With the observance of Lent beginning last Wednesday, I found these words from Prof. Norman Nagel, preached on Ash Wednesday, 1969, very instructive:
Particular sins are symptoms of a disease. We sin because we are sinners. We are not sinners because we sin. A corrupt tree brings forth corrupt fruit. Its fault lies not in its being a tree but in its being corrupt. What is wrong with us is not that we are human but because we have gone wrong; we are sinners.
Sin breaks with God; sin brings death, real death, separation-from-God death. That is our lot. There is no hope in us. Another takes that death our ours on Himself and is forsaken by God. He takes our hell. Out of the dread darkness Jesus cries out with a loud voice, triumphantly, "It is finished." He has done it. He is through. Then He goes on to make the way for us also through the little death of the grave.
The primary and ultimate fact about you is established by Christ and Calvary. You are forgiven, made God's holy child for Christ's sake. That fact is as solid as Christ and Calvary. When you go to Calvary do not hide...some special sin that you think you can handle yourself. The man on the cross at the center of is all is there for you!
