by Ramesh Richard

The century-old Paris underground Metro has evoked complaints of bad odors since the day it opened. For decades transportation officials have attempted to conquer the pungent smells “of bacteria, vomit, ozone, burning rubber, and toasted wood” by adding various perfumes to the cleaning agents. After years of research, one and a half tons of Madeleine, a scent named after one of the smelliest stations, will be introduced to “spread flowery notes of countryside, woods, flowers, and fruit” throughout the Metro’s fetid tunnels. (New York Times, Dec. 19, 1998, A4) A clever strategy against bad smells indeed.

I told a men’s Bible study recently that, while holding to a high view of God and the Bible. Christians also need a high view of sin. That was a play on the word “high.” To avoid misunderstanding, I rephrased the last part, “We need a bad view of sin!” A high, right, true view of sin calls us to consider the seriousness of sin—how utterly bad it is. Let me explain how just one sin, the first sin, was one too many.

One sin generated our slide into a humanly irreversible, unsalvageable, unredeemable condition. One sin was enough to plunge the whole human race into permanent disaster. (Romans 5:18a) One sin forced all humanity into a vise-grip of spiritual and physical death. (Romans 5:12) Humanity is still trying to cope with the fear and inevitability of death. Death rules!

One sin led to all the evil in the world. All of creation groans, subjected to frustration not by its own choice (Romans 8:20) because of a single sin. Last fall Hurricane Mitch slammed into Central America, leaving 11,000 dead, 100,000 homeless, and $10 billion of damage in its wake. People moan as creation groans.

That’s how serious sin is! Sin is incalculably bad, and a bad view of sin is the right view. The slightest violation of the absolute standard of the holy God, whether in thought, word, or deed, warrants death for one and all. For sin of any kind is a cosmic coup d’etat against Almighty God.

Do you hold a wrong view of sin? Here’s a checklist to evaluate your attitude toward sin:

  • I muster the best rationalization available (biblical, theological, legal, existential) to excuse myself.
  • I downplay the badness of a particular behavior.
  • I diminish the gravity of my error and its consequences.
  • I blame people and circumstances for my wrongful actions.
  • I am too proud to acknowledge my contribution to bad conduct.
  • I do not confess my sin to God.
  • I delay confessing my sin to God.
  • I confess to God in generalities, not specifics
  • I would rather live with an unclear conscience than go through the humiliation of taking responsibility for error.
  • I exaggerate my “goodness” to counter my sin.
  • I generously give myself the benefit of the doubt when internally debating the badness of my sin.
  • I distract or suppress my conscience when it bothers me. After awhile my seared conscience finally seems to let go.
  • I don’t think I deserve what evil I get, though I think I merit the good that comes my way.
  • I negotiate with God for “fair and reasonable” punishment for the wrongs I commit.
  • I use mental and verbal tactics to redefine what I have done.
  • I put myself in a better light and think the best possible thoughts about myself.
  • I feel badly for getting caught rather than for having done wrong.
  • I compare myself with those whose conduct is worse than mine to feel better about myself.
  • I compensate by paying for my sins with good behavior.
  • I do good works or follow religious ritual (confession, the four noble truths, the five pillars, the eight-fold path, the Ten Commandments) the best I can.
  • I am more anxious to get back to my life, work, or ministry than to set things right.
  • I call transgression an indiscretion, willfulness a weakness, and depravity a defect.
  • I am anxious to put the thing behind me and move forward.
  • I do not feel the pain that I have caused God and people.

When you check any of these, you are attempting to solve a structural problem cosmetically. A dishonest view of sin leads to double sin—the sin itself and the sinful strategy of denial. Like spreading Madeleine in the Metro, you are deodorizing the symptom instead of dealing with the root cause.

Sin is so bad that just one sin would have been enough to demand God’s own life to bring about human rescue. That is what in fact happened. The Lord Jesus had to pay for sin through the calamity of the Cross because the nature of sin is so bad (2 Corinthians 5:21a), and payment was the only way He could eternally salvage us from the effects of sin (2 Corinthians 5:21b). It took the ultimate tragedy, the dislocating of the Trinity, to open the way for us to become ”Christian.” That stark tragedy on the Cross still functions as the active ground by which we remain Christian.

There is a heresy among Christians that God somehow puts up with sin in the believer that He condemns in the unbeliever. God abhors all sin. If not for the Cross of Christ, one sin is all it would take for Christians to be hurled into an eternal hell. We escape separation from God forever only because we have thrown ourselves on the Cross of Christ for salvation. We ought to frequently go back there for ongoing forgiveness and release.

What can you do to correct your bad-wrong view of sin? How can you hold to a bad-right view of sin? I have adopted the acrostic ACTS, a familiar teaching device for prayer (adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication), to help you come to a bad-right view of sin.

Acknowledge your sin. Most of our internal battles against sin are fought over taking this first step. A critical factor toward “truth in the inward parts” (Psalm 51:6) is honestly admitting our sin. You know how difficult that is. A man once told me that he had done many wrongs, but he was not a sinner! Until David admitted his sin, his “body wasted away” and his vitality was drained as in “the fever heat of summer.” (Psalm 32:3-5) Unable to continue his cover-up, David finally had to honestly acknowledge his sin before God. A high-bad-right view of sin holds that even the slightest, seemingly superficial wrong deserves eternal damnation.

Confess your sin. To confess is to go beyond acknowledgment to agreement—you “agree with God” about the evilness of your conduct, the baseness of your sin. You agree that you deserve eternal loss. You agree not to redefine, overlook, or soften the reality of sin in your life. “Repentance,” a turning around, forms the interior side of confession. In agreement with God, you reverse the erroneous value you have placed on sin as being more precious than your salvation.

The passage 1 John 1:8-9 applies to both acknowledgment and confession: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” Notice that the result of confession is not only forgiveness of sin, but purification “from all unrighteousness.” Go to the next two steps to explore your cleansing.

Transfer your sin. We did this when we first became Christians, trusting in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. We secured “judicial” forgiveness upon conversion. Now when we sin, we must again intentionally transfer our personal sin to the shoulders of Jesus on the Cross. In so doing we receive God’s “parental” forgiveness. All our sins (past, present, and future) were covered, not cosmetically but intrinsically, by ”the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29) It is back to the Cross again for us even though we don’t need to “get saved” again.

The Cross portrayed God’s radical recognition of the intrinsic badness of sin and executed God’s surgical action against sin’s horrific aftermath. The only final, permanent, and universal rescue from the Fall and its devastating effects arises from the Cross. Until your glorification, use the Cross for all it is worth. “The blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all [post-conversion] sin.” (1 John 1:7) The Cross prohibits God from redefining, overlooking, and softening sin. So keep going back to the Cross. Go there right now if necessary.

Finally, strategize to overcome your sin. Put some strategies for resisting sin into operation. Where are you tempted most often? When do you repeatedly fall into sin? In what areas of life does Satan invalidate your effectiveness?

Satan pursues opportunities (Ephesians 4:27), strategies (2 Corinthians 2:11), and schemes (Ephesians 6:11) against us. Therefore we need to “put on the full armor of God” in resisting him (Ephesians 6:10-13).

ACTing on sin—admitting, confessing, and transferring sin—prepares us for implementing essential sin-resistance strategies in a supernatural warfare. Now creatively strategize to overcome sins that easily beset you. Then call on God for victory in the struggle.

Spiritual research and development engineers have been busy devising cosmetic solutions to the smelliest problem of all—human sin. They create religions that redefine “sin” to mean indiscretion, ignorance, or illusion. They even relativize “bad” to mean good. God isn’t interested in human solutions, which temporarily neutralize the symptomatic stench of sin. God paid with His Son’s death to permanently address sin’s root cause- God wants us to take sin as seriously as He does, for “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

A correct ”baaaad” view of sin admits, confesses, transfers, and strategizes to overcome sin. A high view of sin will be matched by a high view of the Cross as the only ongoing solution. Why use a cover-up spray when you can apply the Cross to cleanse your sin forever?

© 2003 To enhance your spiritual journey, you may order Ramesh Richard’s book Soul Passion here.