King David once said in a prayer of repentance, “Against You and You only have I sinned.” (Psalm 51:4) Though he recognized that his sin certainly hurt and violated others, first and foremost it was a defiant declaration of independence against God, an act of cosmic treason, tantamount to spitting in God’s face and an attempt to take the place of rule on His throne. Every time we sin each of us is saying “I should be on the throne of this Universe and not You God; I should make the rules and not You.”

Sin is not merely a “mistake” or a “poor choice,” but a full blown attack on the holiness and majesty of God. God would be perfectly just in sending every sinner to hell forever. Should that have been His plan, all the angels in heaven would not have missed a beat in their song of “holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts!” But the scandal of our sin is that God forgives all those who put their trust in Christ. God loved us so much that He became a man and in the Person of His Son, took the full punishment we deserved, so that He could extend a kind of grace to us that is incalculable in its depth and scope. You see, recognizing the depth and scandal of our sin allows us to then see that the gospel of Jesus Christ is totally AMAZING and not boring grace! It was my sin that put the Son of God on the cross. His death should have been mine, in fact, in reality, it was. Jesus died my death so that I could share His life. He was punished so I might be forgiven, wounded, so that I might be healed; He took my curse, so I might receive the blessing. Oh what grace!

“The wages of sin is death (this we now understand – we fully deserve death and separation from God because of our sin) but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23) Hallelujah! What a Savior!