{"id":6154,"date":"2025-10-21T15:23:28","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T15:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gospelinlife.com\/?post_type=article&p=6154"},"modified":"2025-10-27T17:50:26","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T17:50:26","slug":"sin-do-i-have-your-attention","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/gospelinlife.com\/article\/sin-do-i-have-your-attention\/","title":{"rendered":"SIN! (Do I Have Your Attention?)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is an article originally written for the <\/em>Redeemer Report in 2003. In it, Dr. Keller looks at how sin is viewed in the Bible in comparison to how today\u2019s culture responds to the term and its meaning. He also shows how when Christians rightly understand that everyone is equally a sinner, it revolutionizes how we relate to others in the world who don\u2019t have the same beliefs.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Luke 11 Jesus is instructing his followers on the subject of prayer, and in the midst of it he says, \u201cif you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more … your Father in heaven …?\u201d This reference to his own disciples as evil is what we would call \u201coff-handed.\u201d It is a casual comment that reveals an astounding (to modern readers) assumption of Jesus: namely, that even the best human beings are so radically corrupt that they can be referred to as \u201cevil\u201d persons. Nevertheless, though he calls them \u201cevil,\u201d it is obvious that Jesus loves his disciples with the utmost tenderness and even delight, and is willing to pay the ultimate price for them (John 13:1; 17:20-26). Obviously, this is a totally different view of \u201csin\u201d and \u201cevil\u201d than exists in the world today. No one, apart from those who hold Jesus\u2019 view of sin, can look at their friends and family, take genuine delight in them, and yet say, \u201cI love them\u2014but they have lots of evil in them! And so do I!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What then is the biblical view of sin? Sin is a distortion and dislocation of the heart from its true center in God (Romans 1:21-25). This is expressed in a basic motive for all human life\u2014the heart desire of every person to be his or her own Savior and Lord (see the serpent\u2019s original temptation in Genesis 3:5: \u201cyou will be as God\u201d). Kierkegaard used very modern terms when he defined sin as building your identity on anything besides God. That is just another way to put across the old biblical themes of idolatry, self justification, and self-glorification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sin, therefore, is something that everyone is doing all the time. (See Romans 1:18-3:20 with the summary in 3:20.) People who flout God\u2019s moral law are doing this overtly, of course. But even moral religious people are trying to be their own saviors by earning salvation and being good. It is just as possible to avoid Jesus as Savior (and be your own savior) by keeping God\u2019s law as by breaking it. Everyone is separated from God equally\u2014regardless of the external form of behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the fundamental motives of self-justification and self-glorification that distort our lives and alienate us from God. And until a person is converted, these principles operate as the main motive for everything we do. This is true in every culture and class of people. In the ultimate sense, then, everyone is equally a \u201csinner\u201d in need of Jesus\u2019 salvation by grace alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Once this radical view of sin is grasped, it revolutionizes the believer\u2019s attitude toward others in the world who do not share his or her beliefs.<\/div>