What Separates From God – Sin Or The Failure To Repent?

Does our sin separate us from God, or is it the lack of repentance that separates (causes our spiritual death) Let’s consider some relevant passages …

How about in the very beginning with the very first sin? What did God say in Gen 2:17? – “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.” So spiritual death results from (occurs at the time of) sin, not later when a person fails to repent.

What about the Israelites according to Isaiah 59:2? – “But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.” It is not the failure to repent per se that separates us from God, but our sin in the first place.

And lastly in the New Testament notice Rom 6:23a – “For the wages of sin is death.” Spiritual death occurs when we commit sin, any sin, even one sin. The failure to repent only compounds the problem by blocking the avenue we have to obtain forgiveness and restore our fellowship with God.

It is the same for belief. Unbelief is not what originally separates us from God; our sins does. Believing is part of accepting the solution for our separation from God due to our sin – John 3:16.

I challenge the reader to find even one passage in the Bible where a person sinned, but was not separated from God at the moment he committed the sin.