WHAT IS SIN?...by Ichabod Spencer

1 John 3:4 "Sin is the transgression of the law."

Sinner, did you ever inquire what sin is? Did you ever study the Word of God, that you might have proper views of this greatest of all evils? If you have never made the inquiry, your state is bad, dreadfully bad. Your salvation is at stake. Look seriously into the text. Lift up your heart to God, and say, "Lord, give me proper views of sin." "Sin is the transgression of the law." What law? The law of the most holy God. Where is this law to be found? It is contained in the ten commandments. Did you ever read them with a trembling heart and a faltering voice, asking, "Have I transgressed this or that part of God's holy law? Did I ever consider that the law may be broken by thought, as well as by word or deed? Did I ever reflect that the law is spiritual, reaching to the thoughts, purposes, and intentions of the heart; that every irregular thought is a transgression of the law; that every unholy desire is sin; that 'every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment,' (Matt. 12:36) - that awful day, when the heart-searching God shall judge the secrets of our hearts? Alas! How many idle thoughts have passed through my mind, without the proper conviction attending each of them, that this is sin! See Genesis 6:5.

How many idle words have I every day spoken, without reflecting, that for every one of these I must give an account! When did the evil of my thoughts and words extort an anxious cry from my heart, 'God be merciful to me a sinner?' if sin be the transgression of the law; that is, if falling short of the perfection which the law requires, in thought, word, or deed, be sin, as well as doing that which the law forbids; how much have I to answer for, that perhaps I have never before thought of? Yet I have often confessed, 'We have done what we ought not to have done, and have left undone what we ought to have done, and there is no health in us.' Alas! I have mocked God, by confessing with my lips what I did not own in my heart."

Let my conscience, O Lord, now be awakened to know what sin is.

The Love of God as Revealed in His Law...the Ten Commandments

"To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, "And to offsprings," referring to many, but referring to one, "And to your offspring," who is Christ. This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.

Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.

Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise." -Galatians 3:15-29 (ESV)

Christ fulfilled the Law and all righteousness by His active and passive obedience in His sinless life culminating as a once for all propitiatory sacrifice for our sins on the cross as our divine substitute. Which now, having been justified by faith, His righteousness is imputed to all who have been predestined, foreknown and chosen before the foundation of the world. By grace, through Christ Jesus our Lord, the law is no longer our judge condemning us (Romans 3:19-26; 8:1) and our tutor pointing us to Christ (Galatians 3:24), but is an instrument of conviction that the Spirit of God uses in our sanctification to conform us to the image of Christ HImself. This is the ultimate purpose of the law, that God may be glorified in our sanctification.

Ten Characteristics of God's Love as Revealed in The Ten Commandments:
(Exodus 20)

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all your heart,
and with all your soul and with all your strength"

Love Toward God:
1. Love is loyal v.3
I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 You shall have no other gods a before Me.

2. Love is faithful v.4-6
4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

3. Love is reverent v.7
7 You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.

4. Love is holy v.8-11
8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or our daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

"and you shall love your neighbor as yourself"

Love Toward Our Neighbor:
5. Love is respectful v.12
12 Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you.

6. Love is harmless v. 13
13 You shall not murder.

7. Love is pure v.14
14 You shall not commit adultery.

8. Love is unselfish v.15
15 You shall not steal.

9. Love is truthful v.16
16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

10. Love is content v.17
17 You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.


Christ, A Shadow and Type in the Old Covenant
(Leviticus 1-3)

1. Burnt offering
*Atonement: Christ giving His life sacrificially because of His total fidelity to God.

2. Grain offering
*Perfection: Christ wholly devoted to the Father's purpose.

3. Peace offering
*Reconciliation: Christ made us peace with God.

4. Sin offering
*Propitiation: Christ died in our place as our divine substitute. Christ died for God to satisfy His holiness, justice and wrath against sin.

5. Trespass offering
*Repentance: Christ completely paid the price for our sin. Blessed redemption and victory through the perfect sinless life of our Lord Jesus.

Your Weekly Dose of Gospel...the reality of sin and the necessity of the law

"For all have sinned, and continually fall short of the holy appraisal of God." -Romans 3:23


by Ichabod Spencer
All, and therefore you, my dear Reader, and myself. We have sinned; that is, we have broken God's law; for 'There is none righteous, no, not one' (Romans 3:10). There is none that has kept the law of God. We have transgressed every precept of His moral law, either in act, word, or evil desire. The charge is heavy, but the verdict is true. Let us consider the case, earnestly entreating God to enlighten our minds. Take the ten commandments into your hand, and read. We have broken the first commandment, by trusting in and loving other things more than God. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart" (Matthew 22:37). In this we have come short. The second respects the manner in which God is to be worshiped, not with outward form and ceremony, but in spirit and truth.

Alas! how deficient have we been in that serious attention, that inward reverence, and that devout affection, which His worship required! God is a jealous God. You say you have never been guilty of profane cursing and swearing, and so think you have kept the third; but have you never in prayer, and in reading the sacred Scriptures, suffered the holy name of God to pass through your lips without an awful sense of what you were doing, or even without thought? "the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain" (Exodus 20:7). Have you always employed the whole Sabbath in those religious exercises which the fourth commandment enjoins; and performed those exercises in such a devout manner, that the law has nothing to charge you with, in thought, word, or deed? Sinner, lay your hand upon your mouth, and plead guilty. Need I go through the second table? Dost thou love thy neighbor as thyself? Hast thou done unto all men as thou wouldst they should do unto thee? Have you never been guilty of disobedience to your parents? Know ye not that every rising of causless anger is murder? (Matthew 5:22) that every unchaste desire is adultery? (Matthew 5:28) that every secret fraud and neglect of affording that succour to the poor which is in your power, is theft? That every uncharitable thought is a breach of the ninth, and every covetous wish a transgression of the tenth commandment?

Surely all have sinned, in doing that which the law forbids, and in not doing that which the law commands. What have I then done; and what have I not done? All have sinned. What is my state? A state of sinfulness and misery. Why have I not felt it till now? Because sin hath blinded my eyes against the light of truth.