The Bible says:
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Romans 3.23 (NIV)
When God made the world, he made it good – ‘very good’ in fact (Genesis 1.31). He made us to live in it, and provided everything we would need: food, shade, water, each other and the animals.
But every single person – from the first people, who the Bible calls Adam and Eve, to the last – every single one of us is guilty of spoiling the gift of creation by turning away from God and choosing to live our own way. Failing to acknowledge God, failing to worship him, and instead worshipping other things like money, power and sex, is called sin.
The Bible tells us that we are all as guilty as each other – and that is a big problem, because when we reject the life God gives us, the punishment is to have that gift taken away; the punishment is death: ‘the wages of sin is death’ (Romans 6.23, NIV).
That sounds harsh, but from God’s perspective it is perfect justice. If sin is rejecting the gift of life God has given to each one of us, then it is only fair to have that gift taken away.
But that is not God’s last word.
Next: The solution…