What's the Problem?

The following is an excerpt from the book What is the Gospel? by Greg Gilbert:

The Bible tells us that it is not just Adam and Eve who are guilty of sin. We all are. Paul says in Romans 3:23, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory God." And just a few paragraphs earlier he says, "None is righteous, no, not one" (3:10).

The gospel of Jesus Christ is full of stumbling stones, and this is one of the largest. To human hearts the stubbornly think of themselves as basically good and self-sufficient, this idea that human beings are fundamentally sinful and rebellious is not merely scandalous. It is revolting.

That's why it is so absolutely crucial that we understand both the nature and the depth of our sin. If we approach the gospel thinking that sin is something else or something less than what it really is, we will badly misunderstand the good news of Jesus Christ.

The Bible teaches that humanity's fundamental problem--the thing from which we need to be saved--is not meaninglessness or disintegration in our lives, or even a debilitating sense of guilt. Those are merely symptoms of a deeper and much more profound problem: our sin. What we must understand is that the predicament we're in is a predicament of our own making. We have disobeyed God's word. We have ignored his commands. We have sinned against him.

The Bible also teaches that sin is a breaking of our relationship with God, but that broken relationship consists in rejection of his kingly majesty. It's not just adultery (though it is that); it is rebellion. Not just betrayal, but also treason. If we reduce sin to a mere breaking of relationship, rather than understanding it as the traitorous rebellion of a beloved subject against his good and righteous King, we will never understand why the death of God's Son was required to address it.

Another misunderstanding about sin is Jesus died to save us from negative thoughts about ourselves. This is reprehensibly unbiblical. In fact, the Bible teaches that a big part of our problem is that we think too highly of ourselves, not too lowly. Stop and think about it for a minute. How did the Serpent tempt Adam and Eve? He told them they were thinking too negatively about themselves. He told them to they needed to think more positively, to extend their grasp, to reach toward their full potential, to be like God! In a word, he told them to think bigger. Now how'd that work out for them?

Individual sins don't shock us much. We know they are there, we see them in ourselves and others every day, and we've gotten pretty used to them. What is shocking to us is when God shows us that sin runs to the very depths of our hearts, the deep-running deposits of filth and corruption that we never knew existed in us and that we ourselves could never expunge. That's how the Bible talks about sin--it is in us and of us, not just on us.

Every part of our human existence is corrupted by sin and is under its power. Our understanding, our personality, our feelings, our emotions, and even our will are all enslaved to sin. So Paul says in Romans 8:7, "The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed it cannot." What a shocking and frightening statement! So thorough is sin's rule over us--our minds, understanding and will--that we God's glory and goodness, and we inevitably turn away from it in disgust.

This is the Bible's sobering verdict on us. There is not one of us who is righteous, not one. And because of that, one day every mouth will be silenced every wagging tongue stopped, and the whole earth will be held accountable to God.

But, there is hope...