Doctrine of Sin
By Jerry Batson, Th.D.
Special to The Alabama Baptist
Many weeks ago we began thinking about the doctrine of sin by looking at the powerful proponents of sin — the world, the flesh and the devil. We then embarked on a multiweek consideration of biblical descriptors of sin such as “missing the mark,” “transgression,” “impiety,” “omission” and “iniquity.”
Now we round out the consideration of the doctrine of sin by giving attention to some of its consequences. One consequence of sin, if persisted in, is that of enslavement to sin. Given our own sinful natures along with the world’s persistent allurements and the devil’s powerful temptations, sin has a way of latching onto a person’s life and then over time tightening its grip.
At first a particular sin might result in some twinge of conscience or sense of guilt. If repeated over time, that same sin seems to be less serious or less troubling. And often sin, if persisted in, loses some of its original thrill unless one goes deeper and deeper into it.
Repeated actions tend to become habits. Repeated sins result in forming habitual sinners. We have some common labels by which to speak of habitual sins. We might call them addictions or obsessions. A Bible label for such is “a stronghold.”
People often then find themselves unable to break that stronghold and wake up someday to see themselves as slaves to a particular sin. What a person might have viewed as freedom to do as they please turns out to not be freedom at all.
Romans 6:16 asks a serious question, “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey?”
Based on the truth in that question, the next verse addresses those who are said to have been “slaves of sin.”
Persistence in sin has a way of producing insensitivity to wrongdoing. People find themselves increasingly unresponsive to the promptings of conscience. Sin tends to become the accepted way of life and is pursued with little or no compunction. The Bible in fact speaks of people whose consciences had been seared as with a hot iron (1 Tim. 4:2). Persistence in sin not only sears the conscience but also leads to a hardening of the heart against the Holy Spirit’s conviction.
Sin, however, does not have to have the last word. People do not have to remain sin’s slaves. God has an answer for people who find themselves enslaved by their sins.
The Bible promises, “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ “ (2 Cor. 10:4–5).
‘Human terms’
The Bible also puts its promise in what is called “human terms” so that ordinary people might understand better its promise of victory over slavery to sin, “Just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness” (Rom. 6:19).
At this very human or minimal level of expression, God expects us to be as committed to right doing as once we were to wrongdoing. Of course, God has a higher standard toward which we are to aspire — to live as obedient subjects set free from sin’s dominion and living under the lordship of Christ while seeking to become more and more like Him.
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EDITOR’S NOTE — Jerry Batson is a retired Alabama Baptist pastor who also has served as associate dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University and professor of several schools of religion during his career.
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