Knowledge of sin

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. – Romans 3.19-20

What is sin? We can come up with all kinds of answers to that question. How do we know if and when we are sinning? In our so called ‘post modern world’ there are some who would say that there is no such thing as sin or that sin is fluid and depends on situations or times or cultural mores. Maybe nothing is sin and we can just go about doing whatever we want.

What is the Law? To the Jews the Law was the be all and end all. It was guide and their target and it was supposed to be the determiner of how they should live their lives.

It didn’t take long though for them to realise that no one could keep it completely. No one was that good.

So what was the purpose? The two question above go hand in hand. The Law came to give us the knowledge of what sin is. It is by the Law that we realise that there is a standard and that none of us can reach it. When we realise that we realise that we all far short and none of us is therefore righteous.

And that is how we come to see our need of something more. The fact that we have the knowledge of sin and the knowledge that God requires perfection and that we know that we can’t be perfect helps us to realise that we need some other way to make our way to God.

Thank God that He provides that way through Christ.