King David is one of the most prominent, well-known figures in the Bible, mostly for his single-handed defeat of Goliath, whom David, as a young teenager, slayed with a well-placed stone from his slingshot (1 Samuel 17:31-54). Goliath was the gigantic champion warrior of the Philistines, Israel’s arch enemy at that time. Goliath had despised and challenged the armies of God’s people Israel to a one-on-one battle, the outcome of which was to result in the loser’s army surrendering.  David fought for both the honor of Israel’s army and the glory of God, and God gave him the miraculous victory.

David was proclaimed by God to be a man after God’s own heart, a man who feared God and longed for knowledge of and intimacy with God above all else (Psalm 27:4). He wrote the vast majority of the Psalms in the Bible, in most proclaiming the greatness, goodness and glory of God (Psalm 145:1-21).  But David was also a sinner, a truly repentant and forgiven sinner, but a sinner no less.

His sinfulness was no more clearly displayed then in his adultery with Bathsheba, and his murder of her husband Uriah, who was a mighty warrior in Israel’s army, and David’s friend. David’s murder of Uriah was to cover up his sin of adultery, once David found his relationship with Bathsheba had resulted in her becoming pregnant. (2 Samuel 11:1-11).

It took some time for David to come to terms with the gravity of His sin, to repent from his heart and confess it, and cry out to God for mercy and restoration to right relationship with God, but the fact he did so is recorded for our instruction in Psalm 51:1-19. In the first three verses David confesses his sin and appeals to God’s merciful nature and covenant love for forgiveness and cleansing from the filth sin brings to our soul.

And then in verse 4 he acknowledges the most fundamental aspect of all sin when he confesses to God, “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight…”

Yes, David sinned against Bathsheba, shamefully seducing her into adultery. Yes, David wickedly had her husband Uriah murdered to hide his sin, treacherously commanding his military’s complicity with that murder.  And yes, King David betrayed the whole nation of Israel as well as his own family by his evil actions.  However, first and foremost, David understood that his sin, his wicked and evil actions, were committed against the holy, righteous and good God who created him and had graciously entrusted him with the rule of God’s people Israel.  David was deeply grieved by his sin, but no more than it grieved and angered God (Psalm 7:11).

As I noted in my previous post, God hates sin – all of our varied expressions of our rejection of His purpose for and rule over our lives.  And in accord with His holy and righteous nature and character, God determined from the beginning that death, being cut off from the glorious life with God for which we were created and subsequent confinement to Hell, would be the just penalty for our sin.  (Genesis 2:15-17) (Romans 1:28-32) (Revelation 21:8).

But why, why does God hate sin so much? Why such a severe penalty?  Two reasons seem evident throughout the Bible.  Reason #1 for God’s hatred of sin, the preeminent and most fundamental reason God hates it and punishes it so severely, is because sin denies, disputes and dishonors His glory, His infinite worthiness to be known intimately, loved supremely, worshiped exclusively and enjoyed eternally (Romans 3:23).   Every sin strikes directly at God’s heart, portraying/judging Him to be a despicable being, irrelevant, inconsequential and unnecessary to our happiness and wellbeing, and thus unworthy of being neither feared nor loved, trusted nor obeyed, nor worshiped and adored for who He is, which is the most glorious, most desirable, most excellent, most necessary, most awesome, most valuable being in the universe. All sin blasphemes the holiness of God, denigrates the majesty of God, belittles the goodness of God and slanders the glory of God.

According to Christian writer and theologian R.C. Sproul, every sin is an act of “cosmic treason “against the kingdom of God, and most directly against its eternal King. And it is so because every sin is essentially an act of rebellion, disloyalty, treachery and hostility toward God’s sovereign rule over our lives, as mankind, beginning with Adam, have joined the first cosmic traitors, the devil and his demons, in their opposition to God’s purpose for and rule over their lives (John 8:42-44) (Isaiah 14:12-15) (Romans 8:7-8).

Every sin is an act of “idolatry,” of “spiritual adultery” in which we disdain God’s love, distrust His faithfulness to His covenant promise, and doubt His capacity to make us exceedingly and abundantly happy in Himself.  Thus, we pursue our joy, our pleasure and satisfaction in the corrupted things, relationships and activities of what the Bible refers to as this present evil world rather than in God who created us to be satisfied in Him (James 4:4-6) (Psalm 135:15-18) (Romans 1:25) (Galatians 1:4) (Psalm 90:14).

Sin, with its focus on self, self-sufficiency, self-determination, self-gratification, self-glorification, essentially attempts to deny God the very joy and delight of being God, of communicating and conferring and displaying to man that which God loves and enjoys and cherishes most, namely His own glory – the infinite perfections of His being for our eternal joy and delight in Him (Psalm 37:4).

Christian author and theologian John Piper helps us with understanding sin as a personal and direct attack on God by mankind when he writes, “What makes sin – sin (and thus worthy of wrath) first and foremost is not that it hurts man, but that it blasphemes God (misrepresents the supremacy and necessity of His Being in all things).” 

Reason #2 for God’s hatred of sin is that sin is inherently corrupting and destructive. It corrupts/has corrupted all of God’s good and perfect creation and most importantly the image of God in man – the perfections of being necessary for life in God’s presence (Psalm 24:3-5).  Sin essentially has destroyed in each of us all that would make us capable of knowing, loving and being satisfied in God. Thus, as long as we remain in bondage to sin, we are incapable of sharing in God’s glorious existence, of enjoying His abundant goodness and of magnifying the infinite perfections of His glorious being, which is the very purpose for which we were created (Isaiah 43:7).

We see the corrupting power of sin take hold of the human race immediately after the sin of Adam and Eve in response to the lie of the serpent, impacting both body and soul, bringing fear, shame and guilt into the human experience and most tragically, estrangement from God, who created us to know, love and be loved by Him. (Genesis 3:6-13) (Romans 5:12).

Because sin is displayed foremost in our transgression of the laws of God, laws that were given by God to promote human flourishing and individual happiness, the world has become a world filled with pain, sorrow, misery, frustration, disappointment and death, impacting both man and nature (1John 3:4) (Genesis 3:16-19).

The good news in all of this is that God the Father, in the ultimate expression of divine mercy, grace and covenantal love, sent God the Son, Jesus Christ into the world to save His people from their sin; from sin’s power over their lives in this world, and from sin’s eternal consequences in the world to come (John 3:16) (Matthew 1:20-21)

Which begs the question, who are His people?  Well, the Bible identifies them as those, who like King David, would acknowledge that they are sinners, deserving of God’s judgement of death and Hell, who as they begin to grasp the gravity, the magnitude and destructiveness of sin on their lives, and the impact of their sin on others, admit to their powerlessness over it and, most importantly, begin to understand sin’s vileness and offensiveness to the Holy and Righteous God who created us to know, love and be loved by Him. Only then will we truly repent of our sin, begin to hate it as God hates it, and run from it into the forgiving arms of Jesus who loved us and gave His life to save us from it (Luke 18:13) (Psalm 97:10) (Ezekiel 18:30-32) (Galatians 2:20) (1 John 1:8-9).

Grace and Peace ×