Book Review: Knowing Sin

Book Review: Knowing Sin

Dan Crabtree 

It’s a horrible, necessary paradox in the Christian life: If you want to know God more, then you need to know your sin more, too. Here’s how Calvin put it at the outset of his systematic theology, The Institutes of the Christian Religion:

“Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves… Thus, our feeling of ignorance, vanity, want, weakness, in short, depravity and corruption, reminds us, that in the Lord, and none but He, dwell the true light of wisdom, solid virtue, exuberant goodness. We are accordingly urged by our own evil things to consider the good things of God; and, indeed, we cannot aspire to Him in earnest until we have begun to be displeased with ourselves.”

Calvin, Institutes, I:1, 37-38.

Calvin’s point is not that our great, immortal, all-wise God is in some way dependent on our sin to be who he is, but exactly the opposite. Because we are sinful, we’re entirely dependent on God to reveal our sin to us so that we might be motivated to look to him, the great cure and antithesis of all our sin.

If we sinners want to love God more, we need to know and hate our sin more. And Mark Jones’ latest book aims to aid us on that dark and perilous journey.

In Knowing Sin: Seeing a Neglected Doctrine Through the Eyes of the Puritans, Jones delves into the theological deeps of the study of sin (what theologians call “hamartiology”) with the lantern of Puritan wisdom lighting the way. 

As a pastor, professor, and expert in the writings of those 17th century English non-conformists, Jones brings together precise doctrinal articulation and devotional Puritan application to lay sin bare in all its ugliness. 

Uniquely, Jones writes like a Puritan, full of theological depth and devotional fervor, but without any stuffy anachronisms or slavish imitation. If you’re looking for a personal or small group study resource that will convict you, challenge you, and provoke you to greater love for your sin-bearing Savior, then Knowing Sin should be at the top of your list.

To see the value of a resource like Knowing Sin, we need to feel the weight of the subtitle’s assumption: Seeing a Neglected Doctrine. What’s so neglected about the biblical doctrine of sin that this cobwebbed corner of systematic theology warrants our attention? Consider any modern public debate and you’ll see the need for more biblical precision about sin. 

For example: How should we think about the sins of our elected officials, the sins of our forefathers, the sins of someone else’s forefathers, the sins of ethnic groups, the sins of men, the sins of women, the sins of Christians, or the sins of the culture? In her foreword to Knowing Sin, Rosaria Butterfield shows how a robust theology of sin can help us respond to something as controversial as feminist arguments in the #Churchtoo movement. 

Today’s headlines and op-eds are littered with unwitting admissions of profound ignorance about the most fundamental human problem: our sin. So, our sin is worth discussing so we can speak credibly and biblically to current events and issues.

But there’s another side to this subtitle. It’s not just the mass media that has neglected the doctrine of sin, but also our own hearts. What inclination could be more natural to a sinful heart than to turn away from the sight of its own sin? In fact, Jones deals with that exact problem in Chapter 8: Sin’s Secrecy. 

If we would maintain a habitual sight of Christ, then we need to acknowledge our wandering eyes and realign our gaze. We don’t want to become morbidly preoccupied with our indwelling sin but we can’t afford to be ignorant of it either. Sin thrives in the shadows and dies in the light. Because we default to self-ignorance, our sin-sick hearts need to be thrown into the light.

Toward those ends, Jones begins Knowing Sin with foundational theological truths about sin in general before moving on to specific sins in the latter chapters. The first seven chapters deal with those truths that lie behind all sins: where sin came from, what sin is, how sin works, and why we still sin. We need these doctrinal underpinnings to make a holy war on our sin because they remove the temptation to retreat.

For example, when discussing sin’s origin, Jones acknowledges the unsolved mystery when he writes, “the Fall happened by the providence of God while Adam bore moral responsibility for it.” (p. 23) Our natural, sinful response to this theological tension might be to throw our hands up in resignation. Why should I fight my sin if God ordains that it exists? Jones continues,

“In this life, we may never fully understand why Adam decided to sin against God, why a good angel would turn from God in rebellion, or why a good God would allow it, much less ordain it. 

But we know that both Adam and Satan are held fully responsible for their sin… We can be quick to blame others for our own sins, for which we alone must accept responsibility… Let us remove from our hearts and minds such phrases as ‘I could not help myself,’ ‘I was unable to resist,’ or ‘the devil made me do it.’” (p. 24)

This and other theological insights in the beginning chapters set the rules of engagement in our ongoing battle with sin. Without clarity on original sin, sinful depravity, indwelling sin, and God’s righteous judgments against sin, we’d be fighting blind. Jones helpfully, carefully, and precisely establishes the biblical picture of sin before delving into the individual frames of our iniquity. Or, to put it another way, he deals with sin before dealing with sins.

After laying the theological foundation, Chapters 8-18 (the rest of the book) explore specific sins one at a time. There’s a chapter on presumptuous sin, a chapter on selfishness, a chapter on unbelief, a chapter on temptations, and even a chapter on sins of omission. If the earlier sections are preventative medicine, then these chapters are the operating room. 

Each chapter feels like a new and necessary surgery, exposing raw wounds and binding them up with the balm of the gospel. Thankfully, Jones is a kind and able doctor, and his treatments come directly from Scripture. If you were to use this resource as a group study, you might consider doing only one or two of these chapters at a time to get the most of these pointed topics.

Let me give you an example of what this sounds like using Chapter 15: Sin’s Thoughts. Jones starts with a condensed biblical theology on sinful thinking, stretching from the Fall through the flood to Jesus’ ministry. He then introduces two voices on the topic of sinful thoughts, Stephen Charnock and Thomas Goodwin, whose works he’ll reference for the remainder of the chapter. 

Jones then spends a few detailed, valuable pages dissecting the human heart, drawing careful distinctions between thinking and willing, while still noting the treachery of sin in our minds that can conflate the two. Jones writes, “The heart and mind are deceitful, with many thoughts arising because we lack sufficient holiness to keep them from flowering in our hearts.” (p. 160) 

After a brief word about the sinfulness of delighting in “vain imaginations,” Jones goes on to categorize different kinds of sinful thoughts, like sinful fantasies, enjoyment of past sins, misplaced thoughts, and ungoverned thoughts. He then shows how sinful thinking relates to Satan and concludes with a few pages of application that lead into the heart of the gospel. Jones writes, “Let us be encouraged as Christians, that Christ exhibited the perfect thought life for us as the foundation of justification and the source and example of our sanctification. Let us likewise rejoice that God has more thoughts toward us of mercy, love, and goodness than we have of rebellion toward Him.” (p. 165)

Brothers and sisters, we sinners need to know more about the disease of our sin if we would go on to healthy living in the knowledge of God in Christ. Mark Jones has done the Church a needed service by putting together this accessible, precise, and thoroughly practical work on the doctrine of sin. I commend Knowing Sin to you and your church as a mature discipleship resource, a means to expose the evil of our own hearts that we might continually turn to Christ in grateful repentance. May the Lord use this book to grow your love for the God who forgives sin.