In the post-modern world in which we live, saying that something is “bad” or “wrong” is becoming increasingly out of favor, and it is certainly not politically correct to utilize the concept of “sin.” Speaking of absolutes such as right and wrong can lead to being labeled as being insensitive, intolerant or worse.
This is interesting, as C. S. Lewis might have said, because if we admit to the existence of any absolutes at all – whether being alive, dead, pregnant, not pregnant, or whatever – there is no real reason to suppose that there cannot be moral absolutes, too. Just because we don’t want there to be any, or we think they are a bad idea, doesn’t mean there are no absolutes and there is no wrong, evil – or sin.
The Bible is clear that sin does exist and it defines it for us (1 John 3:4). But our modern world has rejected the authority of the Bible, and in many cases it has been successful in making the concept of sin effectively disappear. Sin no longer appears in most polite conversation, in “normal” newspaper articles or in any other area of the media unless it is in the context of discussing the beliefs of “religious extremists” (a term often applied to terrorists, and one with very useful anti-religious potential). So the world has been quite successful in making the concept of sin disappear, but what it has not been able to do is to make the results of sin vanish in the same way. The misery and heartache that can result from lying, stealing, adultery, oppression and many other sins are all too obvious.
Society tries to make sin disappear by trying to deny it and forget it. Those who understand the reality of sin know that the only way to make it disappear is to admit it and to forgive it. Whether we forgive others or we are ourselves forgiven, forgiveness and then a turning to what is “right” is the only way to make sin truly disappear. The world has created quite a “magic trick” in making sin appear to “disappear,” but the truth is, just as in a deceptive “smoke and mirrors” magic act, although you may not see or hear the concept much anymore, sin is still there – as its results show – even if the concept has been hidden in the magician’s hat.
