The Right to Sin

There is no such thing as a right to sin, yet many people live as though their good works entitle them to an occasional moral holiday. A church officer who tithed faithfully excused a deliberate violation of God’s law by claiming he had “earned a little exemption,” and a devout woman justified her disobedience by insisting that “one sin shouldn’t matter” after all her service. Such thinking is nothing less than Phariseeism imagining that our works create credit with God and that He can be placed in our debt. But Christ teaches that even after we have done all that is commanded, we must still confess, “We are unprofitable servants” (Luke 17:10), for everything we give is already His. Sin is never a privilege; it is a path of death. Righteousness is not a burdensome duty but the gracious way of life. To treat obedience as a chore and sin as a deserved treat reveals a dangerously defective faith.