If I didn’t know better, I’d think that this chapter was written last week. As I read, several wrong attitudes and excuses for sin came to mind. First, the usual excuses of “It’s my personality,” or “I’ve always been this way,” or “You don’t understand how it feels to be me” came to mind. Somehow, we want to make ourselves the exception to God’s rule.

Second, I think all of our efforts to build self-esteem is detrimental to helping people toward Heaven, too. We hesitate to tell another person she’s wrong, that her behavior is sinful, that she needs to stop what she’s doing. After all, it’s not going to help her if we only make her feel worse about herself, right?

Third, we hesitate to call a sin a sin because we are afraid for our own reputations. In each of these I can see a love for myself and a disregard for God and His standards. Ryle is relentless in his pursuit to help the reader see her sin for what it is, a disease set deep in the marrow with only one cure.

Reading this chapter served to remind that, though I can see growth in my life over the last few years, I also so see how far I have to go. It is dangerous to live comfortably with sin, not fighting it. I think it was John Owen who said I must be busy killing sin or it will be killing me. Ryle also reminded me that I have a Savior who will be relentless in bringing me closer to Himself, transforming me into His image. I can look forward to that day when, in an instant, I will be whole.

I’m going to share of few portions of this chapter in the form of my questions and Ryle’s answers. As he says, a right understanding of the sinfulness of sin is the foundation “towards attaining a higher standard of holiness,” I wrote it out this way for my own benefit.

“He that wishes to attain right views about Christian holiness, must begin by examining the vast and solemn subject of sin…Dim or indistinct views of sin are the origin of most of the errors, heresies, and false doctrines of the present day. If a man does not realize the dangerous nature of his soul’s disease, you cannot wonder if he is content with false or imperfect remedies.”

What is sin?

“Sin, in short, is that vast moral disease which affects the whole human race, of every rank, and class, and name, and nation, and people, and tongue; a disease from which there never was but one born of woman that was free.”

“‘A sin,’ to speak more particularly, consists in doing, saying, thinking, or imagining, anything that is not in perfect conformity with the mind and law of God. ‘Sin,’ in short, as the Scripture saith, is “the transgression of the law.” (1 John 3:4) The slightest outward or inward departure from absolute mathematical parallelism with God’s revealed will and character constitutes as sin, and at once makes us guilty in God’s sight.”

“A man may commit sin and yet be ignorant of it, and fancy himself innocent when he is guilty…We shall do well to remember, that when we make our own miserable imperfect knowledge and consciousness the measure of our sinfulness, we are on very dangerous ground.”

How did I come to be a sinner?

“The sinfulness of man does not begin from without, but from within. It is not the result of bad training in early years. It is not picked up from bad companions and bad examples, as some weak Christians are too fond of saying. No! it is a family disease, which we all inherit from our first parents, Adam and Eve, and with which we are born…The fairest babe that has entered life this year, and become the sunbeam of a family, is not, as its mother perhaps fondly calls it, a little “angel,” or a little “innocent,” but a little “sinner.” Alas! as it lies smiling and crowing in its cradle, that little creature carries in its heart the seeds of every kind of wickedness!”

I’m a Christian. Why is the fight against sin so hard?

“I am convinced that the greatest proof of the extent and power of sin is the pertinacity with which it cleaves to man even after he is converted and has become the subject of the Holy Ghost’s operations…So deeply planted are the roots of human corruption, that even after we are born again, renewed, ‘washed, sanctified, justified,’ and made living members of Christ, these roots remain alive in the bottom of or hearts, and, like the leprosy in the walls of the house, we never get rid of them until the earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved. Sin, no doubt, in the believer’s heart, has no longer dominion. It is checked, controlled, mortified, and crucified by the expulsive power of the new principle of grace. The life of a believer is a life of victory, and not of failure. But the very struggles which go on within his bosom, the fight that he finds it needful to fight daily, the watchful jealousy which he is obliged to exercise over his inner man, the contest between the flesh and the spirit, the inward ‘groanings’ which no one knows but he who has experienced them–all, testify to the same great truth, all show the enormous power and vitality of sin. Mighty indeed must that foe be who even when crucified is still alive! Happy is that believer who understands it, and while he rejoices in Christ Jesus has no confidence in the flesh; and while he says, ‘Thanks be unto God who giveth us the victory,’ never forgets to watch and pray lest he fall into temptation.”

What’s the big deal?

“Terribly black must that guilt be for which nothing but the blood of the Son of God could make satisfaction.”

How is sin deceitful?

“You may see this deceitfulness in the wonderful proneness of men to regard sin as less sinful and dangerous than it is in the sight of God; and in their readiness to extenuate it, make excuses for it, and minimize its guilt…They show that men try to cheat themselves into the belief that sin is not quite so sinful as God says it is, and that they are not so bad as they really are.–You may see it in the tendency even of believers to indulge their children in questionable practices, and to bind their own eyes to the inevitable result of the love of money, of tampering with temptation, and sanctioning a low standard of family religion.–I fear we do not sufficiently realize the extreme subtlety of our soul’s disease. We are too apt to forget that temptation to sin will rarely present itself to us in his true colours, saying, ‘I am your deadly enemy, and I want to ruin you for ever in hell.’”

What is the remedy?

“We must sit down humbly in the presence of God, look the whole subject in the face, examine clearly what the Lord Jesus calls sin, and what the Lord Jesus calls ‘doing His will.’ We must then try to realize that it is terribly possible to live a careless, easy-going, half-worldly life, and yet at the same time to maintain Evangelical principles and call ourselves Evangelical people! Once let us see that sin is far viler, and far nearer to us, and sticks more closely to us than we supposed, and we shall be led, I trust and believe, to get nearer to Christ. Once drawn nearer to Christ, we shall drink more deeply out of His fullness, and learn more thoroughly to ‘live the life of faith’ in Him, as St. Paul did…In short…’with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image even as by the Spirit of the Lord.’” (2 Cor. 3:18)

Visit Tim’s site for more discussion.