Genesis 5-7: Sin in the Church

As we talk about the hindrances of the world understanding the judgment of God and the issues of sin, we come to one of the greatest hindrances to this, and that is the sin of the church.

The church is meant to be a people who fully display the light of this knowledge of God and righteousness. We are meant to be those who produce the fruits of righteousness, who pay the cost for true godliness and righteousness, and who have a real and deep understanding of God, sin, and righteousness.

Yet is is the sad case that the church is often found to be the opposite of these, and even an example of these very sins: of not producing good fruit, of thinking our ways are “good enough” (self righteousness), of living from the law of self, of not paying the cost for good, as well as many others sins, such as prejudices we serve, as well as displaying a deep ignorance and unreality, a vanity and worthlessness, and even being brought into a greater darkness, rather than light.

It is very important for us to understand how these things can happen in the church. And part of the reason it is the case is because the church doesn’t believe such things are possible for believers. We do not understand how sin operates, and that sin will work the same vanity, worthlessness, darkness, and evils in religion the same as it will in any worldly sphere of life.

The great issue of all this sin in the church springs up from a wrong belief about God and His salvation. When we do not know and believe in the right purpose of God’s salvation, to do His cleansing work in all we’ve talked about here. To bring us into a real and living righteousness, to make us a people who truly repent of all the ways of self, and begin to live as just and good. To be a people who truly come to know and understand God, and to walk in His light.

"Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.” (Genesis 6:9)

Walking with God should be that which works light into us. It is to be the power of God in our lives to teach us all these things, to lead us in a right knowledge or godliness and righteousness, to expose the workings of sin, and lead us truly out of these things.

And much of the hindrance that exists today is that there are a great many people who believe themselves to be light in the Lord whose ways are still very full of self, pride, ignorance, superstition, and prejudices. They’ve not been truly cleansed of these things, nor even see them as the sins they are.

I do not mean the lie and “easy answer” that so many say, that such people simply just aren’t Christians at all. What cruel thoughts against such people. Much of the issue is found in what Christians are being taught as Gospel, and living amongst people who do not understand these things themselves, slowly being eroded into the very same sins and vanity. They certainly are responsible to choose the right path, but to say the simple answer is they are not Christians at all is very foolish and cruel.

Much of this issue springs from a rejection of a real and living righteousness as being vital to the salvation of God.

If we look at the example of Noah, which God clearly tells us is an example of His judgment to come, and of His salvation (1 Peter 3:20, Hebrews 11:7, 2 Peter 2:5, 3:5-6, Matthew 24:37-39), then we see the very clear distinction that God makes about Noah living righteously before God.

The church today has rejected the very simple and essential truth of the necessity of a real righteousness before God in order to be saved. They say that this opposes grace, that it denies the Gospel, that it rejects the righteousness of Christ and is self righteous, but all of this is a lie.

And the problem amongst Christians is that they obey these ideas about the Gospel, and don’t honestly examine the Scriptures for themselves.

What they fail to admit, or see, is that they believe these ideas about the Gospel because it agrees with their own thoughts about God, that are no different from the world’s. They think of God’s judgement and of sin in the same way as the world; that it is extreme, that their sins aren’t as bad as He says, and so on.

And so they agree with a gospel that says that actually agrees with their carnal hearts. This is a gospel that doesn’t judge them according to what they have done in this life, when in reality, there is no greater self love we can have than to believe ourselves exempt from judgment. This is the heart in a worldly and sinful person, who does as they wish, and is only concerned to escape accountability for it, not to own up to it.

Was this the salvation that the Lord said came to Zacchaeus? “And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, ‘Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house…’” (Luke 19:8-9)

God clearly demonstrates to us in Noah, in Zacchaeus, in all the saints of God, a real and living godliness and righteousness.

We fail to understand how carnal and worldly our very beliefs about God have become. How they are lawless and rooted in believing that God frees us from the law rather than frees us from sin! That it thinks hard thoughts about God, the same as the world. That it is rooted in a denial of justice, the denial of God’s judgment upon all people equally for what they do in this life, good or evil, and sinful prejudice for ourselves, believing this is what Christ grants us:

“He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil…” (Romans 2:6-9)

Because we do not deal honestly with ourselves, our ways are corrupted in our religion. The church is so busy trying to preach to others, when their preaching is filled with this wicked self-love, exempting themselves from any real accountability and responsibility, saying GOD grants this to them in Christ, all while preaching to the world in a very limited understanding of sin at best, and at worse, preaching deep seated prejudices and world views that they take to be of God, when they are far from Him.

What we fail to appreciate is that when we are not fighting the right war for righteousness, then we will fill our hands with a wrong war. When we reject the work that God has given us to do, because we are afraid of it, because we shrink back from the weight of truly believing we too will be judged purely by what we do in this life, and endeavoring with all our strength after true righteousness, then we are very idle and will find things to busy ourselves with that we will say are of God, but are far from what is truly of His Spirit and work.

The greatest evil Christians do today is act as if Jesus grants them some magic shield from judgement and reality. This works a deep blindness and hardness of heart in them. And there’s no real room to show them their sins. This is because they believe a very dangerous idea, that being a Christian practically means we can’t be wrong. Oh, they would say they can be wrong in small ways, but they don’t think they can be wrong in large ways. Therefore they do not see that they can believe in God in a great many wrong ways, and won’t then allow God in to correct them. And part of the problem with this is because they believe that if they get anything wrong in their beliefs about God this somehow means they never really believed in Christ at all—maybe now we see in part how evil and costly such a belief has been.

Many in the church today display these sins mentioned before far greater than any unbeliever. They display this terrible self contentment in their sins; walking in self righteousness (which is to believe their ways are good enough and to not seek a greater righteousness of life than their own morality). They live from the law of self, secretly keeping their own desires in their religion. They are blind to the real cost of their sins and the poisonous effects it has around them. They delight in the lie that God won’t hold them to account. They seek to serve this self prejudice, loving the lie of some “favoritism” with God. And they put off the real work of God of holiness, loving the lie that God’s grace is for this end.

In reality, God has allowed the church to work her ways to show us the truth of our hearts. How we go about religion is not simply good and right at first, in fact, it most often reveals the sinful hearts in us, in order to expose them so that we can find that depth of repentance that Christ calls us to. “These things you have done, and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.” (Psalm 50:21)

In addition, we preach to the world, so convinced of our wisdom and light, when we are ourselves still so full of foolishness and sin, “Claiming to be wise, they became fools.” (Romans 1:22)

"But if you call yourself a [Christian] and rely on the [Word of God] and boast in God and know his will and approve what is excellent… and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children…” (Romans 2:17–20)

We have fallen into this very same idea about ourselves as Christian as the Jews fell into because they were Jews. We think we are simply in the light, failing to see that we are only in the light as much as we labor for it.

The outcome of our “wisdom” is actually very often foolish, unrealistic, full of self and worldliness, and even very harmful. Oh, but we never can see this because we are far too convinced that what we believe and teach is of God.

And it is the sad case that we’ve turned the very Word of God into a great evil. We preach about “obeying God”, and what this has come to mean, instead of walking in what is truly righteous, just, and good—“for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true.” (Ephesians 5:9)—instead it means a great darkness and harm upon people. Calling them to oppression and misery. Calling them to foolish and naive “precepts” that work no real good in their lives.

And within this, so many people believe they are those who “keep the law of God”, who obey Him, when how can you believe you keep God’s law when you have rejected the standard of true righteousness as essential to acceptance with God?

“Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have [Christ] as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for [Christ]. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Matthew 3:8–10)

If these words were true of the Jewish church before us, who were guilty of not producing godly fruit because of the very same presumption, then it is certainly just as true for the church of Christ today.

We fail to understand what the great warning of Noah and the flood, the great warning the apostle Paul pointed us to in 1 Corinthians 10, speaking to how, though God saved many people out of Egypt, most of that generation died in the wilderness because they rejected God’s purpose in His salvation. And if God so judged the people of Israel, who were the natural branch, then the very same warning is given to us: “So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.” (Romans 11:20–2)

It is because we reject the true purpose of God in His salvation of us—to make us a truly holy people, that the world is blinded to the true Gospel of God. It is because we profess to regard God’s law all while never keeping the true purpose of it: “You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For, as it is written, ‘The name of God is blasphemed among the [unbelievers] because of you.” (Romans 2:23-24)

The great truth we must understand about sin is that it makes everything vain and poisonous, and this is just as true inside or religion as without. Just as the worldly person can waste their lives in the pursuit of vain things, so the Christian can waste their lives in sinful ideas about God, making their lives vain. All of this stems from what we believe about God, what we value and live by, and if we allow God to actually come in and renew the spirit of our minds, or not (Eph 4:23).

Many are not unwilling for this work, the issue is that in trying to pursue God and obey God, they are getting caught on these very wrong ideas about God, and being brought into obedience to these rather than to the true Spirit of God. For the sake of our own selves, for the sake of the Gospel in the world, for the sake of God’s Kingdom and righteousness, we must begin to recognize these things that come in the name of “right doctrine”, that come in the name of “obeying God”, that come in the name of “Christian world view”, and be very much on our guard to only truly follow Christ Himself, led by the Spirit of God and the Word of God.

And we must be very careful to guard against a secret spirit of unrighteousness, the lie of this being granted by God, but learn to identify it in what people profess to be of God and His grace.

"Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them” (Romans 1:32)

We need to understand that a large reason why the world isn’t responding to the Gospel is because the Gospel isn’t actually being taught. The righteousness of God is written upon the law of our hearts by God, and a person is meant to see this righteousness of God through the Gospel, calling them into all true righteousness and truth.

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” (Titus 2:11–14)