Can God Look On SinPublished 20200717 -:-
I am dyslexic so
please bear with me. Scripture references are from Modern King James (MKJV)
unless noted other wise.
Introduction
How many times have you heard a
comment like this, “God can’t look on sin so that’s why He forsook Jesus on the
cross”. Do you really think God would forsake His own son, in his greatest hour
of need? Lets first look at, Can God Look On Sin?
Can God Look On Sin?
It is often said. ‘God is so
pure, so that’s why God couldn’t look on Jesus when He was on the cross’. It is
stated as though it is a known fact, yet when you look into it, you will find
the scriptures do not support the idea. I did a search for various words like,
‘sin, corruption, evil’ etc. There were over 1800 matches for the word ‘sin’
alone. I then sifted through them all to find passages where it appeared that
the Lord was speaking; or He was speaking through a prophet. I found the
following passages in which God is clearly aware of, and can see the sins of
men. Lets just go through a few of them.
Gen 4:7 ‘If you do well,
shall you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin
crouches at the door; and its desire is for you, and you shall rule over it.’
Then Cain killed Abel, and God spoke again, vs:10 ‘And He said, What have
you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries to Me from the
ground.’ So God knew, He just wanted to show Cain He knew.
Gen 18:20 ‘And Jehovah said,
Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin
is very grievous, :21 I will go down now and see whether they
have done altogether according to the cry of it, which has come to Me. And
if not, I will know.’ Why would God go down to SEE for himself, if He can’t
look on sin?
Exo 32:7 ‘And Jehovah said
to Moses, Go! Get down, for your people, whom you brought out of the land of
Egypt, are corrupted. :8 …They have made them a molten
calf, and have worshiped it, and have sacrificed to it, and said,
These are your gods, O Israel, who have brought you up out of the
land of Egypt….:21 And Moses said to Aaron, What did this people do to you,
that you have brought so great a sin upon them?’ God obviously
knew what was going on in the camp!
Deu 9, Moses was pleading with
God; v:26 ‘I prayed therefore to Jehovah and said, O, Lord God, do not destroy
Your people and Your inheritance which You have redeemed through Your
greatness, which You have brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty
hand. :27 Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do
not look to the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness,
nor to their sin,’. Moses knew God well enough to know
that God could look on sin.
Jos 7, Joshua had sent a small
army out to take the city of Ai. But the army was driven back, and Joshua was
on his face pleading with God. v:10 ‘And Jehovah said to Joshua, Get up!
Why do you lie on your face this way? :11 Israel has sinned,
and they have also broken My covenant which I commanded them, and
have even taken of the cursed things, and have also stolen
and pretended falsely. And they have even put it among their own
stuff.’ Do you really think God cannot see the sins WE commit?
1Ki 16:1 ‘And the Word of Jehovah
came to Jehu the son of Hanani against Baasha, saying, :2 Since I exalted
you out of the dust, and made you ruler over My people Israel, and since you
have walked in the way of Jeroboam, and have made My people Israel to sin,
to provoke Me to anger with their sins,’ Again God obviously sees
what’s going on!
Jer 16:10 ‘And it shall be,
when you declare to this people all these words, and they shall say to you, Why
has Jehovah pronounced all this great evil against us? Or what is our iniquity,
or what is our sin that we have committed against Jehovah our
God? :11 Then you shall say to them, Because your fathers have forsaken
Me, says Jehovah, and have walked after other gods, and have
served them, and have worshiped them, and have forsaken Me,
and have not kept My Law. :12 And you have done worse than your
fathers; for, behold, you walk each one after the stubbornness of his evil
heart, without listening to Me;’…Jer 16:17 ‘For My eyes are on
all their ways; they are not hidden from My face,
nor is their iniquity hidden from My eyes.’ After reading
this, how can you still think God can’t look on sin?
Jer 19:3 ‘And say, Hear the
Word of Jehovah, O kings of Judah, and people of Jerusalem. So says Jehovah of
Hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will bring evil on this place, which shall
cause the ears of him who hears it to tingle. :4 Because they have
forsaken Me, and have made this place famous and have burned incense in
it to other gods whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the
kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents. :5
They have also built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with
fire for burnt offerings to Baal, which I never commanded nor spoke, nor
did it come into My mind.’ …Do you still think God can’t look on sin?
Jer 32:34 ‘But they set
their abominations in the house which is called by My name, to defile it. :35
And they built the high places of Baal, in the valley of the son of
Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to
Molech; which I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind that
they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.’ Again do you
still think God can’t look on sin?
Evil In The Sight Of Jehovah
Here is another phrase that you
can look for, it appears 44 times throughout the Old Testament, see the
scripture reference to each of them here listed below. The phrase is something
like; He or they did “evil in the sight of Jehovah”. So it’s again quite
obvious that the Old Testament scribes and writers knew that Jehovah was well
aware of the actions of man whether they were good or evil.
Num 32:13, Deu 4:25, Deu 17:2,
Deu 31:29, Jdg 2:11, Jdg 3:7, Jdg 3:12, Jdg 4:1, Jdg 6:1, 1Sa 15:19, 1Ki 11:6,
1Ki 14:22, 1Ki 15:26, 1Ki 15:34, 1Ki 16:19, 1Ki 16:30, 1Ki 21:20, 1Ki 22:52,
2Ki 3:2, 2Ki 8:18, 2Ki 8:27, 2Ki 13:2, 2Ki 13:11, 2Ki 14:24, 2Ki 15:9, 2Ki
15:18, 2Ki 15:24, 2Ki 15:28, 2Ki 17:2, 2Ki 17:17, 2Ki 21:2, 2Ki 21:16, 2Ki
21:20, 2Ki 23:32, 2Ki 23:37, 2Ki 24:9, 2Ki 24:19, 1Ch 2:3, 2Ch 22:4, 2Ch 33:2,
2Ch 33:6, 2Ch 36:5, 2Ch 36:9 and 2Ch 36:12.
Abominations in the Temple
Now for all the ‘die-hards’ that still believe, “God can’t
look on sin!”…This passage should convince them that God can see every
disgusting detail of our sins. The first two verses describe the glory of
Ezekiel’s vision of Jehovah. The next four sets of verses, 3 to 6; then 7 to
13; then 14 to 15 and finally 16 to 18 are an escalating series of horrors. In
short Jehovah is saying to Ezekiel.. ‘If you think that’s bad then look at
this!’
Eze 8:1 ‘And it was in the sixth year, in the sixth
month, on the fifth of the month, I was sitting in my house, and the elders of
Judah were sitting before me. And the hand of the Lord Jehovah fell on me
there. :2 And I looked, and behold! A likeness as the appearance of fire;
from the appearance of His loins and downward, like fire. And from His loins
and upward as the appearance of brightness, like the color of polished bronze.
Verse :3 And He put out the form of a hand, and took me by a
lock of my head. And the Spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heavens,
and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the opening of the inner
gate facing north, where there was a seat of the image of jealousy, which
provokes to jealousy. :4 And, behold! The glory of the God of Israel was
there, according to the vision that I saw in the plain. :5 And He said to
me, Son of man, lift up your eyes now to the way of the north. So I lifted up
my eyes the way toward the north, and behold, northward at the gate of the
altar the image of jealousy was at the entrance. :6 And He said to me, Son
of man, do you see what they do; even the great abominations which the house of
Israel is doing here, that I should go far off from My sanctuary? But turn
again, and you shall see greater abominations.
Verse :7 And He brought me to the opening of the court; and
I looked, and behold, a hole in the wall. :8 And He said to me, Son of
man, dig in the wall now. And I dug in the wall, and, behold, an
opening. :9 And he said to me. Go in and see the evil abominations that
they do here. :10 And I went in and saw. And behold, every kind of
creeping thing, and hateful beast, and all the idols of the house of Israel,
were carved on the wall all around. :11 And seventy men of the elders of
the house of Israel, and Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, standing among them,
these were before them, and each man with his censor in his hand. And the odor
of the cloud of incense was rising. :12 And He said to me, Son of man,
have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, each man
in his image room? For they are saying, Jehovah does not see us;
Jehovah has forsaken the earth. :13 He also said to me, You turn again,
and you shall see greater evils that they are doing.
Veres :14 And He brought me to the opening of the gate of
Jehovah's house, toward the north. And behold, women were sitting there,
weeping for Tammuz. :15 And He said to me, Have you seen, O son of man? Turn
yet again, and you shall see greater evils than these.
Veres :16 And He brought me into the inner court of
Jehovah's house, and behold, at the opening of the temple of Jehovah, between
the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs toward the
temple of Jehovah and their faces toward the east; and they bowed themselves
eastward to the sun. :17 And He said to me, Have you seen, O son of man?
Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they do the hateful things which
they do here? For they have filled the land with violence and have turned to
provoke Me to anger. And lo, they put the branch to their nose. 18 And
I will also deal with fury; My eye shall not spare, nor will I have pity. And
though they cry in My ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.
Conclusion:
When Jehovah, was speaking to Abraham about Sodom and
Gomorrah and He said in Gen 18:21 “I will go down now and see”? Would God
really need to go down to SEE for himself? Perhaps God said that for Abraham’s sake.
Yet we see in Ezekiel chapter 8, it is quite clear that there is no iniquity
hidden from Gods sight. Then we have in Jeremiah 16:17 ‘For My
eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from My face,
nor is their iniquity hidden from My eyes.’ After reading
this, how can you still think God can’t look on sin?
GBY (God Bless Ya)
Yours Adrian