The Holy Spirit and sin

The night of the Last Supper our Lord said that the Holy Spirit would convict us of sin. “The Spirit will come,” Jesus said, “and it will be for him to prove the world wrong about sin. They have not found belief in me.” When do we come to a real understanding of sin? Our Lord tells us that we understand through the Holy Spirit. No one who thinks it is just the breaking of a law really grasps the evil of sin. When we have the Spirit of Christ, we understand that sin is doing harm to one we love.  That is why the crucifixion is the manifestation of sin. And that, as our Lord said, is unbelief in its essence-the absolute refusal to have the love and the blessings of God. The Holy Spirit reveals to us that sin is the refusal to accept the deliverance purchased by Christ. Nothing but the Spirit can really convince us of sin. How often, for example, is our conscience smothered by repeated evil actions? We rationalize our evil deeds. Public opinion sometimes even approves of sin. But the Spirit reveals to us that all unbelief is sin, that sin in some way is tied up with the crucifixion.