A friend once asked me, “What would it take for you to renounce Christianity?” I pondered the question for a moment before responding, “Bring me a sinless man.” And with that, the conversation came to an abrupt halt.
Even unbelievers know there’s no such thing as a sinless man. We all inherently understand what the Bible plainly states about the human condition—that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
But why doesn’t this sinful world get better? With all of our technological and medical advances, why can’t we put an end to crimes, wars, cruelty, and deception? In a constantly changing world, fundamental human behavior remains exactly the same—“there is none righteous, not even one” (Romans 3:10).
In his sermon “What Is Sin?” John MacArthur goes to the root of mankind’s universal problem. He points us to Adam and Eve’s fall in Genesis 3 as the ultimate source of and explanation for everything that happens in our world today.
This may well be the most important chapter in the Bible. If you don’t understand this chapter, you don’t understand the rest of the Bible. You cannot understand the solution to the problem unless you understand the problem. You can’t understand the cure unless you understand the diagnosis. You will never be able to understand God’s remedy for this world if you don’t understand the malady under which this world lives and functions. Genesis 3 explains absolutely everything about our universe and all of us who live in it. It explains everything about why things are the way they are, why we are the way we are, what God is doing in history, and why He’s doing it in terms of salvation. . . .
The Bible’s third chapter then is the foundation of any true and accurate worldview. And without this foundation, every worldview is utterly wrong. If you do not understand the origin of sin and its impact based on Genesis chapter 3, then your understanding of the world is wrong.
“What Is Sin?” exposes the foolishness of every man-made explanation for our sinful behavior. John’s message unmasks the lie of Darwinian evolution regarding our origins, and points us to the truth of the biblical account. All good theology must be grounded in Scripture’s first three chapters in order to make sense of the rest of God’s redemptive plan as it unfolds throughout Scripture.
Our view of sin is integral to our grasp of salvation. For that reason, “What Is Sin?” is a foundational sermon for understanding who we are, where we come from, and why we need a Savior.
Click here to listen to “What Is Sin?”
