“So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation” (Hebrews 9:28, KJV).

Christ, the Sin-Bearer This text encapsulates the basic thrust and theme of the Bible. That Christ will come the “second time without sin” implies that He came the first time with sin . His mission then was to involve Himself with sin in such a way as to resolve it as the fundamental problem that it was. Among the many evidences that the Bible is divinely inspired is the fact that it says what no uninspired book could have said. There is no more obvious example of this than the way in which the Bible deals with sin. While it is considered the special province of religious books to deal with unethical behavior, it is the Bible which addresses it as sin . Indeed, while people do not generally concern themselves with sin, much less with salvation from it, the Bible focuses centrally and primarily, from beginning to end, on salvation from sin. It not only sees sin, and the need for salvation from it as the source of all misery, as the preeminent fact and challenge of human existence, but it also systematically formulates, develops, implements, and elaborates the only means by which humans can be saved from it. Sin, and salvation from it, is what the Bible is all about. The Bible sees sin differently than humans do. For the Bible, sin is not just misconduct; it is essentially a violation of God in His character, of which His law is an expression (1 Jn. 3:4). Sin is not just a human-to-human problem but, first and foremost, a human- to-God problem. It is not only a practical problem for humans to overcome, particularly in their interpersonal relations, but primarily a problem in their relationship with God. When Joseph resisted the enticements of his master’s wife with the words, “How then could I do this great evil, and sin against God?” (Gen. 39:9), he showed that the sin of adultery was, in its essence, an act committed against God . Because of their limited, worldly view of sin, people often think that it lies largely within their power to correct it. They seek to do this by preventing it, stopping it, rehabilitating the offender, or providing compensation to anyone hurt by him. Yet, as important as that might be, by itself, it would do absolutely nothing to relieve the problem of sin with God. So, the Bible is not primarily concerned with how to prevent sin or fix it practically. It is not just an ethical code. Its first purpose is, not to get sinners to live right, but to get them to be right (with God). This is to say that, if sinners could be convinced to live right, they would still be ultimately no better off than they were before. This is because, for the Bible, sin’s most serious problem is its separation of the sinner from God (Isa. 59:2). Because of this “God-ward” view of sin, it is concerned with how He can forgive it, not with how humans can fix it. Thus, human religions find it adequate for the sinner to deal with sin by ceasing it, compensating those hurt by it, or petitioning God for its forgiveness. While the Bible also requires this, it also recognizes that none of it is adequate in itself to secure forgiveness, which is not possible without God’s grace (Eph. 2:8,9). According to the Bible, God’s grace for the forgiveness of sin is made available by the blood of Christ, who bore (away) sin on the cross (1 Pet. 2:24). This is the essential story of the Bible, which is built around the death of Christ in every part, going back even to Genesis (3:15). That sin was such a problem that it needed to be addressed in the extensive and unique way the Bible addresses it would not have occurred to humans, “for the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness” (1 Cor. 1:18). This is not the only proof that the Bible is divinely inspired, but it alone is sufficient proof that it is.