The Guilt & Condemnation of Sin, Part 1

The Jews at the time of Jesus had a distinct advantage over us today: they knew what the guilt and accompanying condemnation of sin was all about. After all, they were raised on the Law of Moses and the law perfectly fulfilled its purpose. It described exactly how they were to treat each other and themselves in order to interact the right way with God and each other in their community. It described this loving God, their Creator, who required these right actions from those He had chosen to represent Him. If they chose, however, to not live according to God's standard, then the Law prescribed the penalty required for breaking the Law.

And it showed man that he was incapable of keeping the law perfectly. After all, as we all like to say when we mess things up badly: "We're only human." And if we humans were just dealing with other imperfect humans for eternity, maybe our excuses would suffice.

But we were created by a perfect and holy God, who can expect that everything He puts His hand to will be perfect and holy as well; including us. He is an all-knowing and omniscient God as well, though, and so He knew we would not be able to be perfect and holy as He is, since we are not Him. Which is why He put together a plan to help us.

First, He created the Law in order to teach us how we were to interact with Him and with one another in order to have a happy, fulfilled and peaceful life. Then He allowed us to do our own thing, trying to be holy and perfect according to the law, and failing time after time, until we became convinced that on our own we could never be holy and perfect; until we knew we needed help. He knew this all along, that we would need help; after all, He is GOD. He just had to convince US that we needed help. He had to get US past our biggest sin which is PRIDE. Then we would look to HIM for help, and then He would set in motion the rest of His plan which involved Jesus; but we'll get to that part in another posting.

Today, we just want to look at sin. And to do that, we have to look at the law that the Jews knew so well, but everyone else all around them (Gentiles) knew little about.

So, even though these postings are about what Paul taught us in the Letter to the Romans, we have to get to the same page Paul was at when he wrote that letter. We have to know the law like Paul, a Jew, did. While I won't re-write all the law here in these postings (you can read all about it in the first five books of the bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy), I will touch on some of the highlights of the law, specifically the ten commandments (that most of my generation at least has heard of) that He had Moses take to the people, and the two commandments that Jesus left us with.

The ten commandments are (Exodus 20:1-17):

1. I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
   
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the father upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments;
   
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain.
   
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work thou, nor thy son, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.
   
5. Honor thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
   
6. Thou shalt not kill.
   
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
   
8. Thou shalt not steal.
   
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
   
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.
    

Tomorrow, we'll look at each of these more closely and in light of our modern times.