No man will ever have a true conception of the biblical teaching with regard to redemption if he is not clear about the biblical doctrine of SIN. And that is why so many people today are so loose and vague in their ideas of redemption. The common idea is that our Lord is a sort of friend to whom we can turn in difficulties, as if that were all. He is that -thank God for that! But that is not redemption in its entirety or even in its essence. You cannot begin to measure redemption until you realize something of what the Bible teaches us about man in SIN and the whole effect of SIN upon man. Or let me put it in another way. You cannot possibly understand the doctrine of the incarnation unless you understand this doctrine of SIN. The Bible tells us that man was in such a condition that it necessitated the coming of the Second Person in the blessed, holy Trinity from heaven to earth. He had to come down and take to Himself human nature and to be born as a babe. That was absolutely essential before man could be redeemed. Why? Because of SIN, because of the nature of SIN. Therefore, you see, you cannot understand the incarnation unless you are clear about SIN. In the same way look at the cross on Calvary’s hill. What is it? What does it mean? What is it telling us? What is happening there? I say again that you cannot possibly understand the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and what He did there on the cross unless you are clear about this doctrine of SIN. The utter vagueness of many people’s ideas about the death of the Lord is entirely due to this. They do not like the doctrine of substitution; they do not like the doctrine of penal suffering. That is because they have never understood the problem. It is because they do not start with man in SIN. These are the great cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith, and they cannot be understood except in the light of man’s terrible plight in SIN. We read in Romans 5:12, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” And in Romans 6:23 we find this statement concerning SIN, “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
