The Cry of Sin

Have you ever read Romans 8:22 and wondered why creation groans: “For we know that the whole creation groans together and suffers agony together until now.” Like many other curious passages, I have wondered about this one, giving it little thought. Recently I read the words of God to Abraham when He was about to judge Sodom and Gomorrah. “Then Yahweh said, ‘Because the outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great and because their sin is very serious, I will go down and I will see. Have they done altogether according to its cry of distress which has come to me? If not, I will know.’” (Ge 18:20–21)

I was struck by the phrase, “Its cry of distress.” I asked myself what was crying in distress. Pardon a brief grammar lesson, but I discovered that “its cry” used a feminine pronoun meaning the antecedent had to be feminine as well. Then I discovered that “outcry” is also feminine.  The cities are not feminine. The closest possible feminine antecedent is the word “sin.” The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was making a distress cry. Being a feminine, singular pronoun, the cry was not from the cities or the people which would be plural; it was the sin that cried out to God. Huh!

Something was happening in those cities that was so terrible that it raised an SOS to heaven. MAYDAY! MAYDAY! rang through the halls of heaven, and God felt it necessary to go down and see what was happening. I know, God is omniscient; He knew exactly what was going on. But as I have written before, God must make Himself human sized occasionally to make a point about His character and His actions. This is one of those frequent interactions between God and His creation that reveals the nature of His relationship. We know that God is holy, so we can imagine that “very serious” sin would concern Him.

When we look at what sin is in essence, we might understand why it bothers God so much. The original sin – the sin of Adam and Eve – was rebellion. At its core, that rebellion was an attempt to move away from the order God had established for His creation. Creation itself is an ordering of all things into their divine place. God spoke order into chaos, and the universe came to be. Anything that disturbs that order is sin – chaos.

A look at the Hebrew word God spoke to Abraham about Sodom and Gomorrah shows this. Chata (חָטָא), means to miss; to go wrong.  The most frequently used New Testament Greek word for sin is hamartanō (ἁμαρτάνω) which also means to miss the mark. God’s “mark” is perfection; whatever misses that mark is sin; it brings chaos into the order God intends for His creation. If you think of creation as a symphony, as Scripture sometimes does, sin is a sour note in the otherwise beautiful music.

I played in band throughout my high school career. When a wrong note was played somewhere in the band, I couldn’t always detect it from my seat in the third row playing my horn. In one of the schools where I taught years later, I was drafted as the director of a musical ensemble. From my position up front, I could easily tell when a note was off, and I could usually pinpoint the location quite easily. I imagine this is what God experienced when the cities of the plain cried out in distress. I sounded off tune – chaotic.

Look again at Romans chapter eight. The two verses before the mention of creation’s groaning read: “For the eagerly expecting creation awaits eagerly the revelation of the sons of God. For the creation has been subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its servility to decay, into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” What happened to cause creation to be “subjected to futility?” Genesis 3:17 tells us: “And to Adam [God] said, ‘Because you listened to the voice of your wife and you ate from the tree from which I forbade you to eat, the ground shall be cursed on your account.’” Adam sinned and chaos ensued. Darn!

We generally tend to think that the salvation wrought by Jesus on the cross was for us. Of course it was, but now I see that human redemption is just the tip of the iceberg. There are a number of Bible passages that begin to come alive with this expansion of redemption. The stars sang at creation. The trees of the field clap their hands. The stones cry out at the coming of their Redeemer. The creation groans eagerly awaiting the revelation of the sons of God. These passages which personify creation force me to see that the Earth is not just a hunk of space rock with organic life struggling to survive on its surface. Creation itself communes with its Creator.

John Mac Arthur reminds us, “We sometimes flirt with sin, but God hates it. The price He paid to redeem us from it speaks of the seriousness with which He views it. After all, ‘[We] were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold … but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.’” (John F. MacArthur Jr., Drawing Near—Daily Readings for a Deeper Faith, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1993, 24. Quoting 1 Peter 1:18–19).

As the crown of God’s creation, those created in His image, believers are foremost in the things God has redeemed. But let us not forget that sin stains God’s creation, and it grieves the Father deeply, especially when it is our sin. The next time you revel in a beautiful sunset, or enjoy the song of a mockingbird, or whatever you find precious in God’s creation, remember you are witnessing a foretaste of what it will be like when all creation is redeemed and its groaning ceases. Remember the price God paid for that blessing. Hopefully, that will stop you from making God cry again.

Related Posts: What Happened in the Fall; Helping Haiti