More Guilty than we could ever have realised

It's that short 'S' word. It spoils everything. It messes us up. It drives a great big wedge between us and God. We can't enjoy each other's company. Sin has split us up and put us on collision course.

"God is love." (1 John 4:8) And that means that God is opposed to everything that is unlovely. And sin is unlovely. Sin is selfish. It pushes God out and puts itself at the centre. And that means that the special, loving relationship we human beings were meant to have with God is a thing of the past. We are guilty of sin.

There are a number of words in the Bible that explain what sin means. The word sin actually means to fall short of a target. Because of sin we fall short of being like God, the apostle Paul states this clearly in Romans 3:23

... for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God ...

Then there's iniquity, a word which means that we have swerved or deviated from the right way. Here's how the prophet Isaiah puts it (Isaiah 53:6)

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way.

One more. It's transgression, a word which tells us that we've crossed a line or overstepped the mark. This thought is in Paul's mind in Romans 4:15

...where there is no law there is no transgression.

Sin is seriously bad news:

• It is alien to our humanity, robbing us of the full wonder and glory of being human. To sin is to act in a sub-human way. It was not want God intended when he created us in his own image.
• It alienates us from God, one another and our environment. Our experience of human life, both individually and corporately, falls well short of what God had in mind. There's not an evil in the world that can't be traced back to human sin.
• It's made a mess of life in this world
• It has set us on course for hell in the next

If the story were to end here, we'd be in despair. But it doesn't end here. The Christian faith (the Gospel) is Good News! God has taken drastic action so that sin and its consequences can be rendered null and void.

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