Heather Tredoux
Voice of Prophecy Director, Southern Africa Union

work at the Bible correspondence school in Cape Town, where we have more than 20,000 students on our mailing list who study our courses in 10 languages. Recently I received a letter from a prisoner-student marked "strictly confidential." As I read the letter I understood that the student was very ashamed of being in prison and of what he had done to be there. It reminded me of our first parents, who, after they had made their choice to be disobedient, suddenly felt exposed and embarrassed. The very air of the garden seemed uncomfortably chilly (Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 57).

"And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen. 2:15-17). The sign at the fork in the road was clear: this way leads to happiness and life, the other to heartache and death.

But Adam and Eve made the wrong choice. The serpent planted doubt and disbelief in Eve's mind. She coveted that which was not hers, and then took it. She became an instrument in the certain death of her husband, and she placed Satan before God (Ex. 20:17, 15, 13, 3). Adam's choice was more tragic because he was not deceived (1 Tim. 2:14); his was a deliberate choice (The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 1, p. 231).

In his letter on my desk the prisoner asked me "What is sin?" and tended to blame others for his isolation and loneliness. Just so, Adam blamed Eve and God, saying: "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat" (Gen. 3:12). Eve blamed the serpent: "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat" (verse 13). Yet they had both deliberately chosen to forfeit the approval of God (Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 51), just as the prisoner had chosen to break the law of the country.

We might also be tempted to blame God. We might ask, "Just because Adam was a moron and made an awful choice, why do I need to suffer?" Or we might blame others for any predicament in which we find ourselves, perhaps through a wrong choice we ourselves have made. What choices do we have?

"What is sin?" the prisoner asked me. In my days in high school at Helderberg in South Africa I memorized 1 John 3:4, which reads: "Sin is the transgression of the law." Indeed this is true, but since then I have learned that there are many other dimensions of sin mentioned in God's Word. Sin is more than outward behavior. In essence the greatest sin is rejection of Jesus and the Holy Spirit (John 16:9; 3:36; Heb. 10:29-31; Matt. 12:31).

I like Roy Adams' chapter 6, entitled "What Is Sin?" in his book The Nature of Christ, where he points us to Psalm 32, one of David's great penitential prayers. David passionately bared his soul before his great Redeemer, and the vocabulary he used has helped us to understand the universal predicament we call sin. He says: "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile" (verses 1, 2).

Let us look briefly at the four words David used here:

Transgression means rebellion, departure from God, willful disobedience.

Sin refers to "sin from the point of view of missing the mark, failing to do one's duty."

Iniquity means "moral distortion, crookedness, guilt." It refers to an inner state that is perverse and twisted.*

Guile signifies deceit, falsehood, duplicity.

Are any of us here guilty of transgression, of rebellion or departure from God? What about sin from the point of view of missing the mark, of not giving that word of encouragement when we could have done so? Iniquity is the sin that lies deep beneath the surface, perhaps when we choose to let our hormones control us rather than our minds. Jesus spoke of guile and deceit when He addressed the Pharisees and scribes, who believed themselves to be perfect but were like "whited sepulchres" (Matt. 23:27). Thank God for Jesus, who is our "hiding place" (Ps. 32:7). Because of Jesus we can "be glad in the Lord, and rejoice" (verse 11).

The Consequences of Sin
Adam and Eve, feeling exposed and isolated, were also overwhelmed by guilt. They hid themselves from their Friend and Creator. Perhaps they thought that God would forgive them. He did indeed forgive them, but the consequences were still there. Some find it difficult to understand the difference between punishment and consequence. Ian Hartley, in his book For God's Sake, explains that punishment is an arbitrary, forced action imposed by another, while consequence is a result of a course of action. Adam and Eve were free to choose, as was Lucifer. God did not compel. "Rebellion was not to be overcome with force. Compelling power is found only under Satan's government. . . . [God's] authority rests on goodness, mercy, and love" (The Desire of Ages, p. 759). "The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God's government; He desires only the service of love; and love cannot be commanded" (ibid., p. 22).

A young person with AIDS came to my office last year and said, "I have asked God to forgive me; why doesn't He heal me? Is He punishing me?" I tried to explain the difference between punishment and consequences by telling him the story of a group of people who were visiting one of our lion parks in South Africa. There was a large sign on the road at the entrance to the park that stated: "Do not get out of your car!" One of the group in the car had something to drink that had impaired his judgment just a little. The pride of lions looked so beautiful and relaxed, yawning and lying in the shade of an acacia tree. The person wanted a good picture of this tranquil scene, and he got out of the car and walked a little distance toward the lions. His friends pleaded with him to come back. Instead he walked forward, swaying ever so slightly, camera in hand.

If there is anything that will arouse the hunting instinct in a lion it is to see a creature showing a slight weakness. When the young man noticed a lion ominously twitching her tail, he made a fatal mistake-he began to run toward the car. As he neared the car the young man's friends opened the rear door closest to him. He threw his camera into the back seat and then hurled himself halfway in. In three bounds the lion had caught up, and with one mighty swipe and grip of her claws she pulled him out.

Were the game park authorities to blame for this young person losing his life? Were they in any way punishing him? When the young man faced the decision whether to get out of the car or not, he was free to choose. The sign on the road was clear. The consequences of his choice were tragic.

Let me tell you about a person who made a wonderful choice: he chose Jesus. His name is Paul Koba. Paul was one of our Bible school students at Helderstroom Prison, about a 11Ä2-hour drive from Cape Town. I became acquainted with him when our Global Mission pioneer, Joel Mgcotyelwa, arranged for 14 of our students to be baptized in a stream near the prison in 1996. Paul became the leader of the Seventh-day Adventist group inside the prison. These prisoners sent their tithe to the Bible school. Twenty cents here, fifty cents there-faithfully sent in whenever a relative gave them money or if they were paid for washing a warden's car or some such casual task. There has been a baptism at this prison every year since 1996, with 31 baptized last year for a total of 87.

Paul Koba was released on parole last year. His wife had left him, and the prison authorities wanted to release him into the custody of his sister. Paul refused, saying that his sister was a shebeen queen, the host and manager of a home in which liquor is brewed and served. Paul made a hard choice; he told the authorities that he would rather remain a captive a few months longer and then be released into the custody of our Global Mission pioneer. Paul has now been released for nine months. He has not yet missed a Sabbath school or church service. He works once a week as a gardener at the Bible school and earns just enough to pay for his meals and accommodation at the night shelter where he lives.

Because Paul Koba was ready to accept the light given to him in the Holy Scripture and its fulfillment in Christ Jesus, he is experiencing the joy and assurance of salvation. Paul, a former captive, has become free in Jesus Christ.

The Only Solution
There is only one solution to the predicament of sin. "He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:11-13, NKJV).

Because Jesus came to be with us and became human, in Him we can be restored to the kingdom of heaven. He was not only the Son of Adam but also the Son of God. In this way the whole of humanity is free-and they don't know it. It is up to us to tell them.

Recently I visited the Osire refugee camp in Namibia. Some of us from the Bible school had visited the camp in 1996. They had sent a message to the Bible school at that time asking for Portuguese Bibles (Portuguese is spoken by refugees from Angola) and Bible school lessons. We were amazed at the faith and dedication of these people. They could have fallen into despair, but they held on to the hand of God. We found people who did not complain about living in tents in a foreign country where they were not free to move and work. They were not rebellious or critical of their church or anyone else.

They chose to be thankful to God for sparing their lives. They built a church out of gnarled poles set in the ground and branches plaited horizontally through the poles and grass tied in bunches to form the walls.

Forked sticks set in the ground carried split poles to form seats. They had a choir, elders, deacons, and other church officers.

They chose not to be mere spectators but players in the field of their church. They wanted Bibles and the Voice of Prophecy Bible lessons so they could share their faith with the other refugees. They wanted to tell them that the Son of man came to seek and save that which was lost. They chose to be so busy telling others about Jesus that they did not have time for petty squabbles and differences within the church.

The Adventist church at Osire has grown from 80 to 250 baptized members, with 500 attending every Sabbath. The grass church is packed to capacity.

The church members proudly showed us a baptismal font that they had built. The inscription "Welcome, New Candidates" is set in small stones in the cement. Four of the young people came to me as I left asking if there was any way that they could become ministers. They wished to share with others that salvation saves us from the consequences of sin.

These refugees understood the plan of salvation. They understood that as soon as Adam and Eve sinned, the divine promise of a Redeemer was made (Gen. 3:15), and God took the initiative for our salvation. "Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive" (1 Cor. 15:21, 22). Like those refugees, we are looking for a city whose builder and maker is