Mark Jones has done the Church a needed service by putting together this accessible, precise, and thoroughly practical work on the doctrine of sin…Knowing Sin [is]…a mature discipleship resource, a means to expose the evil of our own hearts that we might continually turn to Christ in grateful repentance. 

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 17^th 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.

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