Like A Fish Out Of Water

Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given, for its purpose is to keep people from having excuses, and to show that the entire world is guilty before God.   Romans 3:19

The law tells us we’re sinners, but does it really matter? After all, nobody is perfect and everybody makes mistakes. “To err is human; to forgive, divine,” the saying goes, but if it’s natural for us to fail and for God to forgive, then why should Christians make such a big deal about this? Isn’t it obvious God will forgive our sins?

The natural consequence of crime is not forgiveness but punishment, and the natural consequence of sin is not forgiveness but condemnation. God is holy. He abhors sin and has a settled disposition of unrelenting hostility toward it, wherever it is found. It is God’s unflinching purpose to eradicate sin from his universe. He will destroy it forever. So the fact that we’re “under sin” matters big time!

It is hard for us to understand the holiness of God because we’re not holy. It’s like asking a fish to comprehend life outside water. When a fish is taken out of the water, its mouth opens, its eyes glaze over, and before long it is dead. It cannot survive in the new environment. That’s what it’s like when even the best people are taken out of their normal environment and exposed to the holiness of God.

Isaiah was the finest preacher and moral leader of his day, but when he saw the holiness of God, he said, “I am doomed” (Isaiah 6:5). The apostle John was known as the disciple whom Jesus loved, and he had reclined next to him at the Last Supper, but he wrote that when he saw the unveiled holiness of the Lord, “I fell at his feet as if I were dead” (Revelation 1:17).

If Isaiah and John reacted that way, what would it be like for you and me? Sinners cannot live in the white heat of God’s holiness. When we stand in the presence of holiness, we will be silent. All the excuses and justifications that come so easily now will dry up in our mouths. Nobody will have anything to say.

For further reading, see Revelation 1