Sermonette: Who Is Responsible For Sin?

The Word of God vs. Traditions of Men
#1361s
David C. Grabbe
Given 28-Jan-17; 19 minutes

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In John 1, we are given the terrible testimony that the Creator God came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. The overall reason was carnality and hardness of heart, but one of the ways that repeatedly showed up was in the Jews’ falling back on the traditions that had developed over the centuries. The traditions probably started with good intentions, but they ended up undermining the word of God. This is critical, because faith is dependent upon the word of God, and because the scriptures testify of the Messiah. Yet the Jews’ reliance on what was passed down to them, generation after generation, resulted in a blindness that kept them from recognizing Truth when He was in their midst.

Of course, traditions are not inherently problematic. In two places in II Thessalonians, Paul mentions traditions which were good and necessary. There can be various memorials and ways of operating that are put into place for the sake of the overall community. As long as a tradition does not contradict the word of God, there is no problem. However, Christ rebuked the Jews because their traditions had made the word of God of no effect.

Today we are going to be looking at a belief we probably all accepted at one point, and yet which does not arise from the word of God. It is connected to the ceremony of the two goats in Leviticus 16, but its significance and consequence go beyond that, because it is fundamentally intertwined with how we approach God. The belief in question is whether Satan is responsible for the sins of mankind—that is, whether he is the author of our sins.

I will begin with a quote from the Correspondence Course. This from Lesson 29 of the 32-lesson edition, which is copyright 1986.

Page 10: The real cause—the actual author—of human sin is Satan the devil (John 8:42-44; Eph. 2:2). Satan is guilty of inspiring the sins of mankind. Christ paid the penalty for our part in every sin we repent of. But He did not pay for Satan's part in these sins… So here, in this Levitical ritual, all of man's Satan-inspired sins were symbolically put back on Satan's head, where they belong! When Jesus Christ returns, Satan's part of the blame for mankind's sins will be placed on him, and he will then be removed from the presence of man. Justice will be done.

We have heard this concept many times before, and it all sounds plausible. However, we are faced with a real challenge when we go to prove from the word of God that Satan is the author of human sin. So we are going to take a deeper look at what is being asserted here, and at the end I will give you the surprising sources behind this.

There is no question that Satan deceives. We know that he broadcasts his attitudes, and we all have first-hand experience with picking up on that broadcast. We understand that the whole world is under Satan’s sway, and that he is the ruler of this world. All of that is well-established by Scripture. The question, though, is how God views accountability for sin—whether God’s word teaches that mankind’s sins belong on Satan’s head.

The quote I just read uses two scriptures, and we will consider Ephesians 2:2 first.

Ephesians 2:2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience.

It establishes that a spirit influence is at work. But there is also a spirit in man that is the basis of reason, and which is part of the free moral agency we have been given. What this means is that, yes, an outside spirit can affect the spirit in man, but it does not force the man to act. This outside spirit gives mankind terrible material on which to base decisions. And yet God says that there is enough evidence of His existence that, in general, mankind is without excuse.

Ancient Israel did not have God’s spirit, but God still set before them life and death, and commanded them to choose. They only had the spirit in man, and yet the power to choose was still theirs. Centuries later, Elijah told the Israelites, “Choose you this day whom you will serve.” Satan exerts influence, but the responsibility to choose still belongs to mankind.

When we sin, it is not because Satan authored the sin. James 1 says that we sin when we are drawn away by our desires, and those desires give birth to sin. We sin because our hearts are not yet like God’s heart, to consistently reject the temptation and always choose life. The problem is not what Satan does; the problem is the human heart.

The other scripture used in that quote is John 8:44:

John 8:44 You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.

Here Jesus identifies Satan as being these Jews’ spiritual father. He is saying that they had been taught how to murder and lie because their spiritual father was the devil. They were showing his characteristics, as children naturally do. So does this mean that their spiritual father was responsible for their sins? Well, God answers that for us, back in Ezekiel 18:

Ezekiel 18:19-20 "Yet you say, 'Why should the son not bear the guilt of the father?' Because the son has done what is lawful and right, and has kept all My statutes and observed them, he shall surely live. The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.

This is the same God who said that the Jews were acting like their spiritual father. God holds the father accountable for his own sins, and the children accountable for their own sins. In verses 14-17, God even gives the scenario of a son recognizing the sinfulness of his father, and choosing to go a different way. That is exactly what the Jews should have done—they should have recognized that the murder and lies in their hearts were not originating with God, and then chosen to act differently from their spiritual father.

We were just in John’s gospel, and one of his epistles contain a verse that is similar:

I John 3:8-9 He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.

Verse 8 says that the man who sins is of the devil. But verse 9 tells us how John is using the word “sin” in this context. He is not talking about a specific act; he is talking about sin as a way of life. The sense of verse 9 is that “whoever has been born of God does not sin as a way of life, for God’s seed remains in him; and he must not sin [or, cannot sin as a way of life], because he has been born of God.” This is a contrast to verse 8, which says that he who sins as a way of life is of the devil. Such a sinner is in alignment with Satan, and doing the same works because of his carnal heart. It does not say that Satan is the author of the sins. It means that the sinner is consistently choosing wrongly, just like the devil does, and this is an indicator that John is giving that such a man has not been born of God. This passage is not about the authorship of sin; it is about recognizing who a man’s father is, based on the conduct of his life.

In Genesis 3:17, God identifies the cause of Adam’s sin as heeding the voice of his wife. In the same way, our sin may also begin with heeding the voice of another, such as Satan. But he is not the author of our sin, any more than Eve was the author of Adam’s sin. Adam and Eve played the blame game, which God did not accept. If we hold to the justification that Satan is the real cause of our sins, then we are trying to dodge reality, just like they did.

Romans 5:12 declares that sin entered the world through one man. It is talking about Adam, not Satan. Again, sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin. God does not put the origin of human sin with Satan, but with Adam, even though Satan sinned long before. That is how God reckons human sin, and that may take some contemplation. But the overall point in Romans 5 is that even though the first man introduced sin to mankind, it is through the Son of Man that mankind will be justified and made righteous. Put simply, mankind has made the choice to sin, and Jesus Christ alone provides atonement.

A couple of chapters later, in Romans 7, we find Paul’s anguish over his own struggle with sin. His conclusion is not that Satan is the “real cause.” Satan only gets one mention in Romans, near the end, where it says that the God of peace will crush Satan. Instead, Paul’s conclusion is that he had sin indwelling. There is absolutely no pinning of sin on Satan. There is only a recognition of his own state, and his faith in Christ’s work and deliverance.

Now, remember what that quote said: “Christ paid the penalty for our part in every sin we repent of. But He did not pay for Satan's part in these sins.” Later it said, “When Jesus Christ returns, Satan's part of the blame for mankind's sins will be placed on him.” It is saying that in any given sin, we play a part and Satan plays a part. But we need to think about that math very carefully. Let’s look at what it says in Leviticus 5:17:

Leviticus 5:17 If a person sins, and commits any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the Lord, though he does not know it, yet he is guilty and shall bear his iniquity.

There is no concept in the Bible of a co-sinner. God does not split up the death penalty, such that a person earns part of the death penalty, while Satan earns the rest.

Again, it said, “Christ paid the penalty for our part in every sin we repent of. But He did not pay for Satan's part.” Now, follow that through: Would we dare to go before the throne of God, and ask for forgiveness for part of a sin, and assume that the rest is on Satan’s head? That defies the word of God, and it is deadly. Re-read Psalm 51, and see if you can detect even a hint of that approach in King David’s prayer. There simply cannot be true repentance until first there is full acknowledgement of our guilt.

God’s word teaches that each man’s sins are his own, and Satan’s sins are his own. Sinning in ignorance—which includes sinning because of deception—does not mean that less of a sin has been committed. We just read that. Regardless of what led up to the infraction, when a sin is committed, the sinner earns the wages of sin. There is no concept of a partial sin, or of divided guilt, in the Scriptures. If two beings are involved, then each is committing sin, and they both earn the death penalty. That is the correct biblical math. The penalty is not somehow fractioned between them.

This is why there is such an emphasis on drawing near to God, on resisting Satan, on loving the truth, and on guarding ourselves against deception. The danger is not that Satan is going to make us sin. The danger is that we will choose to sin, and incur the death penalty, and our faulty reasoning may be part of that choice. Yet the fact that God gives us so many admonitions means that there is guilt when we let that happen, and it is not Satan’s guilt. Thankfully, God provides the solution under the New Covenant. But today we are only looking at sin and accountability, while God’s judgment and grace are outside the scope of what we are considering here.

When one accepts the idea that Satan is the author of man’s sins, it paves the way for further error. Shortly after the quote I read you comes this quote, also on page 10:

Satan…is guilty of inspiring our sins, and his guilt cannot be atoned for. His sins are placed on his own account, and then he and his sins are sent away.

Thus the authors are saying that the ceremony in Leviticus 16 shows Satan’s sins being placed on his own head. But Leviticus 16:21 specifically says it is the “iniquities of the children of Israel” that are placed on the goat of departure, not the sins of Satan. Who should we believe?

From here, we are going to take a step back to see where this confusion actually starts—to see what the authors are basing their assertions on. The quotes I have given you come after first identifying the azazel as a type of Satan. That is what lays the groundwork for these ideas about sin. What is incredible is what the authors’ sources are for that crucial identification of the live goat: Arabic tradition, Islamic tradition, some Protestant commentaries, and finally Jewish tradition.

Look it up—it is all on page 10. The authors do not use the Bible in their evidence, because the Bible does not identify the live goat as a type of Satan. Instead, the authors quote Arabic tradition that azazel is the name of a demon. They quote a book entitled Islam and Its Founder. They also quote a couple of Protestant theologians on their respective opinions.

But the real bombshell is this quotation: “Let's notice a modern Jewish commentary that makes it clear that the azazel goat represented Satan the devil.” Then they quote from a book called The Torah—a Modern Commentary, which says:

Azazel...was probably a demonic being.... Apocryphal Jewish works, composed in the last few centuries before the Christian era, tell of angels who were lured...into rebellion against God. In these writings, Azazel is one of the two leaders of the rebellion.

This last source is especially relevant to what we have been looking at, and in fact, it is a devastating admission. This Jewish tradition is the final proof—the ace in the hole—for the authors, even though the Jews were of the devil, and could not recognize the Christ. To repeat, it leans on “apocryphal Jewish works, composed in the last few centuries before the Christian era.” I don’t know all of the works it is referring to, but I can give you the name of one such apocryphal Jewish work from that era, and that is the Book of Enoch.

In the Book of Enoch, Azazel is a fallen angel who is bound and sentenced to the desert forever. But that book is also noteworthy because it says, “And the whole earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azazel: to him ascribe all sin.' In other words, the ascribing of all sin to a fallen angel is from the very same Jewish tradition that identifies the azazel as a demon. Yet neither aspect of that tradition is backed up by Scripture.

In this, we have a vivid example of Jewish tradition making the word of God of no effect. The question for us, then, is whether our beliefs in these matters come from the word of God, or from the traditions of men.

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