by James Thomas

Created on: October 14, 2009

The memory of the graphic scene is still in my brain on that night the 911 call came in from a nine year old girl. "Please help my mommy and daddy!" she said. All the police units were now responding in full lights and sirens to the scene. This was a scene that we would remember for the rest of our lives. Mom was caught in an adulterous affair when dad came home. Dad took his .38 caliber pistol and ended her life, then ended his own. We may not commit this kind of evil everyday but make no mistake, sin is evil and death is the payment for sin.

When we discuss sin and the concept of sin, the question tends to always come up 'why does sin require death as payment?' The relationship between sin and death runs throughout the Bible so that the two are married together and inseparable.

"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Romans 6:23 (KJV)

Why death though and not something else? Let us consider the fact that we are created beings. Being created presupposes that there is a purpose to our creation (Ecclesiastes12:13) by the Creator and for free willed creatures, as us, to 'go astray' negates the purpose of our creation. In essence our choice to not follow our purpose for creation undoes our own creation which is the slow process of becoming nonexistent physically, or dead. Therefore death is the automatic result of disobedience. Not a punishment that God choose for us but a cause and effect result of our choice in the beginning.

God's wrath exists from our disobedience and should not be thought of in conjunction with death. There is not one scripture that supports the idea that God choose death as the appropriate punishment for sin but rather suggested that God does not desire death upon man. Death is simply the natural result of sin.

'The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." 2 Peter 3:9 (KJV)

God even announced to man the natural consequences of sin before sin was in the world (Genesis 2:17). The curse that was laid upon man in Genesis 3:19 was the declaration of the natural product of sin. An examination of Genesis 3:11 shows that God's concern with Adam was not in how he should punish him but that he was disobedient. This is the reason that death is required for sin simply because it is the natural result of it.

With this knowledge the propitiation of

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