Sin, So Don’t

Paul’s argument in the first part of Romans 6 can be summarized, “Since Christ has enabled us to live righteous lives we should no longer sin.” Again and again Paul rails against sin, explaining that since Christ has set us free, we should no longer live as slaves.

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin – because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. (Rom. 6:1-14)

Paul then adds some serious emphasis to his point by reminding his readers of the consequences of sin. He points out that the penalty for sin is still the same as it always has been: death. Since nobody should want death, especially when life is offered to them through Jesus, they should stop sinning and accept life. As you read the rest of the passage, notice the formula Paul uses in contrasting our two options:

Sin = Separation from God (Death)

Grace (Being Set Free) = Obedience, Righteousness, Holiness = Eternal Life

Sin is always associated directly with death, and God’s grace is always associated directly with righteousness, which is linked directly to eternal life.

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey – whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 6:15-23)

So Paul’s full argument in Romans 6 is that Jesus has set us free from having to sin, which is good because sin leads to death. Because of Jesus’ work, we are now able to live righteously, which is also good, because holiness leads to eternal life. Therefore, we should choose life by living holy lives! Don’t sin, lest we die!

The fact is, sin leads to death; it separates us from God. This is a hard and fast rule of the universe. It applies to everyone. As Isaiah explained (to believers), “Your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you” (Isa. 59:2). That is why the writer of Hebrews can say, “Without holiness, no one will see the Lord”(Heb. 12:14, emphasis mine).

It is easy to emphasize the importance of God’s forgiveness in salvation, but we must not forget that forgiveness is just the first step in the process. Becoming holy is part of the plan, too. Jesus didn’t come just to forgive sin; he came to eradicate it. His goal for us is holiness.

For example, when faced with a woman caught in adultery, Jesus didn’t condemn her. However, he didn’t tell her that everything was alright, either. Sin was her problem and, he told her to get rid of it. (John 8:7-11)

Jesus had a similar message for the man he healed at the pool of Bethesda. Jesus said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you” (John 5:14 ).

Jesus saw the danger of sin so clearly that he even recommended, hyperbolically, self-mutilation as a reasonable alternative. After all, it is better to lose a hand than be sent to hell.

If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. (Matthew 5:29-30)

Here, Jesus clearly equated sinning with entering Hell. If Hell is defined as separation from God, and sin separates, then Jesus was making the point of this article exactly.

Jesus’ forgiveness is always accompanied by a call to holiness. It is one thing to make it through Passover, to be covered by the blood of the lamb and escape punishment. It is quite another thing to make it across the wilderness. The wilderness is the spiritual formation part of the journey, where we are made into the type of person God wants us to be. The two segments of the journey can never be separated. Eternal life cannot be obtained by stopping at Passover or the Red Sea or Mount Sinai. We must not stop at being forgiven by Jesus. We must also become holy.

But What About John 3:16?

Depending on your theological background, you now might be thinking, “But what about the most famous verse in the Bible? What about John 3:16: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’? There doesn’t seem to be anything about holiness in there.”

There is, actually, if you look at the context. This verse is in a passage in which Jesus explains to Nicodemus what is required for eternal life. Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born again (John 3:3). By this Jesus meant that Nicodemus had to become a completely new person, one who was born of the spirit rather than flesh (John 3:5-7). This is what we talked about in a previous post about the nature of salvation.

God’s intent is that we be holy. There is no contingency in his mission for this not to take place. There is no backup route to the Promised Land for those who do not become righteous. The Nicodemus passage concludes with stark moral language contrasting those who get eternal life with those who don’t. Those who hang on to their evil deeds are left in the darkness.

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God. (John 3:19-21)

Is righteousness important? Yes! Is sin a big deal? Yes! These verses from John 3 state the exact formula we talked about from Romans 6. They simply add some more descriptive terminology to it.

     Sin (Living According to Flesh) = Separation from God (Death)

     Grace (Being Born Again, Living According to the Spirit) = Holiness = Eternal Life

The fact that living by the Spirit is characterized by holiness is a strong New Testament theme. For instance, Paul contrasts life in the flesh and life in the spirit by focusing on the different moral characteristics of each.

So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.

The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. (Gal. 5:16-24)

The mark of a true follower of Christ, one who is living by the Spirit, is holiness. On the other hand, a life lived apart from the Spirit is easily discernible by its unrighteousness. Notice the strong language of Ephesians 5. Paul makes a point of declaring that immoral people do not get into the Kingdom, and for this reason we should strive to live righteously by the Spirit.

Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person – such a man is an idolater – has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. Therefore do not be partners with them.

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said: “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. (Eph. 5:1-18)

In the second to last chapter in the Bible, Jesus explains who will inherit eternal life and who will not. Notice the categories he uses. Those who overcome get the Kingdom while the wicked are sent to Hell. Jesus again makes plain that righteousness is imperative, and sin cannot be tolerated.

[Jesus] said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars – their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” (Rev. 21:6-8)

“But Nobody’s Perfect”

Before moving on, I want to address one more possible objection to the argument presented in this article. You might be thinking something like this: “But Don, this picture is too bleak. Nobody’s perfect. We all sin. According to your logic, we are all going to end up in Hell.”

Well, hopefully not. It is certainly true that everyone sins. It is also true that some of these sinners will go to Heaven. The key to reconciling this apparent contradiction is to remember that broken relationships can be restored through confession and forgiveness. While sin separates us from God, repentant confession of that sin combined with God’s forgiveness enables that relationship to continue growing.

The Apostle John describes how this works in his first epistle. In the passage below, he starts by affirming the point we have been making about the necessity of righteousness.

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (1 John 1:5-7)

John says that true believers walk in the light and are purified from sin. Those who continue their life of unrighteousness do not live in the light or by the truth. Basically, John argues that Christians should be living holy lives. However, he realizes that nobody is perfect and anticipates the objection we have raised, so he explains what to do when we fall short: confess our sins.

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense – 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. (1 John 1:8-2:2).

John tells us to deal with sin by admitting to God that we are sinners and throwing ourselves on his mercy, making use of the reconciliation that is now possible through Jesus. This act of confession is more than just telling God the facts of our situation, of course. The type of confession John is talking about flows from a penitent heart. There is no room here for the kind of “confession” that says “I can do whatever I want on Friday night because Saturday I will confess and be forgiven.” That is to use God’s grace as a license for sin and is strongly condemned (see our discussion on Romans 6 above). The proper confessional attitude is exemplified by a tax collector in one of Jesus’ parables:

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men – robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:9-14)

Everyone who confesses their sins in the manner of the tax collector will have those sins forgiven. John wants us to know that. However, as soon as he has made that point, he makes sure that we understand that this concession to the reality of sin is not a license to continue in sin. Right after explaining confession, John goes back to his main point: don’t sin. Although we have an avenue for forgiveness in the event of sin, the bottom line is that a lifestyle of sin is a mark of an unbeliever and must not be tolerated by a follower of Christ. The very next passage in the epistle makes this clear:

We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. (1 John 2:3-6)

Nobody is perfect. However, we should all be striving for perfection. Becoming holy is a process, and the mark of a true believer is progressively greater righteousness. We may not be completely righteous, but we should be becoming more and more righteous. This is the point Peter makes in the passage with which we concluded the last chapter:

Make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:5-8)

We should have Paul’s attitude:

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 3:7-14)

Paul was striving to be perfect. He had not become perfect yet, but nothing less would satisfy. Paul wanted to be like Christ.

Sinful acts are symptomatic of an improper heart condition and constant exhibition of these acts without confession and repentance shows that a person is not being changed. On the other hand, a righteous person is continually growing in holiness and is truly repentant when sin occurs. In fact, a penitent heart shows that one is truly hungering and thirsting for righteousness.

Jesus came to free us not only from the penalty of sin, but from the power of sin as well. He wants to make you and me into a certain type of person. That is what the journey is all about. Those that don’t take sin seriously don’t finish it.