| | Christians are sometimes asked by people, what the big deal with sin is. Why did someone have to die for us? The response is often, that God is holy and can't be around sin. But is that the most biblical response? If God can't be around sin, how do we explain Job 1:6 & 7 (ESV) 6Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them. 7The LORD said to Satan, "From where have you come?" Satan answered the LORD and said, "From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it." If God can't be around sin, why is Satan in his presence? Because I hate to make doctrine out of just one verse, or in this case two verses, is there another part in scripture that has Satan in God's presence? How about this one? Job 2:1 & 2 (ESV) 1Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the LORD. 2And the LORD said to Satan, "From where have you come?" Satan answered the LORD and said, "From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it. This is the second time that Satan comes before God. But are there any instances, not in the Book of Job, that a sinful being is in God's presence? Try this passage. Revelation 12:7-9 (ESV) 7Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, 8but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 9And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world— he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. So, if you are one of those, who takes the Book of Revelation literally, than this means that at one time, Satan was in Heaven. God seems to be spending an awful lot of time, with Satan, for someone who can't be around sin. Besides, if you don't like these scriptures, how about the fact that the Bible seems to refer to God being omnipresent. If God is truly omnipresent, than that means He literally has no way to escape from sin, apart from making us all sinless beings. As He has not done so, from the fall of man, until He does make us sinless beings, he has been around sin. So this brings us back to the original question. Why did someone have to die? What is the big deal about sin? Sin has yet to result in anything good. Sin has always had bad consequences. I think though, that we can reveal God's motives and plan for sin, if we look at his response to the fall of Adam & Eve. Genesis 3:22-24 (ESV) 22Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—" 23therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. God sent Christ to die, not because He can't be around sin. But because He does not want us to live forever with the consequence of sin. God knew, that the evilness of sin, that the consequences that sin does to us, would make us miserable, if we could live forever in a sinful state. So to break the power of sin, to make it possible to get forgiveness for our sin, someone would have to die, and pay the penalty for the sin that we have done. So it is not that God can't be in the presence of sin, but that God did not want us to have to live in the torment and pain of sin for all of eternity. Does that make any sense? |
