Our ability to rationalize and make excuses for sin is as old as mankind. Remember Adam and Eve in the Garden?
Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
On the one hand there was the clear command of God and on the other hand there was “good…pleasing…desirable” fruit.Adam and Eve were able to rationalize away the clear command of God, or as Jude says, they denied Jesus Christ the Sovereign Lord.
As a result of their sin they hid from God. Or as John says in John 3:20 their deeds were exposed.
Having denied God’s sovereignty, in effect, makes man sovereign. Just like Eve decided to ignore God and do what her heart desired, we are tempted to do the same thing. And, as Jesus points out in Revelation and Jude points out, one of the main ways this manifests itself in the church is as “a license of immorality.”
? Can you think of ways this has manifested itself in the Church today?
Return to Jude 3-4
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