This probes deeply into a grim subject---human sin, in all of its multifarious disguises and stubborn ingenuity. In the present moral climate, with the very reality of sin systematically obscured and denied. Most people have a narrow understanding of the term sin. We tend to think it means that we have broken a few rules, made a few mistakes. So we apologize and get on with our lives, right? Wrong. Sin is much more than breaking the rules. God created an intricate, interwoven cosmos, each part depending on the others, governed by laws of order and harmony. Sin affects every part of that order and harmony---twisting, fracturing, distorting, and corrupting it. The Fall was not an isolated act of disobedience that could be easily mended. Every part of God’s handiwork was marred by the human mutiny.

The awareness of sin used to be our shadow. Christians hated sin, feared it, fled from it, grieved over it. There were as many sermons about sin as about grace. The assumption was that you couldn’t understand either without understanding both. But modern consciousness does not encourage moral reproach; in particular, it does not encourage self-reproach. The Bible describes the pains God has taken to defeat sin and its wages. To speak of grace without speaking of sin is to trivialize the cross of Jesus Christ---to cheapen the grace of God that always comes to us with blood on it. In short, for the Christian church (even in its recently popular seeker services) to ignore, euphemize, or otherwise mute the lethal reality of sin is to cut the nerve of the gospel. For the sober truth is that without the full disclosure on sin, the gospel of grace becomes impertinent, unnecessary, and finally uninteresting.

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