Christian Living

Cause and Effect

by Gary Farrell
05/22/16
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Cause and Effect

We live in a universe of cause and effect.  In most cases we are both the cause and effect, only God is not an effect.  Roman 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death.” When I ask people what sin is, I generally get an answer like swearing, lying, cheating, stealing, murder, and/or envy.  But in reality these are sins and are the effect of sin. Romans 5:12. "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”  Sin then is the root cause of sins and their disgraceful effects.  Adam and Eve were injected by the serpent with a genetic moral disease that would be passed to all their children, and all their children.  So the wages of sin is death.  

Our modern society doesn’t recognize concepts like sin and evil, it only recognizes the law of man, yet evil is done all the time where it does not transgress the law of man.  In fact, our society has gone so far as to make laws that subsidize great evils like infanticide.   Genesis 15:16, “…for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”  The religious acts of the Amorites were pornographic and suggested that all things were permissible in order to guarantee that society prospered including sacrifice by fire of their children. It encouraged the view that love, loyalty, morality and integrity were inferior to material prosperity, physical satisfaction, and human pleasure.  Does any of this sound familiar?  But the inequities of the Amorites had not reached its full measure because there remained a small percentage of the population that condemned it.  When it settled in as the norm and nobody resisted it any longer it had reached its full measure.  Then God brought about the utter and terrible destruction of the Amorites at the hands of Joshua.  We know from Genesis 18 that if there had been 10 righteous men in Sodom God would have staid the destruction. So resist my brothers, resist.  

Many Christians view sins as isolated bits of evil foreign to their nature that Satan forced upon them. But the actual cause lies much deeper. They arise out of that moral disease which is inherent.  Sin is innate to all of us, only Jesus was without sin.  1 John 3:5, "In Him is no sin."  The sin to which Jesus died was purely an external thing. With us sin is not only an external force but internal as well.  This moral disease is the ruling principal of the flesh. There is only one prescription for sin, the only escape from death is Jesus.

James 2:17, “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”  In this case, faith is the cause and good works is the effect.  Abraham was thought righteous when he offered his son Isaac at the altar.  Abraham’s righteousness arose out of faith.  Romans 11:6, “And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.” Our salvation is not something that can be earned by good works, it is by grace, and a gift is not earned.  Roman 6:23, “but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus, our Lord.”  We cannot earn our way to eternal life, it only comes when we make Christ Jesus our lord.  Once that happens good works will arise from it.