Okay, so I've been seeing this really odd (read: completely false) doctrine about sin going around lately. Now, any doctrine about sin is going to be central to any form of Christian theology because the entirety of Christianity is centered on Jesus dying for the sins of His people. Why exactly did Jesus have to die for our sins? Our understanding of sin will influence our answer to this question.
The doctrine, or I suppose idea, about sin I've seen going around is basically that God's wrath is not on sinners but on sin itself. He hates sin because of what it does to us. People aren't punished because of their sin, they're punished by their sin, and that's why God hates sin.
So, what are the implications of this doctrine? Well, on one hand God is apparently so angry with sin He feels the need to take it out on people who are its apparent victims. Sin is some evil thing that God hates so much that people die in the wake of His trying to stop it. Just read the Old Testament. How many people die because of sin?
Either that or sin is not under God's sovereignty. In Acts 5 (New Testament, for those of you who disregard the Old), Ananias and Sapphira lied to God by saying they gave all of the money they earned when in reality they only gave some. What happened? They died. If God doesn't punish people for their sin, then we can only conclude that sin in its apparently mighty power killed them. It's either that or God killed them because He hates that sin punishes people. If you're confused, don't worry. So am I.
So if sin is just something that God hates because it's a bad thing that hurts people, why did Jesus have to die for it? Couldn't God have just said to us, "Hey, don't worry about it, that nasty old sin is just mean to you"? "You just made a mistake and sin punished you for it, but I'm gonna make it all better"? Or was sin just so powerful that Jesus had to go on the cross to take the punishment that mean old sin was going to give us? Did sin kill Jesus?
Let's think Biblically for a second. Isaiah 53:10 gives us the answer to this question: "Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief." Whose will was it that Jesus would die? God's will. Not only did God will it, but He is the one who crushed Him! Sin didn't kill Jesus, God did.
So the question then becomes this: "Why did God kill Jesus?" Was He just so angry at sin that He had to kill something? No. "The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). When we sin, we earn death. That's what a wage is, it's something we earn for what we do. But who do we earn it from? Sin? Satan? No, God. Romans 1:29-32 tells us that God has declared that those who sin deserve to die. Why would we deserve to die when we sin if God only hates sin because of what it does to us? Couldn't He declare that "Sin deserves to die" without having to kill sin's poor, helpless victims? Or is God so inept that He has to kill sinners because of what sin has done in order to stop it? (I have a hard time even writing that.)
Now of course sin deserves to die. The Bible tells us to kill our sin. And I'm certain God hates what sin does to us, how it separates us from Him. But is that ultimately why He hates sin?
No. God hates sin because He is a holy and just and good God. God's very nature demands justice in response to evil. He is offended by sin because it violates His perfect sense of justice and His created order. He can't even be in the presence of sin, lest those who sin die. Why else would God judge, not just sin, but the world itself and the people in it? The wages of sin is death, and God takes that very seriously. He takes it so seriously, in fact, that He sent Jesus to live a perfect life, killed Him in our place rather than kill us for our sin and, through a great mystery, exchanged our sin for His righteousness and perfection.
That leads to the next problem. Yes, God hates sin. But how does sin happen? We sin. We are the sinners. We are the objects of God's wrath. One proponent of the false doctrine of sin says that every time God's wrath is displayed, it is directed at sin, not at people. I wonder, then, how he would explain this:
Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root will be as rottenness, and their blossom go up like dust; for they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts, and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. Therefore the anger of the LORD was kindled against his people, and he stretched out his hand against them and struck them, and the mountains quaked; and their corpses were as refuse in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still. (Isaiah 5:24-25, emphasis added)
Notice here that God is clearly displaying His wrath, not just towards sin, but "his people." He is angry with people for their heinous sins, and He acts justly towards it.
Someone will probably say something about how, since that's the Old Testament, it doesn't apply to us. But does God change? Is God wrathful towards people in one era and then has no wrath in the next? Why then the final judgment? What needs to be judged if there's no wrath? What do you do with the fact that people are still going to hell? God is the one sending people to hell, not sin (Matthew 13:41-42, New Testament). Certainly it is because of sin that people are going to hell, but don't say that sin is so powerful that it sends people to hell and God has nothing to do with it.
People will probably accuse me of preaching law instead of grace or something like that. "Where's the love, man?" Well, I would say I am being loving by exposing this false and harmful teaching for what it is: wrong. People need to know the truth. For the Gospel to be taught correctly, people need to know that they deserve hell. God is, in fact, angry at sin and sinners. They need to know that God, knowing our helplessness, has given us a way to be saved and redeemed despite not deserving it: His Son, Jesus Christ. God loves sinners. It is very easy to both love and be angry with someone at the same time. Any marriage, any parent-child relationship will tell you that. People also need to know that, after being saved, they need to live like it, not to stay saved, but because they already are saved. If they refuse to live like saved people, then are they actually saved?
I'm tired of half-Gospels being preached all the time by mainstream Christianity. We need the real, full Gospel. People will not be saved otherwise. Jesus did not care about offending anyone or harming anyone's sensibilities. He taught the truth, the whole truth.
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