Sin is Lawlessness
1 John 3v4
3rd June 2022
1 John 3v4
Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.
"Lawlessness" is an interesting definition of sin, which I very seldom hear preached. God is the universal lawmaker. God gets to decide what is right, what is wrong, what is permissible, what is not, what is good, what is bad. And because God is God, He has the right to do so, to tell us how to live, how to behave, what to do, what to say, what to think. God lays down the law for us. He gave us the Bible, including the Ten Commandments and the two great laws of love:
Matthew 22:37-39
Jesus replied: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and
with all your mind."
This is the first and greatest commandment.
And the second is like it: "Love your neighbour as yourself."
God's commands are not suggestions. They're declarations of what is right and what is wrong.
Sin is lawlessness. Sin is deciding, more or less consciously, that what God says doesn't really matter very much. It's what I think or, worse still, what I want, that really matters. Sin is ignoring God and His holy word, and deciding that I can make law up for myself. I can decide what's right. I can decide what's wrong. I can make my own rules. Or even, as a society, we can make our own laws.
Our own society is very guilty of this. It decides what is right and wrong for itself, and it does so differently every few years. It changes its mind about what is and is not acceptable, what people can say and what they can't say, what they can do and what they can't do, as if right and wrong can change. It ignores God's eternal law, which doesn't change. It thinks and acts as if it has the right to make ethics up for itself. Sin is lawlessness. We're told to obey the government (Romans 13v1) but sin is not fundamentally about ignoring human law, although. Sin is ignoring God's law.
Is it not the ultimate insult to God to tell Him by our actions that we don't care what He thinks? That His definition of right and wrong is irrelevant to us? That we'll make it up for ourselves, thank you very much? Or even for us – you and me as Christians – to say "Well, I know what's in the Bible but I choose to disobey it"? Isn't that a terrible thing?
Sin is fundamentally disrespect towards God. It's rebellion: acting and living as if God were not King of the Universe. And everybody who sins breaks God's law.
Thank God for sending Jesus to sacrifice Himself that we might be offered forgiveness of sins. As John says next, "But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins." We'll think about that next time.