Taught by Mike Reeves at UCCF South Summer School, June 2009.
What is the fundamental nature of sin? Unbelief, pride, and incurvature.
1. Sin = Unbelief
Popularly, the definition for sin touted today is: idolatry. This was the answer given by Ulrich Zwingly, the Zurich reformer. He saw his ministry as an anti-idolatry ministry; that was his problem with Roman Catholicism. So his ministry in Zurich was: get rid of the idols. Churches were stripped of anything – particularly images – that were considered idolatrous. Though he played 7 instruments, he stripped organs out of churches for fear of the power of music capturing people’s hearts in an idolatrous fashion. But the problem was that he didn’t give the gospel instead – he said instead of serving idols, serve God instead. This doesn’t get us much further – it only leads to works.
Luther was able to go deeper. Problem of sin for him: not treating the wrong thing as God, but treating the real God the wrong way. Idolatry is the consequence of the real problem of sin: unbelief. Yes, unbelief leads to idolatry – by committing unbelief you set yourself up as an idol in your own heart; but doubting God’s word was the heart of the problem.
“Whatever is not of faith is sin”
So sin is at heart unbelief, and thus essentially is a relational problem.
