Question 18:
What is sin?
Sin is transgression of the revealed will of God which
teaches that we are to act in perfect holiness from a heart of faith to the
glory of God.
DAY
1: 1 John 3:4
The context of this passage is the
Apostle John distinguishing between genuine believers and those who only have a
profession of Christ. He gives us the
characteristics of the true children of God.
We will look at several of the words in this verse to identify what John
is saying about sin and those who commit sin.
First he uses the word
commits. The word commits, poieo, means “to make, to produce, to
carry out”. The verb tense here is an
active present participle, which means that we could see this action as
continuing in the present. The
participle often is equal to adding –ing in the English. The second word we will look at, since our
discussion this week is, “What is sin?”, is sin. The Greek word here is hamartia. This word means,
“to miss the mark, to err, be mistaken, to miss or wander from the path of
uprightness and honor, to do or go wrong, to wander from the law of God,
violate God's law, that which is done wrong, sin, an offence, a violation of
the divine law in thought or in act”. We
see that sin is the wandering, or in some cases, a deliberate violating of the
law of God. As we spoke about last week,
the law of God is synonymous with the word of God. So, the first part of the verse could be
translated, “Whoever is committing, or
continuing to commit sin or violate the words of God.”
John then draws an equation
between sin and breaking the commands of God.
He simply says that sin IS lawlessness.
So the conclusion that John comes to is if a person continues to
practice sin as a lifestyle, and we know that sin is disobedience to the
commands of God, then we know that person is not a child of God (vss.
4-24). In short we find that the
definition of sin is lawlessness or living as if God had not commanded certain
things.
John also tells us in his first
epistle that all unrighteousness is sin.
There are two words in the Greek for unrighteousness, adikia and anomia. Paul uses the word
anomia in 1 Corinthians 6:14 to speak of the unequal yoke between believers and
nonbelievers. The emphasis of the word
anomia is upon a rejection of divine law or wrong committed against it. John uses the word adikia here which speaks
of deceit or wrongdoing between people.
John tells us that ethics are important between people as well and that
a perversion of ethics is sin. So, we
understand that sin can be that which is against God as well as man, though
ultimately all sin is against God.
DAY
2: Romans
From where does sin come
from? Paul, in speaking about the
original sin of Adam (vs. 12) says that his sin brought death to all men
because all men sinned. Again, the word
for sin is hamartia, which means to
miss the mark or wander from God’s law.
Paul’s point here is this: man
from Adam to Moses died without the law due to their sin. Since there was no direct revelation from
God, such as that which was given to Adam and through Moses, it did not stop
the sinful nature being passed on through the line of Adam. Man inherits a sinful nature from his
parents. His tendency is to not be
submissive to God, nor is it to measure up to the perfect state in which God
first created man. This is a perfect
description of depravity. It is not
necessarily about what a man does, though that is important, but rather is
about what a man is that is precisely at the heart of the issue concerning the
sinful nature of man.
We are also told in this passage
that “sin is not imputed when there is no law.
John MacArthur says, concerning this, “Though all men were regarded as
sinners (v. 12), because there was no explicit list of commands, there was no
strict accounting of their specific points of violation.” In other words, it wasn’t that men didn’t sin
before the Law was given through Moses (vs. 12), but it was the fact that there
were no specific laws governing man to show that he was not measuring up to the
standard that God had created him to fulfill.
In Romans 14:23, Paul tells us
that whatever is not of faith is sin.
The word faith simply conveys the idea of conviction of the truth. Paul says that someone who partakes of something
and violates their conscience in doing so, sins. Paul uses an illustration of food and drink
to make the point. One brother is strong
in the faith and has liberty to partake of some particular food and some
drink. However, there is a weaker
brother, we presume from a Jewish background, which is unable to partake in the
liberties of his stronger brother because of his conscience. Therefore, if he does partake while his
conscience is condemning him, it is sin, since it is not of faith. However, the stronger brother can become
guilty of sin, if his influence causes his brother to partake against his
conscience apart from faith. So we see
that while we do have liberty in Christ, we do not have liberty to cause others
to stumble or to sin ourselves.
DAY
3: 1 Peter 1:16
In this passage we are not so
much looking at what sin is, as much as what we, as sinners, who have been born
again, are to strive for. It gives us a
picture of the difference between sinfulness and holiness. The context that Peter has given us is his
calling believers to rid themselves of their former lusts (vs. 15), and walk as
obedient children. He admonishes
believers to gird up the loins of their minds and be sober (vs. 14). Peter calls us to live as the One who called
us out. God called us out of the
world. Therefore our lives should be
characterized as those who are no longer living according to the standard of
the world.
The contrast between what we
have seen in the previous two lessons and that which we are seeing here gives
us a picture of the vast expanse between God and man. Man is sinful and God is holy. Therefore, there is only one way that man can
be holy. His holiness must be given to
him. It is obtained through Jesus
Christ. However, it is a gift (Eph.
2:8-9) and man must be changed himself in order to receive it because he is
dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1-3).
When we speak about what sin is,
we must have a reference point. Our
reference point is God Himself. God is
of course holy. The word used by Peter in
this passage is hagios, which means,
“a most holy thing, a saint”. We have
also seen how the word is used to mean “separate”. In classical Greek, the word had nothing to
do with any moral significance. It
obtained that type of meaning through Biblical Greek. Peter calls God, our Father, holy. He is separate from man. Even in his state of perfection, man’s
holiness did not measure to that of God’s.
Man was able to sin. God is
incapable of sinning. Even now, as
believers, our holiness cannot measure up to that of God’s. Yet we are told to be holy as He is
holy. God determines what everything is
around Him by virtue of who He is. Since
He is holy, that defines us.
Again, we see that God calls us
to be separate from what? Separate from
sin. Peter tells us to rid ourselves of
our former lusts, which are sins.
Therefore, if we are looking for what sin is, we would back up and also
define sin as lusts. The Greek word for
lusts is epithumia, which means,
“desire, craving, longing, desire for what is forbidden”. Peter uses a word for conform which speaks of
“being patterned after, or being poured into a mold”. Sin does just that. It beings all of us into its mold, but we are
now called to be molded or fashioned in the mold of Christ (cf. Rom.
DAY
4: Matthew 5:48
The context of the passage is
Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount. He is
laying out man’s predicament by giving some pointers on his condition and
behavior. For instance, he speaks of
man’s love (vss.38-37). His point is
that man is not like God in the fact that he normally loves those who love him
and cares for those who care for him.
Jesus calls them to depart from this way and love those who hate them
(vs. 44).
He has spoken to the people
about their swearing and how they should not take oaths against the things they
have no power over, such as heaven, the earth, or even their own head (vss.
33-37). Jesus simply commands them to
let their answers just be “Yes” or “No”.
He has also spoken of adultery
(vss. 27-32) and murder (vss. 21-26) and all that goes before those particular
sins. Jesus is exposing man for what he
is, a sinner. There is not one person on
the face of the earth who can claim that they have not violated any of the
words of Jesus in this passage. They may
have only been guilty of the attitudes of the heart, but Jesus is just as
condemning about the issues of the heart as He is about the actions themselves,
because it is from the heart that the action comes (cf. Matt. 15:19).
Jesus says in the verse we are
looking at that we should be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. He uses the Greek word teleios. It means,
“completeness, finished, mature”. In
other passages of the New Testament the word is used to speak of persons who
are fully grown and mature ethically, such as the passage from 1 Corinthians
14:20 where the word “men” is the word teleios.
While Jesus may imply that we
should be mature, He is probably focusing on the definition of the word being
“complete”. This would convey the idea
of goodness without necessary reference to maturity. It is simply the highest standard that God could
give. Jesus has had to go back and
reteach, so to speak, the entire law because of its perversion by men. Men had lowered the standard that God had
established so that they might feel comfortable with it and somehow obtain the
standard. But Jesus raises it back to
where God placed it, so that it would drive sinners to Himself (cf. Gal
When we look at the law, it
exposes our sin. Just like the people we
looked at in a previous lesson in the book of Nehemiah, chapter eight. Those people heard the Law and were broken by
what it had said. They realized that they
were openly violating God’s law, even if it was in ignorance and it drove them
to God in repentance. We too must be
willing to come to the light (the Word of God) to have our sin exposed as well.
So we can understand that
anything that does not meet the divine standard is sin. We do not have to have actually had to commit
the deed for there to be sin. Sin can
also be the attitude and motives of the heart.
DAY
5: 1 Corinthians 10:31
Today’s lesson will be brief,
since we have gone over this passage before.
We simply will try to draw from it something to help us see what sin is.
As we saw in Romans
Can we then draw a conclusion
that if something is not done for the glory of God that it is sin? I think we can. This passage would also be tied in with the
Romans 14:23 passage. If something is
not done for the glory of God, then it is obviously not done in faith. Which is what? Sin.
Even the simplest of things in life, eating and drinking are not to be
partaken of sinfully. Rather, they are
to be enjoyed thankfully (vs.30; cf. 1 Tim. 4:3-5).
In conclusion, we have learned
that sin is: a violation of God’s Word,
actions and attitudes toward man, which are sins against God, missing the mark
God has established morally and wandering from His word, anything that is not
done in faith, anything that is not holy, anything that is not complete in a
moral and spiritual sense, and anything that is not done to the glory of
God. I guess that about covers it. Now, how should we respond to God right now
understanding what we have covered?
Comment
Simplified: Sin is any attitude or desire or action that explicitly breaks a
commandment of Scripture, or comes from a heart of unbelief or is not done for
the glory of God.