God's view of sin. By Charles Spurgeon

Habakkuk 1.13
You are of purer eyes than to behold evil. You cannot look on wickedness.

Psalm 5.4-5
You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil. With you the wicked cannot dwell. The arrogant cannot stand in your presence. you hate all who do wrong.

If we would know how God views sin, we must not measure it by how lightheartedly man treats it, nor by how common it appears in the world, nor even by how it wounds our own conscience. We must measure sin by the cross. Sin is not merely a mistake, a weakness, or an unfortunate choice. It is a direct offense against the holiness of the eternal God. Sin is a daring defiance of His Word, a trampling upon His glory, and a mockery of His authority.

But if we would truly understand the infinite evil of sin, we must look to Calvary. There on the accursed tree God unveiled His view of sin. He did not even spare His own beloved Son when He stood in the sinner's place. What horror must belong to sin? when its payment required the abandonment of the sinless one by his own father? What dreadful weight must sin carry, that it could crush the eternal Son of God into the dust of death? What must God think of sin, when He would lay upon Jesus the iniquity of His people, and exact from Him every drop of wrath which our guilt deserved?

Behold the bloodied brow, the pierced hands, the parched lips, the darkened sky, the cry of dereliction. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? These are God's thunderous declarations that sin is no trifle. Sin is not something he can simply overlook. Sin is a monster so vile that it demanded nothing less than the sacrifice of the Lamb of God.

Here is a sight too deep for words. The infinitely holy one bruised for the utterly unholy. Jesus the righteous suffers for the unrighteous, because God is too pure to let sin go unpunished. The cross is not only the supreme display of divine love, but also the supreme revelation of divine justice. Never again can we doubt how God views sin. He hates it with a holy hatred. And yet, in that same moment, we see something elseâ€" God's matchless grace. For He who spared not His own Son has also made a way for sinners to be fully cleansed and forgiven.

Holy and righteous God, open my eyes to see sin as You see it. May I never trifle with that sin which nailed my Savior to the cross. Let the horror of Golgotha humble me, and let the mercy found there lead me to hate sin and cling to Jesus, who bore it all in my place. Amen.