Chapter.8
The freedom from sin is in the discovery of
the awesome meaning and parameters of THE TRUTH (Jn.8:32). The biggest lie about sin is that it is merely
something you do or don’t do. Israel
found that confessing specific sins over the blood of bulls and goats did not free them from sin. God intended
these acts of sacrificing animals as atonement for their sins to be merely an
outward sign of inward love for God (Ps.51:17).
All the 10,000 some laws, rituals and ceremonies were “a shadow” of the New
Testament revelation which has now been revealed in Christ (Heb.8:5/Col.2:17).
Striving
to not sin will never make your nature suitable for God (Rom.3:20/Heb.7:18-19). You will always fall short. Yes, sin is
the violation of God’s Law. It was Adam and Eve’s violation of God’s Word, in
the past, which was the FIRST act of sin. However, this one act brought about
consequences which totally and completely ravaged and defiled the nature and
existence of man for all time. Man’s once perfect being is now totally
imperfect. You and I are born with the hideous and monstrous NATURE of Adam (Ps.51:5). Before the fall our nature was in
the image of God. After the fall man became monstrous, we are now more like a
beast than like God (2Pt.3:12/Ps.49:20).
Have
you ever blasted somebody for doing something stupid only to see yourself do
exactly the same thing? Your behavior toward that person and against that
person exposes an identical similarity with the nature of that person. All men
are exactly the same by nature because all men have the same exact nature of
Adam. From the top of you head to the bottom of your feet you are living in a
package of decaying flesh that is the production of Adam’s sin. The only thing
left-over from the fall that is worthwhile is the conscience, or inner awareness
of God, which cannot save you. It is only meant to bear witness to your sin and
to God’s holiness (Rom.1:19/2:14). Sin is
not “out there”. It can be seen by simply looking in a mirror. Pride, sloth,
depression and decay are blatant. Sin is not an abstract concept. There is an
actual physical appearance and feeling of “swelling up” in the sin of pride (Ps.10:4/73:6).
When
people ask how I know they are a depressed sinner, aside from the witness of
their own conscience and the revelation of the Bible, I simply tell them to
look in the mirror. The eyes of depression and the face of arrogance are
obvious (Mt.6:22). This “swelling up” is
the essence of self-deification (Is.2:17).
It is your immediate reaction whenever you are confronted with God’s truth. It
was the immediate sense Adam had, after he sinned, in defending himself to God (Gen.3:10).
Man
had never before known shame. This shame caused him then and you now, to HIDE and deny the wickedness of
your sinful nature. Thus, Adam was the originator and master conspirator of the
conspiracy. The ATTITUDE to hide and deny your wickedness is the conspiracy! It
is the all our endeavor to trivialize
your sin in the Presence of God (Gen.3:8-10/Ps.51:4).
Eve
was the mother of pretense and image. All your daily expressions are some
variation of her original defiance. They are all an attempt to project the lie
that you are “not that bad of a
person”. Pride is the source of all your problems. It drives and blinds you.
Your every gesture, mannerism and intonation is seeking to convince yourself,
and others, that you are something that you are not. You may not say “black is
white!” but that’s exactly what you think about your own heart.
People think that lying or exaggeration is not
that serious but Jesus says the source of all lies is SATAN (Jn.8:44/Eph.4:25). This is why the light of
truth is so essential for real salvation (Jn.17:17,8:32/Ps.51:6).
If you want to “understand” sin than you must contemplate the ways of
Adam and Eve. You must see Adam’s thinking in you and your attitude in him. It
is our basic instinct to deny the depths of our sin. It is our adamic
nature. He said “I heard the sound of
Thee in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself” (Gen.3:10).
You are driven deep, deep within by a terrible fear of God’s punishment (1Jn.4:18/Rom.8:15). It is like a desperate
criminal fleeing the scene of a horrendous crime. You are afraid of God because
your conscience tells you that you should
be afraid. You are intimately aware of the terrible evil within you even
though you do not understand it. Shame saturates every cell in our body to such
an extent that we are compelled to hide our physical nakedness.
Sin is
entrenched in our inescapable nature. It is ingrained into our very genes at birth (Rm.5:12/Ps.51:5). Every molecule in our body
is saturated with this frustrated defiance.
I was always taught, like you, that Adam and
Eve’s sin was something done in the past and had only a theoretical
correspondence to me today. I didn’t think of my daily routine, of decisions
and feelings, as an ongoing expression of their rebellion. I didn’t realize
that my reactions, and interactions with others, are born out of their nature
within me. I never thought of my natural life today as simply an extension of
their rebellion back then. I simply thought “Hey this is my life and I’m doing
what I want to”. Exactly! As a direct offspring of Adam everything we think is born out of SELF-LIFE. I never understood
that EGO IS SIN!
The
word ego is a Greek pronoun(“eyo” )which means “I AM”. Do you realize that
before Adam and Eve sinned there was no such thing as an EGO?! Think about
that! There was no self-life. It is impossible to even imagine not having
self-awareness in your present state. Satan so defiled man’s nature with sin
that you can not conceive, without regeneration, of God-consciousness. Satan
corrupted man with the very thing that caused him to be thrown out of heaven SELF-PRIDE(Is.14:11/Ez.28). the essence of all rebellion
says “I can be like God without God”7. >In the Christian context it is “I
can be like Christ without the cross of Christ”.>
atan
knew that God’s holiness would be SO “offended” by Adam’s new found
self-autonomous nature, that God would have to turn away from man. The word sin
means “offense” or “missing the mark”. You are an offense to God by tour very
ego-centered nature (Rom.9:13)!
Everything
you do, by nature, misses the intended mark of God’s Perfection.
It doesn’t matter how “right” it might feel or appear. Because it is born out
of your proud nature it is and offense to God. He despises the “I am” which
Adam said to him in the Garden and today rules your every moment by moment. All
your behavior in life ‘misses the mark’ of His created purpose.
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