Moral accountability

Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. (James 4:17 KJV)

Sin is an important topic, since it affects the life of every human being and is what has caused the separation of humans from God. Thankfully, God, in His love and mercy, has made salvation from sin available to humanity through Jesus’ suffering and death.

While God has expressed His will and moral law through the Bible, there was a time when the Bible didn’t exist. There are also many who haven’t heard of it or read it, or don’t know that it contains truth about God and His will. However, all throughout history humans have inherently known God’s moral law to some extent, as God has embedded it in the heart of each person.

Because humans have intuitive knowledge of the moral law within them, they have a sense of what is right and what is wrong, of moral accountability. Their conscience “bears witness.” God’s expressed moral law and will in Scripture, and each person having an intuitive knowledge of the moral law and a conscience that bears witness when they break the moral law, means that all humans—whether they know Scripture or not—are aware that they fail to conform to or that they deviate from the moral law, and that they are doing wrong. —Peter Amsterdam [1]

The person who sins disobeys a sense of right. He falls below his vision of the good. He sees a path, but he does not walk in it. He hears a voice, but he says “no” instead of “yes.” —Rufus Jones

[1] Anchor Why Sin Matters