Guilty as Sin

Sometimes, my mother had an interesting way of getting to the bottom of something. With three boys in the house, whenever something was amiss, she had three likely suspects. She practiced fair and balanced justice, too. All were considered guilty until the actual culprit was identified through confession or coercion of the other two to confess to the crime. I was the little guy in the group, so the pressure to fess up probably seemed greater to me, I suppose.

 So mom would just wait, and wait, and sometimes wait some more until one of us would step forward and say "I did it." It generally took an hour or so, but usually someone took the blame...usually. There was a time or two, as I recall, that no one came forward. Whether it was because the crime was too great or the anticipated punishment too sizable, none of us three brothers wanted to own up to being guilty. Those times, mom carried fairness and equality to the next level...everyone would receive discipline for the crime. In her eyes, I guess, we were all guilty...guilty as sin.

Some people have trouble fully understanding the reason Christ had to die on a cross for our sins. From Adam and Eve’s fall in the garden, mankind has been guilty of carrying a sinful nature that we just can’t escape. Romans 3:23 states our condition clearly, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," leaving no wriggle room whatsoever for our condition. Our greatest need is a savior to deliver us from the penalty of our sin, because Romans 6:23 tells us plainly "the wages of sin is death..." But God provides for this need as Romans 5:8 states, "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." The reception of this act of grace isn’t complicated, either. The promise in Romans 10:13 is just as clear as the rest of this Roman road, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

My brothers and I sat under a cloud of suspicion as my mother awaited a confession. In her eyes, all of us were guilty until one of us stepped forward. What was unlikely to happen back then, though, was for someone else to step forward for us. Someone who would take the punishment for the rest of us, though they were completely guiltless. I guess it would have been like He who knew no sin dying for the sins of the rest of us.