Apologetics: All Have Sinned.

It’s April, guys, and guess which holidays are coming up in the next few weeks.

That’s right. Passover, Good Friday, and Easter are all this month, which means that I have a buttload of topics to write about concerning these three holidays. My apologies if the way that I cover them seems a little chaotic because of that. My brain was short circuiting as I was trying to figure out a fairly logical way to cover everything.

I figured the best thing to start with given Easter is this month was the discussion about sin. Though this is an essential doctrine that is brought up constantly in the Bible, it’s one that’s unfortunately been pushed to the wayside by pastors who care less about teaching the Bible and more about amassing large congregations and followings. Some even go so far as to teach that it’s not sin that separates us from God, but our shame. Throughout America and other Western Countries, we see these teachings being repeated in large and small churches alike and it’s had a terrible impact on the way Christians not only act in their personal lives, but how we see and deal with sin in general.

But why is this being taught? Why aren’t these so-called “Christian” pastors and leaders not teaching people about the fact that they’ve sinned? What does the Bible say about this? Why is it so important to understand?

The reason why this is taught is because no one wants to hear that they’ve sinned. Sin is anything that goes against what God commands. For example, God commands us not to lie, not to worship other gods, not to sleep around, etc. If we do those types of things, then we’re sinning. However, many “Christians” are no longer going to church to better understand the Bible which tells us what sin is. Instead, they’re there to be entertained, hear a happy-go-lucky Ted Talk with the name “Jesus” thrown in that makes them feel better about themselves, and hang out with people. And the doctrine of sin unfortunately does not make them feel better about themselves. The doctrine of sin convicts them and confirms what they already know deep down: that they are sinful and must repent to be put in right standing with God. The doctrine of sin does not feed the congregants’ pride and egos as much as if it wasn’t mentioned at all or the heretical doctrine that it’s our shame that separates us from God does. If you teach the doctrine of sin in your church, you’re not going to be as popular as if you didn’t teach it at all.

However, what many of these fluffy pastors do not understand is that when they remove the doctrine of sin, they basically remove the necessity of the Gospel. Throughout the Bible, starting in Genesis 3, we are told we are sinful creatures. God gave us freewill to choose Him or to choose ourselves and when presented with the option to choose ourselves and to try to elevate ourselves to God’s level (which is impossible), Adam and Eve choose to eat the fruit because they were told that in doing so, they would become like God. What actually happened is that they didn’t become like God. Instead, their actions had a ripple effect on the rest of humanity, dooming us all to be sinners left desperately searching for a way to find right standing with God to be in community with Him once more. We went from perfect to imperfect and broken.

From there, the rest of the Old Testament is the story of humanity trying to return to right standing with God. God chose the Israelites as His people through whom the Gospel could eventually be given to the Gentiles, but the Israelites were not fully saved. Though they had been given the Law by God and tried to keep it, they very quickly turned back to unfaithfulness and sin. We see this most potently in the story of the Exodus (which I’ll be talking about later in the month), when Moses leaves for 40 days to talk with God and the Israelites decide to make and worship the golden calf. Though they repent, over the centuries, they continue sinning, repenting, rinsing and repeating. God continues trying to knock some sense into their heads through the prophets, various punishments, etc. but it’s obvious that something else needs to cover for their sins. The Law, though it gives some very practical morals that we should strive to follow, is something that no one can truly keep. Paul talks a lot about this in Romans, especially in Romans 3, 7, and 8.

It’s because of this inability to be perfect by the standards that God has given us because of the sinful nature that we’re born with that we needed something to cover for us. We needed a perfect sacrifice. We needed a sacrifice that wasn’t just a temporary scapegoat (which was literally how the Levites atoned for Israel’s sin on Yom Kippur) or some other offering. What we needed was something perfect and lucky for us, God had a plan for that from the beginning. In Genesis 3:15, we read the Protoevangelium, which is the first bit of foreshadowing for Christ. It reads:

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.

Thus, sometime in 4-6 B.C., God sent His son in the form of a tiny baby born in a cave and about thirty years later, that same baby, now a grown man, was mocked, beaten within an inch of His life, and nailed to a cross where God’s wrath upon humanity was poured out upon Him so that whoever believes in Him may be forgiven of their sin and receive eternal life (John 3:16). That sacrifice was Jesus Christ, and He was the permanent solution to the problem of sin because He was not just a man, but he was also fully God. The book of Hebrews sums it up in Hebrews 10: 1-14:

The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. ² Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. ³ But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. ⁴ It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

⁵ Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said:

“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
    but a body you prepared for me;
⁶ with burnt offerings and sin offerings
    you were not pleased.
⁷ Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—
    I have come to do your will, my God.’”^[a]

⁸ First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them”—though they were offered in accordance with the law. ⁹ Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. ¹⁰ And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all.

¹¹ Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. ¹² But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, ¹³ and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. ¹⁴ For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

Does this mean that we can keep on willfully sinning after we become Christians? No. When we profess faith in Christ, it means that we should strive to be like Him. In John 8:11, Jesus tells the woman caught in adultery to “Go and sin no more.” In Hebrews 10: 26-31, it also says:

²⁶ If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, ²⁷ but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. ²⁸ Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. ²⁹ How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? ³⁰ For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”^[d] and again, “The Lord will judge his people.”^[e] 31 It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Thus, though we will still struggle in this life and will not be made perfect now, we should still strive to live according to God’s standards set for us by Christ.

Do you see now why it’s so important for churches to teach the doctrine of sin to their congregations and why it leads to bad things when it isn’t taught? Knowledge of our sin convicts us and knowledge of God’s grace through Christ leads us to repent. When this is denied or is hardly explained, then why should I repent? Why do I need Jesus as anything more than something to make me look more religious or spiritual than my neighbor?

I’ve witnessed this type of poor teaching firsthand at my first church. The entire time I was a part of their youth group, while we would talk about God and Jesus, I can’t remember a single time where we had a serious conversation about sin and what it was. It seemed to just be this random, abstract concept that the Bible would occasionally talk about. We were never really taught why we needed to be concerned about it or why God put such emphasis on it. It was just…there. That meant that the first time I really realized that I needed to repent and was a broken and sinful person back in 2021, my youth pastor (who was also the main pastor of that campus since we hadn’t been able to find a new youth pastor replace the one who had mysteriously left months before) was unable to help me. With tears in my eyes, I told him that I wanted to become a Christian but didn’t know how, and instead of talking to me about sin, sanctification, and why I needed Christ and what that all meant, he told me to tell my parents that I wanted to become a Christian and get back to him.

About three weeks later, we left that church, and I started my long, confused, and painful journey to find truth. In hindsight, I’m grateful that I didn’t become a Christian at that time. If I had, my faith likely would’ve been built on sand and easily washed away. It was better that I had to wait three years and learn the ins and outs of Christianity to accept Christ than if I had then.

Until next time,

M.J.