What is the worst sin?

Assuredly all men are sinners, "For all have sinned." (Rom. 3:23) I learn then that there is not one man now in the whole of this world that can either have forgiveness of sins, or be fit for the presence of the Holy God, except by the blood of the Lord Jesus, who was the sacrifice once offered for sins. Oh, what swarms of despisers and rejecters of Christ in this day. Art thou one, my reader? Perhaps thou sayest, "I am not so great a sinner as many; I try to pay all I owe; and do no harm to any one." Hold! do no harm to any one! Hast thou believed in Jesus, to the saving of thy soul? Dost thou say, No? Then art thou the greatest of all sinners; for to reject Christ is the greatest of all possible sins, and this thou wilt find to thy cost for ever. To disbelieve Jesus is to sin against God, who sent him to die for sinners. To sin against that precious Christ, who died for sinners. To sin against thyself; oh, sin of all sins; to plunge thyself into eternal torment. Is this doing no harm? This is that monster sin, of which the Holy Ghost convinces; "Of sin, because they believe not on me." (John 16:9) Ah! ponder this well. Thou hast but a moment to live compared with eternity; and if thou shouldst continue to reject the pardon preached through the blood of Jesus, then, when thou liftest up thine eyes in torment, then wilt thou know what thou hast done in rejecting Christ.

Nor in any portion of Holy Scripture does our Lord more emphatically enforce His claims than in the verse under consideration. The Holy Ghost, we read, would reprove or convict (or haply afford demonstrative proof to) the world "of sin, because they believe not on Me." It is not because men are base, or deceitful, or immoral, not because of any specially heinous form of violence or corruption, not for one sin, as men count it, singled out of the, dark catalogue of human misdeeds; but "of sin, because they believe not on Me." Nor is it hard to understand the reason of our Lord's solemn statement. Clearly unbelief as to Himself, and the refusal of His claims, whether openly aggressive, or coolly indifferent, is the crowning sin of which the human heart can be guilty. Not that in these words of Christ there is any palliation of human evil. If by the law was the knowledge of sin, and by the commandment sin became exceedingly sinful, how much more so when He came, Who was "full of grace and truth," Who is the truth! What would not the truth and the light make manifest? But when the truth was manifested in its most winning form, that of grace, only to be rejected, evidently sin is not only seen at its blackest because confronted with perfect holiness, but the unbelief that will have none of God's remedy becomes necessarily the sign of utter sinfulness and blindness. We have, as it were, a climax of wickedness in the rejection first of righteousness as under the law, then of the fulness of truth in Christ, nay, of "grace and truth," grace pre-eminently, but grace made living and energetic by its intimate union with truth. No wonder then if it is written, "Of sin because they believe not on Me."

Of all sins this is the worst. For it makes God a liar if we believe Him not (1 John 5:10). Unbelief is the only sin which, if persisted in, is unto eternal death. The difference between a real Christian and an unreal one is, that the former does not draw back unto perdition, but believes to the saving of the soul (Heb. 10:39). Have I then a heart for Christ? Can I trust the word of God, who cannot lie, more implicitly than I can rely on my heart, which is deceitful above all things? Can you not do this, reader? Let not the word which may be trembling to escape your lips be still repressed because you yet feel the sense of personal vileness. God is not addressing you because you are not vile, but because you are so. He preaches peace to them who in themselves can have no real peace. He bestows His own righteousness in Christ in the same word which pronounces the full forgiveness of your sins if you believe in Jesus. The depth of our own feelings in regard to sin is in one sense immaterial. It is not by an inference that we are justified, but by faith. Conclusions inferred from within are exactly opposite to the venture of faith, that casts all on Jesus at the bidding of God's word.

30 Pride is the greatest of all evils that beset us, and of all our enemies it is that which dies the slowest and hardest. . … God hates pride above all things, because it gives to man the place that belongs to Him who is above, exalted over all. Pride intercepts communion with God, and draws down His chastisement, for "God resists the proud."

This is to "fall away" indeed! To fall from the profession of Christianity right away until the depth of apostasy is reached. This is backsliding in its most aggravated form, so aggravated as to be possible only to an unconverted person and to be worthy of the most tremendous and unsparing judgment. It is IMPOSSIBLE to renew such to repentance. Their doom is irrevocably fixed.

We are told in Matthew 12:24-30 what this unpardonable sin really is. It is attributing the works of God to demoniacal power. Beelzebub was regarded as the prince of devils and the Pharisees actually said our Lord was empowered by him in doing these mighty works. Twice they accused Him of this, Matthew 9:34 and here again in Matthew 12:24. The Lord had just healed a blind and dumb man and they said this good work was done by evil influence. What can be done with such people who attribute the works of God to Satanic influence? This judgment pronounced by our Lord came upon them at the stoning of Stephen who accused them of always resisting the Holy Spirit. Acts 7. This is the only sin which will not be forgiven, "but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men."

Of all sins, beware of the rock of unbelief. "Take heed lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief" (Heb. 3:12). Men think, as long as they are not drunkards or swearers, it is no great matter to be unbelievers. This is the gospel sin. It disparages Christ's infinite merit as if it would not save; it makes the wound of sin to be broader than the plaster of Christ's blood. This is high contempt offered to Christ, and is a deeper spear than that which the Jews thrust into His side.

There is no sin that is not gross sin in God's sight. Men are accustomed to regard some sins as heinous and some as trivial, but every sin is abhorrent to God. The slightest sin as effectually bars heaven's gate against the one who commits it as the sin of murder, and it calls as loudly for atonement by the blood of Christ.

This is an invariable moral truth. It is no otherwise in human relationships. A man would resent in his wife what he could not be expected even to notice in another; he might justly and deeply claim a kind of subjection in his child, a different identification with family thoughts and interests in his son, from that which would be suitable in any other. The failure of a confidential servant, even in the eye of men of the world, is incomparably graver than that of a casual labourer. And so it is in all the details of daily as well as spiritual life. Hence under the law wickedness in a ruler was far more censurable than in one of the common people; wickedness in the anointed high priest had an import and consequences more solemn than in any other individual in Israel. We find this distinction where God measures the different offerings for sin. (Lev. 4) It is a moral necessity. There cannot be a more misleading thought than that all individuals are exactly on the same level; and that consequently all sins have just the same criminality, no matter in whom they may have been. It is contrary to what every well-regulated mind is able to discern when set before him, and certainly in direct collision with the plain word of God. The fact is that we find ourselves in various relationships; and the higher the relationship, or the greater the privileges, so much the more deplorable is unfaithfulness in that relationship and to such privileges.

But we must guard against a misapprehension which has obtained in some quarters, that now unbelief is the only sin of which men stand guilty before God. Surely in a world reeking with every form of iniquity, it will hardly be necessary to deny this. The argument is, that when our Lord died, He bore and put away all sin, that God does not look upon men as sinners because of what they have done, but simply because of their rejection of Christ.

Surely when the Spirit of God now convicts of sin He does not do less than He did before the cross. The rejection of Christ does not obliterate but emphasizes every other sin committed. Here is a possible atonement for heinous sins: the atonement is rejected and this makes the sins all the more heinous. In the final judgment, the books are opened, in which the record of the life has been kept. The book of life is also opened, and thus we see men are judged both for what they have committed and for their unbelief.