Seeing Sin Through the Cross

Movement One — Learning to See What God Sees

One of the greatest gifts God gives His children is not simply the strength to obey Him. It is the ability to begin seeing reality as He sees it.

We live in a world that constantly dulls our vision. Sin rarely presents itself as ugly. It disguises itself as comfort, pleasure, security, freedom, self-expression, or even wisdom. It whispers that the consequences are manageable, that our situation is different, that our motives are pure enough to justify what we are doing. Over time, if we are not careful, we begin seeing sin through our own desires rather than through the holiness of God. The danger is not only that we become comfortable with sin, but that we begin calling darkness light and light darkness without even realizing it.

That is why the Christian life is not merely about learning to make better decisions. It is about having our vision restored. Long before our behavior changes, God begins changing the way we perceive the world. He teaches us to love what He loves, treasure what He treasures, delight in what delights Him, and, just as importantly, to hate what He hates. Until that happens, sanctification often feels like little more than an exhausting cycle of trying harder, failing again, and promising ourselves that next time will somehow be different.

I know that cycle well.

For years there were sins I genuinely wanted to overcome. I prayed about them. I confessed them. I experienced seasons of victory that made me hopeful, followed by failures that left me discouraged. Looking back, I realize that much of my battle was being fought on the wrong battlefield. My attention was fixed almost entirely on the consequences of my sin. I hated the guilt. I hated the shame. I hated disappointing the people I loved. I hated the damage sin caused in my relationships. I hated having to confess the same struggles again and again. In other words, much of what I hated was what sin was doing to me.

That is not insignificant, but it is not yet the deepest kind of repentance.

Something began changing when the Lord quietly shifted the question I was asking. Instead of constantly praying, “Lord, help me stop doing this,” I found myself praying, “Lord, help me see this the way You see it.”

That is a very different prayer.

One asks primarily for greater strength. The other asks for greater sight.

One assumes that my greatest problem is a lack of determination. The other assumes that my greatest problem is that I still do not fully understand what sin actually is. And I have become convinced that lasting victory rarely begins with stronger willpower. It begins when God opens our eyes.

The cross teaches us to see.

When we think about the crucifixion, it is natural to focus on Christ’s physical suffering. We picture the scourging, the nails driven through His hands and feet, the crown of thorns, the mockery, the exhaustion, the darkness, and the agony of His death. Every one of those realities deserves our attention because every one of them reveals something of His love.

But Scripture invites us to look even deeper.

Paul writes, “Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21, WEB).

Those words should never become ordinary to us.

Paul is not saying that Christ became morally sinful. The spotless Lamb remained perfectly holy from eternity past through eternity future. The Father never ceased loving the Son, nor did the Son ever cease delighting in the Father. Yet in the mystery of redemption, the Father placed upon His beloved Son the guilt, curse, and judgment that belonged to us. The One who had never known sin willingly stood where sinners deserved to stand. The Holy One bore the wrath reserved for the unholy.

That is not merely an act of humility.

It is the greatest revelation of both God’s love and God’s holiness.

We often speak of the cross as the supreme demonstration of God’s love, and rightly so. “God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8, WEB). But the cross is also God’s declaration about sin itself. It tells us what our rebellion deserves. It tells us how seriously God takes the corruption that entered His creation. It tells us that sin is not an unfortunate weakness, a personality flaw, or a habit that occasionally causes problems. If the only remedy for our guilt required the eternal Son of God to willingly endure divine judgment in our place, then sin must be far more horrifying than our hearts naturally perceive it to be.

This is where true contrast begins to emerge.

The brighter the holiness of Christ becomes, the darker our sin appears. The deeper we understand the beauty of the One who hung upon that cross, the more clearly we begin to see what our sin really is. We no longer hate it merely because it embarrasses us, costs us opportunities, damages our relationships, or leaves us feeling guilty. We begin to hate it because it stands in direct opposition to the God who loved us enough to redeem us.

That is a profound shift.

The battle against sin is no longer centered on preserving ourselves. It becomes centered on loving Christ.

The question changes from, “How can I stop doing this?” to “How could I continue embracing the very thing that required my Savior to bear such a cost?”

Those two questions may produce similar outward behavior for a time, but they arise from entirely different hearts. One still has self at its center. The other has begun to place Christ there.

Perhaps this is why mature Christians often speak differently about sin than younger believers. They do not merely talk about resisting temptation. They talk about grieving the heart of God. They speak less about maintaining streaks of victory and more about the beauty of Christ. They are not minimizing obedience; they are explaining where obedience actually comes from. It grows out of a heart whose vision has been transformed by grace.

This is not something we manufacture by trying harder. It is something the Holy Spirit patiently teaches. He keeps bringing us back to the cross until we begin seeing sin through the eyes of the One who bore it. And as that vision becomes clearer, our affections begin changing with it. We do not merely become more disciplined. We become more captivated. Christ becomes more precious, and because He becomes more precious, the things that oppose Him become increasingly unbearable.

That is where real sanctification begins. Not simply when our behavior changes, but when grace teaches us to see.

Application

Before asking the Lord to strengthen your resolve against a particular sin, ask Him to deepen your vision of it. Ask Him to show you what that sin is in the light of His holiness, what it cost your Savior to bear it, and why He hates it so completely. Then ask Him to do something even greater. Ask Him to make Christ so beautiful to your heart that sin begins losing its appeal, not simply because of what it does to you, but because of what it is before Him.

The deepest victories in the Christian life are not won by those who merely try harder. They are often given to those who have learned, by grace, to see more clearly.

Movement Two — A New Heart Learns New Loves

There is a danger that often follows a lesson like the last one.

Once we begin seeing the holiness of God and the seriousness of sin, we can easily conclude that the answer is simply to hate sin harder. We begin looking inward again, measuring our spiritual progress by the intensity of our disgust or by the strength of our resolve. Without realizing it, we return to the very kind of incrementalism that has exhausted so many believers. We promise ourselves that this time we will fight more aggressively, pray more consistently, or simply try harder than we did before.

But the gospel has never been primarily about improving the old heart.

It is about giving us a new one.

This is why the Lord’s promise through Ezekiel is so breathtaking. He does not merely promise to educate His people or motivate them. He promises something infinitely greater:

“I will also give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will take away the heart of stone out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes. You will keep my ordinances and do them.”

— Ezekiel 36:26–27 (WEB)

That promise reaches deeper than behavior.

God does not simply command the stone heart to become softer. He removes it. He does not merely improve the old nature. He creates something entirely new. The heart that once resisted Him is replaced by a heart capable of loving Him. The will that once delighted in rebellion is renewed so that obedience becomes possible. The affections that were once curved inward begin, by grace, to turn outward toward Christ.

That changes everything.

For years I thought the Christian life was mostly about learning to say “no” to sin. Increasingly, I have become convinced that sanctification is just as much about learning to say “yes” to Christ.

Those may sound like the same thing, but they are not.

One is driven primarily by restraint.

The other is driven by affection.

The more beautiful Christ becomes, the less attractive sin appears. Not because temptation disappears overnight, but because our loves are being reordered. The old heart loved self above all else. The new heart begins learning to love God above all else. And when that love grows, hatred begins to move as well.

Notice what has happened.

Before grace, the heart hated God. It may not have admitted it, but Scripture says, “The mind of the flesh is hostile toward God” (Romans 8:7). We did not merely ignore Him; we resisted His rule. We wanted His gifts while rejecting His authority. We wanted life on our own terms.

But when God grants new life, something remarkable happens.

The hatred does not disappear.

It changes direction.

The heart that once opposed God begins opposing the sin that separates it from Him.

That is not something we manufacture.

It is something God creates.

This is why repentance continues long after conversion. Repentance is no longer simply the doorway into the Christian life; it becomes the rhythm of the Christian life. Every act of repentance is another moment in which the believer agrees with God about reality. We stop defending what He condemns. We stop excusing what He calls evil. We stop negotiating with the very things that nailed Christ to the cross.

And this agreement with God becomes one of the sweetest evidences of grace.

Many Christians become discouraged because they still feel the pull of temptation. They assume that if they were truly growing, temptation would disappear altogether. But Scripture never promises that. What it promises is that the dominion of sin has been broken. The believer is no longer a slave. He may still be assaulted by the flesh, but he is no longer owned by it.

Paul makes this wonderfully clear in Romans 6. Having been united with Christ in His death and resurrection, we are no longer slaves of sin but have become servants of righteousness. Notice the contrast. God does not save us into independence. He saves us into a new allegiance. We are no longer mastered by sin because we now belong to Christ.

That belonging changes the battle.

The mature believer is not primarily asking, “How close can I get to sin without falling?”

He begins asking, “How close can I walk with Christ?”

Those are completely different questions.

One still assumes sin is desirable.

The other assumes Christ is.

This is why the New Testament continually calls us to “put on Christ,” to “walk by the Spirit,” to “set your minds on things above,” and to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” These are not merely behavioral commands. They are invitations into a new way of seeing, loving, and living.

As our communion with Christ deepens, our communion with sin weakens.

As our love for holiness grows, our tolerance for compromise shrinks.

As our delight in the Lord increases, the counterfeit pleasures of the old life begin losing their hold.

Not all at once.

Not perfectly.

But truly.

And perhaps that is one of the most encouraging realities in the Christian life. The evidence of grace is not merely that we sin less than we once did. It is that we increasingly agree with God about what sin really is. We no longer defend it with the same enthusiasm. We no longer cherish it in the same way. We begin grieving over what once entertained us and rejoicing in what once seemed burdensome.

That is not personality development.

That is not religious discipline.

That is the miracle of a new heart.

It is the slow, patient work of the Holy Spirit teaching the children of God to share the Father’s loves and the Father’s hates.

The Christian who is growing in holiness is not becoming more miserable because he hates more things. He is becoming freer because the things he once loved no longer enslave him. He is discovering that every affection surrendered to Christ is not a loss but a restoration. God is not taking away joy; He is teaching us where joy was always meant to be found.

Application

Ask yourself a different question this week.

Instead of asking, “How can I try harder against this sin?” ask, “Lord, what am I still believing about this sin that You do not?”

Then pray for something deeper than greater discipline.

Pray for greater affection.

Ask the Father to make Christ more beautiful than the temptation before you. Ask Him to teach your heart to love what He loves and to hate what He hates. Ask Him to keep reshaping your affections until obedience is no longer merely an act of restraint, but the joyful overflow of a heart that has learned to delight in its Savior.

Because the deepest victories in sanctification do not come when the old heart becomes stronger.

They come because God has given you a new one.

Movement Three — What Sin Was Always Trying to Steal

When we first begin fighting sin, we almost always fight it because of what it does to us.

It steals our peace.

It damages our marriages.

It wounds our children.

It robs us of joy.

It produces shame.

It weakens our witness.

It leaves us exhausted.

Those are all real consequences, and Scripture never minimizes them. Sin truly is destructive. It promises freedom while producing slavery. It promises life while delivering death. It whispers that it will satisfy us, only to leave us emptier than before. Every believer eventually learns those painful lessons, and often learns them repeatedly.

But there is something even deeper that sin has been trying to steal all along.

Communion.

From the opening chapters of Genesis, this has always been the great tragedy of sin. Before Adam and Eve ever experienced guilt, shame, suffering, or death, they experienced perfect fellowship. They walked with God without fear. They lived with one another without hiding. There was no shame to cover, no pride to defend, no walls to build, no accusations to make, no distance to overcome. Everything was ordered beneath the goodness of God.

Then sin entered.

The first thing Adam and Eve did was not attack one another.

They hid.

They hid from God.

They hid from one another.

They even hid from themselves, stitching together fig leaves in a desperate attempt to manage what had happened inside them.

That is what sin has always done.

It separates.

It isolates.

It fractures.

It convinces us that hiding is safer than being known.

It tells us that self-protection is wiser than confession.

It whispers that independence is freedom, while quietly leading us deeper into loneliness.

This is why the Christian life cannot simply be understood as learning to behave better. If sin’s great work is to destroy communion, then grace’s great work is to restore it.

Christ did not merely die to improve our behavior.

He died to reconcile.

Paul writes that while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son. Notice the direction of the gospel. Christ does not simply remove guilt. He removes the barrier that kept us from the Father. The cross is not merely about forgiveness. It is about fellowship.

That same reconciliation immediately begins extending outward.

We are reconciled to God.

We are joined to Christ.

We are adopted into one family.

We become members of one body.

Everything moves toward communion.

That is why the Christian life begins to look so different from the life we once knew. The old self instinctively protects itself. It withdraws. It keeps score. It isolates. It abandons relationships when they become costly. It chooses distance instead of vulnerability because distance feels safer.

The new heart begins learning an entirely different way of living.

Instead of hiding, it confesses.

Instead of abandoning, it reconciles.

Instead of protecting reputation, it seeks truth.

Instead of asking, “How can I preserve myself?” it begins asking, “How can I preserve communion?”

That question has been reshaping me.

I have begun realizing that many of the sins I once thought were primarily private were actually attacks on communion. Pride kept me from learning from people God had placed in my life. Bitterness tempted me to withdraw from those who had wounded me. Fear tempted me to remain unknown rather than risk being loved. Even respectable sins often had the same destination: isolation.

And suddenly I realized something.

Perhaps I should not merely hate those sins because they are wrong.

Perhaps I should hate them because they are constantly trying to steal the very thing Christ died to restore.

That changes the battle completely.

Now I do not merely fight pride because pride is listed among the seven things God hates.

I fight it because pride separates me from the humility that allows real fellowship.

I do not merely fight gossip because it is forbidden.

I fight it because it tears apart the body Christ purchased with His own blood.

I do not merely fight bitterness because it makes me miserable.

I fight it because bitterness quietly teaches me to abandon the people Christ calls me to love.

I do not merely fight lust because it is immoral.

I fight it because it destroys covenant, distorts love, and replaces communion with consumption.

Every sin begins looking different once we understand what it is trying to steal.

That is why the New Testament spends so much time speaking about one another.

Bear one another’s burdens.

Encourage one another.

Forgive one another.

Confess your sins to one another.

Pray for one another.

Love one another.

These are not random commands scattered throughout the New Testament.

They are the practical shape of restored communion.

They are what life begins looking like when grace has taught us to love what God loves.

Perhaps this is why Jesus summarized the law the way He did.

Love God.

Love your neighbor.

Communion.

Everything else flows from there.

And perhaps this is why heaven is not described primarily as a place of individual happiness, but as the marriage supper of the Lamb, the gathered people of God dwelling forever in His presence. The story that began with broken fellowship in Eden ends with perfect fellowship in the New Jerusalem. God’s purpose has never changed.

He has always been restoring communion.

Which means sanctification is not merely the slow removal of bad habits.

It is the joyful restoration of what humanity was created for.

Not isolated religion.

Not private spirituality.

Not moral improvement.

Communion.

The more we see Christ, the more we love Him.

The more we love Him, the more we hate whatever threatens communion with Him.

The more we hate what separates, the more we pursue what unites.

And that is where holy obligation finally becomes joy.

We no longer serve because we are trying to prove ourselves.

We serve because we have found our home.

We no longer confess because we fear rejection.

We confess because we know we are already loved.

We no longer fight sin merely to improve ourselves.

We fight it because we refuse to let anything rob us of the communion Christ purchased at such an immeasurable cost.

Application

This week, do not ask only:

“What sin am I trying to overcome?”

Ask something deeper.

“What communion is this sin trying to steal?”

Is it stealing intimacy with Christ?

Trust in your marriage?

Unity in your church?

Honesty with your brothers and sisters?

Peace in your own conscience?

Then remember what the cross declares.

Christ did not merely die to forgive that sin.

He died to restore what that sin has always been trying to destroy.

Walk toward the light.

Walk toward your brothers and sisters.

Walk toward confession.

Walk toward reconciliation.

Walk toward Christ.

Because every step toward communion is another declaration that sin will not have the final word.

The resurrection already has.

-Justin Reed

Brushwood Press