Sunday School | Final lesson on Doctrine of Sin

Introduction

Everybody, hope you're doing well. We're gonna continue talking about the doctrine of sin, but I want to give you a little bit of context for where we're at in a bigger, broader picture for a couple of things. So this week today, we're gonna finish the doctrine of sin to the extent that such things are even possible. And then next week, we're gonna do something different because I won't be here. And then the week after that, we're gonna start our foundations class.

The reason I'm gonna be gone next week is I hate being gone on a Sunday, but many of you know, my mom died about two weeks ago. We just got news on Friday that Kelly's mom just went into hospice care. But we don't know—they have dementia, she has had dementia for some time. And so she may be in hospice care for a long time. It's really hard to predict. But given that news, we just felt there was some urgency to get down there, and she lives in North Carolina. So we're gonna go down and see her and just try to put eyes on the situation. Excuse my absence; I'll be gone next week, and then I'll be back the following week.

That following week, we will begin our foundations class. What we're doing for that is Dave and I—has this thing kind of evolved a little bit over the last few months? We thought that as Dave becomes a new senior pastor here, and as we kind of are ready to set a trajectory for what church the Holy Spirit's gonna be for hopefully the next decade or two decades or three decades, who knows how long this lasts. But as we go on to this, we thought it'd be really good to just kind of level set the whole community.

So we are, you could say that we are canceling my class and then we're all gonna go to the new members class, or you could say that we're canceling the new members class and we're all going to come to my class, and then Sloop and I are gonna go teach it. The truth is somewhere smashed up in that. But what we just thought it would be really helpful to have not just, you know, however many of you come to this every week, but to really ask the entire body to come. And let's all get on the same page.

Three broad areas we'll be discussing are some fundamental things about the gospel, some fundamental things about Anglicanism, and then some fundamental things about what it means to be part of the body here at Church of the Holy Spirit. I don't know that when the last time we had some kind of an all-places Sunday school that was like ongoing, so we're gonna do all that. It'll take a couple of months, probably, I think 12 weeks. I can't remember exactly, I think it's 12 weeks that we're gonna do it. And then when that's done, we will resume this class.

On the other side, the doctrine of sin, I think it’s the doctrine of salvation. I think we'll do soteriology. And so that will start up early spring, something like that. We'd love you to come, we'd love you to invite people. I really would love this to be like a packed house every week—that would be our goal—because we just wanna make sure there's a unity of understanding and purpose. That'll start two weeks on the first Sunday in February. Cool, cool? All right, it's the doctrine of sin, let's go.

The Doctrine of Sin

We've been at this for a few weeks because there's an awful lot to say about this. I want you to consider a couple of questions. Really three if we can get through them all. Number one: Is sin universal? What do you think?

Yes.

Universal? And what do you mean by that? All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, which we really understand means all are sinful and lack the glory of God because we've traded it away. Great, Dan?

I mean, human?

Okay, sure, tell me about that. What do you mean?

Well, I don't know about animals.

Do you think your dog is sinful?

My dog is sinful.

Do you think?

I'm a dog.

Okay, if you had one. Yeah, it is kind of an interesting thing. Like our animals that are just doing animal things, are they sending? I don't know? Dan?

Yes, our creation is fallen.

Okay.

The trees, the dogs, the people. We are all—everything is broken, the fundamental.

This is such a great thing. It's almost a setup, it's such a good question, okay? So I'll come to you in a second, Gary. Let me unpack this. Our trees are not sinful. No, okay, so we're gonna say, I'm gonna say no. Hang on, our trees are fallen.

Yes.

Yeah, okay, so this is a helpful, you're introducing a really helpful category. When the fall took place, when Adam sinned and the world broke, everything broke. Everything. But the manifestation of that brokenness is not always disobedience. Sometimes it's weakness and frailty and death. And so we will talk about—if kind of theologians will talk about what's called the fallen condition and the fallen condition manifests in two different ways. Sin is one of them, and the other is what we could call suffering. Guilt is one of them, but the other we might just call grief. Badness is one of them, but the other we might call brokenness, okay?

So the created order is fallen. My sweet little cockapoo keeper is going to die because she is part of the fallen creation. She's pretty righteous little dog, though, right? She's a good little puppy, right? Not as good as Susan's dogs. Susan's dogs are ludicrously well-trained. Mine is not well-trained; she's just naturally good, okay? So there's badness and there's brokenness, there's sin and there's suffering. There's both of these things. Would you accept that framing?

Maybe a better way for me to think of it anyway.

Better? Wow, that's arrogant. But go ahead.

Sin, are we universe?

Absolutely, absolutely. We all live under the consequence of sin. And this is interesting because very often our suffering is exacerbated by our sin or by somebody else's sin. And our sin is exacerbated by our or someone else's suffering, right? So they're cyclical. Like, you know, you're sad and you're lonely. And so you drink to excess. Well, because you're drunk, now you drive drunk and now you kill somebody. And now somebody else's life is affected, and there's sin leads to suffering, suffering leads to sin. And we just kind of loop around and around and around, right? Both of these things are true. Gary, did you wanna add to that?

I'm just gonna say every human is born of Adam.

And under that federal headship theory, his guilt is imputed to every human.

Yes.

Very much so. And we'll get into that as we, it's hard to talk about sin without talking about salvation, right? We wanna get to that, and we will get to that. Okay? So I would agree with you. I think sin is universal. Certainly universal for every human being from our earliest days. Here's how John puts it. This is 1 John 1:8. He says:

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just, and will forgive us our sins, and purify us from all unrighteousness.

And then here again:

If we claim we have not sinned, we may make ourselves out to be liars. And his word has no place in our lives.

That's how John frames it. I want you to hear how Paul puts it. This isn't gonna be an Ephesians 2. Ephesians 2 is one of the great passages about the wretchedness of sin. And there's a temptation when we, the righteous, when we, the good guys, think about sin—we're thinking about all those wretched sinners. But listen to how Paul frames it:

As for you, you were past tense, but you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.

There's a lot of tense, past tense, present tense. And then he says this, verse three:

All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.

It's really important. You know, for any group of believers that's ever gonna talk about sin, it's so important that we not, you know, think about all those dirty sinners. Like the rest, we too were by nature objects of wrath.

Now, people have described evangelism as one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. And we just need to always walk through life with the humility that comes from an understanding that I'm not that great, that I need mercy, but that I've received mercy. So I'm therefore not gonna be stingy with mercy, but I'll be a conduit of it to others. We do not share the gospel with people because they deserve to hear it. Do you know this? Nobody deserves it. But neither did you.

We are not driven, we are not motivated by what people deserve. We're driven and motivated by what people need because we have gotten far better than we deserved. And so we extend that mercy to others. We too are in that place, okay? So, is it universal? Yes, absolutely, richly.

Are All Sins Equal?

How about this one? This is really where I want to spend our time this morning. Is, or not is, are all sins equal, by which I mean, are all sins equally heinous? Yes, no? Oh, that's what I'm looking for. Okay, cage match, are all sins equally heinous? What do you guys think? Let's hear the yes case. Let's see, Robin?

If we break the law at any one point, we broke the law.

James, that's, you're quoting James, right? If you break one part of the law, you break the whole law. So that perhaps leans to the view that all sins are equal. Okay, can I make a strengthen that case? Or are you opposing it, or are you strengthening it?

Yes.

Don't oppose it yet. Let's strengthen it first. Let's iron, steel man this. Are all sins equally heinous?

Well, I've put it into categories. They're equally heinous when it comes to judgment.

Before God, whether you're in mercy or not, but I don't think the effects of all sins in the world are the same.

Okay, so they're trying to attempt you to divide it. Maybe all sins are equally worthy of the same judgment, but they're not equally producing the same negative effects in the world, okay?

What do you think, are all sins equal? Or, yeah, sins are equal. Want to add? Throw anything to that? Yeah, Johnny?

Maybe a little bit about all tangent, but let’s see in the beginning, we're talking about judging. It's more if you judge, you're equally as sinful for judging someone else as you're a sinner yourself thoroughly.

Okay, so yeah, Romans 2, Paul's gonna say, whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself because you who have judgment do the same things. And so he seems to be warning—there's some aspect there of, if you, if I say, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a sinner, but not like you are, right? And if I'm, if I'm, if I have a tendency to rank sins on a priority chart, perhaps it is the case that my sins are little sins. Your sins are big sins, right? And so there's some sense in there that maybe there's a corrective that we might want to say, hey, be careful playing that game. Okay, it's good. All sins equal, Dan?

Charlie told gave me this example one time. He walked in the room and had a cup of water and he spit in it, big old spit. And he said, have a drink, Dan? I went, no, I don't want to drink that. And so he scooped down and took some of it out and said, okay, now drink. And I said, no, I don't want to drink that. And so he got in there and he tried to scoop out more of it. And no matter how much he scooped out of it, I didn't want to drink it because it was contaminated with his spit. And that was his example of how sin is, how we do sin, that we just can't get enough out of there.

Nobody's gonna wanna drink after.

I like this sweet Charlie Tull. Could you hear that in the back? No, okay. So Charlie Tull, notorious sinner, took a cup of water and he spat in it and he offered Diana to drink. And she didn't want it, she's prickly that way. And so he reached in and he pulled his wad out and then he offered it to her and she still didn't want it. So he reached in more to get more of it out and there was nothing he could do to get her to want to drink this cup. And the point of that being is this is our attitude towards sin: we want none of it. We wanna have a purity from all of it. And not just be like, ah, it's not that much sin. There's not that much spit in it, right? Did I capture you?

There's a big sin in there, and if I take some of it out, then it's not as bad as the next.

Seeing him trying to take sin out.

Yeah, yeah.

All contaminating.

Yeah, yeah, I hear that. Yeah, PJ.

It does seem like there's a special category for blasphemy in the Holy Spirit.

Okay, all right, so you're gonna argue that sins are not equal. We're gonna save that for one second, and we'll come to you when we do that, okay? Here's what I want to suggest to you. There is a pervasive framing where we say all sins are equal, and we will say, you know, for instance, all sin separates us from God and it's all level at the foot of the cross, and we can kind of—I think—overrealize some of these things. You're absolutely right. I think it's—look me up at James 2:10, say I might be wrong, who knows? But James, I think it's pretty sure it's James 2:10, is gonna say that if you break one part of the law, you've broken all of it, right? And so from that, we can infer that all sins are equal, and I would suggest that that idea is one of the claims that has really crept into pop culture, American Christianity, and I wanna persuade you today that it is not true—that definitively and explicitly, all sins are not equally heinous.

Now, all sin is bad, all sin is consequential, all sin is harmful, but I think some things creep in if we embrace the idea that all sins are equal, even if it's guided by a desire to be humble or if it's a desire to correct this thing that makes me think that my sins are not as bad as your sins. I think worse errors come into that.

In particular, if you believe that all sins are equal, I think you're gonna have to conclude that God is a moral imbecile because it's obvious, right? If I were to tell Chris, hey, you're stupid and I don't like the way you dress, would that be wrong? Yes, it would be insulting, it would be sinful, it would be unkind, it would be bad. But if I were to take out an ice pick and stab out his eyes, would that be worse? Obviously, obviously, right? And if what we're saying is, well, to you, it seems worse, but to God, he recognizes that those are morally on the same level, then you're left thinking, man, he's dumb because they're obviously not the same, right? And I would suggest to you that God is not a moral imbecile and that the Bible actually, again and again, says that sins are not all equal.

Does not follow from that claim that I, Tim Henderson, have in my pocket right here the list of all sins ranked in perfect order, right? I'm not telling you that, but I do think that on the big pieces, we can tell that my two examples with Chris were relatively obviously distinct, right?

Let's make the case: the Bible, and I'll help you make it, but we can start with PJ's observation. Where does the Bible talk about sin, and does it treat it as if it's all the same or does it clarify some things are worse than others? So, PJ, what's your first example?

Matthew 12.

Okay, so, do you want to read it real loud? Do you have it in front of you?

Fine.

Okay, so this kind of raises the question, but what is he actually talking about here, right? But the unpardonable sin, the idea that there's something that you can do that leaves you outside the grace of God, is sometimes offered as an example of, you know, a one sin that is greater than another. So, go ahead and read it loud.

So, whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. Therefore, I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.

This is terrifying for centuries. What's the blasphemy against the Spirit? Could it be, when I was eight years old, I did it? And everything else is like, sorry, buddy, like you wretched little eight-year-old, like you ruined the game, right? I don't think that's what he's saying. The sin of blasphemy against the Spirit is that he is performing miracles, and whether you know it or not, Jesus wasn't functioning out of his own power. He could, he's God, but he lived his life like a human being, and everything he did, he did by the power of the Spirit. Then they show up, and they, the crowd attributes the work Jesus is doing by the power of the Holy Spirit to Satan and his demons. And Jesus is essentially saying, listen, if you claim that what I am doing is being done in the power of Satan, where it's really been done in the power of the Spirit, then you will—here's the logic—you are necessarily placing yourself outside the grace of God. Because as long as you think that your only hope in the world is evil, you'll never come to me, and it's never gonna work.

So I don't think he's ultimately saying that there's nothing more heinous than that, but that there is nothing more guaranteed to prevent you from receiving his grace than misattributing the source of his power, right? That's really what's going on there. PJ, you wanna add to that?

The other really scary thing to me about this passage is that it is in the next verse. Of course, if whoever speaks word against the son of man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. And here's the scary part, either in this age or in the age to come.

Yeah.

I thought we didn't have sin.

Yes, I don't think he's saying that you commit, okay, that's good. I don't think he's saying that you commit this in the world to come, because like you, I don't believe that will be an option, right? We who are redeemed will be forgiven. I think what he's saying is the forgiveness will, the withholding of forgiveness will last forever because we're not availed ourselves of his mercy. Like necessarily, if you're like this, he's doing these things, all these things by the power of demons, then you are setting yourself outside of his grace. Like you just can't come to him if you think that he's bad.

That's, well, I don't know if you wanna get into this. That's the same thing that's going on in Numbers 21. If you know that whole scene in Numbers 21, where God sends the snakes to bite and kill the people, you know what I'm talking about? Jesus is gonna use that in John 3. He is the snake, he's like the snake that Moses lifts up in the wilderness. Forgive me if you don't know the story, it would take a long time to unpack it all. But in Numbers 21, the people say to God, you're bad, you've brought us into the desert to die. This whole exodus out of the Pharaoh, we thought it was a mercy, turns out it was a cruelty, and now we don't like you anymore. And their estrangement from God is so severe because they're so disappointed that he's not playing the game the way they thought he would play the game, that in order to wake them out of their stupor, in order to get them to see him so they can finally come to him because they will not come to him, come to him if they think he's evil, he dresses up in their suit. They've said you're bad. He's like, all right, good enough. If you don't like bread from heaven, maybe you prefer snakes from the sand. And he essentially dresses up in the costume they made him. And that he uses that to startle them out of their rebellion, and it works. And they finally say, okay, okay, okay, you're right, you're right, you're right, you're right, right. I don't know what we're thinking, sorry. You're good, and then they're back on track, right? So as long as we remain in that place where we think that God is bad, of course we will never come to him. Why would we, right? Okay, where else does the Bible talk about sin in sort of rank order? Does some things are worse than others? Kelly Sue?

I'm a message to 15. I tell you the truth, it'll be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on that day of judgment than for the town.

I'll read it again for you, Catherine. So Matthew 10:15, Jesus says:

I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.

Now, what that is suggesting is it's a little bit adjacent to the direct question. Are sins more heinous? Well, Jesus' answer is some punishments are more bearable and less bearable, right? And this is another error that we tend to have in our thinking, not only that sins are all equal, but that all punishments are equal. And Jesus says literally, there will be rank levels of suffering. It will be more bearable, less bad, by the way, for Sodom and Gomorrah, who you think of as like the bottom of the barrel, he's saying, what you have done warrants greater punishment than Sodom and Gomorrah, right? He'll say that elsewhere—that the Ninevites repented at the coming of Jonah, and one greater than Jonah is before you now, and still, you do not repent.

So he's clearly ranking not just punishment, but response to the stimulus. Do you have others who want to contribute? Others instances or examples? Others, yeah, Ethan?

Luke 12:47-48.

And what does that say?

That's about the servant and the master.

Okay, let me read it so folks can hear it. Jesus says this:

Some will be beaten with many stripes, but some shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required. I came to send fire, judgment on the earth, and how much I wish it were already kindled.

Again, varying degrees of punishment is pretty clearly the case. Okay, Chris?

The speck in your eyes.

Oh, so great. Okay, Matthew 7, when Jesus says—remember this one, he says, "Stop going after Doug, right? Don't worry about the speck in Doug's eye. First, take the log out of your own eye, and then you'll be able to see clearly to take the speck from somebody else's eye. The point of specs and logs is what?

Greater and lesser.

Greater and lesser. There are some things that are a bigger deal than other things, but it tends to be that I think your sins are a bigger deal than mine. And Jesus is saying, maybe you got that wrong. Adam?

There are six things that the Lord hates.

Okay.

Seven that are detestable, right?

Okay, so there's a couple of different times where Proverbs would give these lists. And again, we don't have, or at least I don't have, like the perfect rank order list of all things. But there are things that get drawn out, highlighted. Like, this is a big deal, right? There are vice lists, similar to what you've got in Proverbs. The New Testament has, I didn't count 'em up, maybe a half-dozen vice lists, where we'll say like, "Hey, the acts of the sinful nature are obvious." Galatians 5, that'd be a pretty well-known vice list. And you can go through these things and recognize, "Oh, these are a big deal." And truthfully, the same sorts of things keep showing up, and generally speaking, they keep showing up in similar orders, right?

Catherine?

I was just wondering about how a lot of people mistake consequences for actual punishment.

Sure. So Katherine's asking, so our behaviors and actions have both natural consequences and divinely prescribed consequences, right? And both of these things are true. And Jesus warns us to be careful about how we attribute blame for things, right? We have a tendency to very quickly, like you see it in John 9, when the disciples meet this blind kid and they're like, "Hey, Jesus, who sinned? This kid or his parents?" But the obvious implication is somebody did, somebody's at fault for this. And Jesus is like, "No, dummy, that's not how it works." Right?

In another instance, Jesus is having a conversation with people that are quick to draw lines. It's a little bit—who's the guy that loves to do this? I think he's dead. Some of you like him. Sorry, it's about to be ugly. He's a TV Christian dude and he's old. Pat Robertson. Pat Robertson is very fond of saying, "Yeah, I'll tell you why I hate his suffering—because of all those homosexuals." Right? I'll tell you why 9/11 happened. That was probably the homosexuals too, right? He's this inclination to draw lines from events to the judgment of God. And Jesus says, "Hey, hey, hey, do you remember those people whose blood pilot mixed with their sacrifices? Come down about that. Remember that tower in Salem that fell on people and you're all attributing this to divine vengeance?" Well, I wouldn't do that if I were you because you could suffer the same fate they do. Sometimes the world is broken, and not everything is a result of sin. Now, sometimes it is a result of sin, right? And sin does have natural consequences. But whatever the case, this is the same thing they did to Job. It's like, "Well, I don't know what's going on in your life, but clearly something not good. You must be guilty." We have this over-inclination to do that. And very consistently, the Bible is like, "You know, maybe God does some consequences, but you're not that smart and you're not that holy, so maybe calm down on that a little bit." Right?

There are a bunch of hands—and I may not get to everyone—but others? Others? Yeah, Ethan? Nathan? Sorry, Nathan. Forgive me.

I think we've got 1 Corinthians 6 and 18 names.

What do we got?

It's sexual immorality, all other sins, in person because they're outside the body, but whoever sins sexually sins against their own body.

Excellent, exactly right. So what Paul's gonna say when he talks about sexual sin, he's saying there's something particular about it. There's something distinct about it, and Nathan's exactly right. This is one of those categories. One of the reasons that shows up at the top of the vice list over and over again is that it has a peculiar effect, and one that our culture tends to be very ignoring of. We're just mistaken, right?

Others, instances of this? Are you raising your hand or doing something? Bob?

Yeah, to go back to your original question about ranking John 19.

Yes.

A pilot says that the ones who would have any power if it wasn't because the ones who handed me over are guilty of a greater sin.

Yes, right, that's one of the examples I was gonna lead with, John 19:11. So okay, I gotta speed this up. So let me give you a summary of some of these, okay? Why do I think that sins are not equal? Well, the Bible gives explicit descriptions of some sins as greater than others, as being more detestable, and that there's neglect of more important matters of the law. So here's John 19:11 that Bob just alluded to. Jesus answered:

You have no power over me unless it's been given to you from above. Therefore, the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.

And Exodus 32:21:

He said to Aaron, "What do these people do to you that you led them into such great sin?"

Or Ezekiel 8:6:

And he said to me, "Son of man, do you see what they are doing? The utterly detestable things the house of Israel is doing here, things that will drive me far from my sanctuary." And then he says, "But you will see things that are even more detestable."

Or Ezekiel 16:49-52:

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed, unconcerned, they didn't help the poor and the needy, they were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore, I did away with them, as you have seen. Some areas did not commit half the sins you did. You have done more detestable things than they and have made your sisters seem righteous by all these things that you have done. Bury you disgrace, for you have furnished some justification for your sisters because your sins were more vile than theirs. They appear more righteous than you. So then, be ashamed and bear your disgrace, for you have made your sisters appear righteous.

Right, the last one is Ezekiel 16: 49 to 52. Not only do we have that, but we have, as we have said, varying degrees of punishment. Some sins are intentional, unintentional. It's more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah. And then, I’ll give you this: we're gonna just, I’ll blitz through this, and then I’m gonna say five minutes for one last question. The Westminster Larger Catechism, which is a work of genius recommended to you, asks the question:

Are all transgressions of the law of God equally heinous in themselves and in the sight of God?

And they say they are not equally heinous, but some sins in themselves, by reason of several aggravations, are more heinous in the sight of God than others. The follow-up question, strap in—what are those aggravations that make some sins more heinous than others? Here's the answer. This will take about 30 or 35 minutes, okay?

Sins receive their aggravations: number one, from the persons offending. If they are of ripe or age, greater experience or grace, eminent for profession, gifts, place, office, gods to others, and whose example is likely to be followed by others. It's a bad idea for you to have an affair. It is worse if I do it. I have a greater capacity to bring shame on the name of Christ because of my position.

Number two, from the parties offended. If immediately against God, His attributes and worship, against Christ, His grace, the Holy Spirit, His witness and workings—against superiors, men of eminency, such as we stand especially related and engaged into, against any of the saints, particularly weak brethren, the souls of them, or any other, and the common good of all or many.

Harming weak people is worse than harming strong people.

From the nature and quality of the offense: if it be against the expressed letter of the law, break many commandments contained in it, many sins. If it's only conceived in the heart but breaks forth in words and actions, if it scandalizes others, and admits of no reparation, if it gives means, mercies, judgments, light of nature, conviction of conscience, public or private admonitions, censures of the church, civil punishments, our prayers, purposes, promises, vows, covenants, and engagements to God or men, if done deliberately, willfully, presumptuously, impudently, boastingly, maliciously, frequently, obstinately, with delight, with continuance or relapsing after repentance.

From circumstances of time and place: if on the Lord's day or during other times of divine worship, or immediately before or after these, or other helps to prevent or remedy such miscarriages, if in public or in the presence of others, who are thereby likely to be provoked or defiled.

Sins are not equal, and there are a thousand ways that we can mess things up. All sin separates us from God. He is holy, holy, holy. But it does not follow from the fact that all sin separates us from Him that all sins are equally heinous. We are in need of His grace for a thousand things.

The Purpose of Allowing Sin

And given that, here's the final question I want you to consider: If sin is universal, and some sins cause enormous, massive damage, then why does God allow sin into the world in the first place? Why did He not just strike Eve dead? Why did Adam not just knock it out of her hand instead of saying, "Hey, good idea, crunch"? Why did God allow sin and all of its innumerable damaging effects into the world?

Give yourself a look. We have two proper answers. One is for freedom, and two is to give himself more glory.

And what I like about these two options is that we tend in our culture to put freedom at the top of the list of all things. But in fact, it is the glory of God. How? How would God be more glorified by His allowing all the misery and dread of sin into the world? Why would that bring Him glory?

You want to take a shot? I was thinking about how much glory it brings Him that He has created creatures who are able to be so like Him—that we can reflect the measure of His glory. And if we are to be like Him, we need to have choice like Him.

Okay, so Lily's kind of bringing us back to this freedom framing—that He's made creatures that are like Him, and creatures that are like Him make choices. And I think it is true that we have choices, right? But the day is coming in the world to come. Do you think that you will be slaves in heaven? Do you think that you will be slaves when heaven comes to earth, and we live in a renewed creation? Do you think that you will sin? No. So I think we want to separate out the idea that sin is a necessary side effect of freedom. The day is coming that you will be more free, not less free. And in your greater freedom, rather than in your lesser freedom, you will be more righteous, not less righteous. So be careful how we tend to relate those two things.

The clearest statement I’ve found—and there may be a better one—is Romans 11:30. I want you to hear this, then I’ll unpack it in 30 seconds. Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience. So they too have now become disobedient in order that they may too now receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you.

Here's the punch line, verse 32:

For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.

And the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God—how unsearchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out. This is the climax of Romans. Its point is this: God is love. God's very nature is self-giving love. In the very beginning, that self-giving love was bouncing around the persons of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—delighting in one another, honoring one another, always choosing the good and the glory of the other.

But his love was better than what could possibly be expressed in that mere community because there was never going to be an opportunity for God to show mercy. The Son deserves the Father's adoration. The Spirit deserves the Father's praise and love for He is the Father's love. And within that Godhead, there is no opportunity to see the depths of the riches, the majesty, the extremity of the love of God.

And so He made a creature that didn't deserve to watch the show, much less enter the dance, so that He, that creature—us—could be a partaker of love— a love that is undeserved, a love that is not warranted by our mere nature. And then, to really drive the point home, He lets that creature fall into sin and misery so that He could rescue us. He wouldn't just love Himself as is warranted. He would not just love a creature that has no right to be here in the first place, but He would love a rebel that is spat in His face and hated Him, so that the mercy of God, which could never have been seen, could be delighted in, that His glory would redound.

That is the best answer I've seen in the scriptures. Why did God allow sin? And sometimes, you might think, especially when you're on the receiving end of some great evil, was it worth it? My goodness, how great a cost has been paid in order that the depth and the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge and the love and mercy of God could be seen. But my guess is that, yeah, it was worth it, and that for all eternity, we will sing His praises because everything He does is for the praise of His glory. To the praise of His glorious grace that we would behold Him in the fullness of His supremacy.

He allowed us to go to the lowest place so that He could exalt us to the highest place, so that we would see how glorious and extreme His love is. That's the best answer I've seen. And we're gonna stop there. Next week, we'll be another class—I don't know who's going to teach for me—but somebody, and they'll do a fantastic job, so you should come and be part of it. And then the week after that, we'll start the foundations class. Come and bring your friends. Thanks, friends.