Sin Is To Disobey God

Sin Is To Disobey God

To sin is to do evil, to disobey God. It is also to do evil against humanity, society, others, and oneself; but these are secondary meanings.

If sin is disobeying God, then it is the idea of God that gives the word its meaning.

Before God revealed himself to the Hebrews, and then to the entire world through Jesus Christ, most cultures imagined a sky full of unstable, selfish gods who followed every momentary whim-gods, in fact, who acted very much like immature, immoral human persons. Israel’s God, perfect, holy, and unchanging, was the first to inspire the idea of “sin” as we know it.

EVIL Actions and EVIL Ways

Evil actions are those that fall short of God’s standard of holiness, that is, sin. The Old Testament, particularly the Psalms, teach that people are born sinful. In the New Testament Jesus taught that the origin of sin could be traced to the human heart and will. If, you act one way, then turn around and act another way, or say things which are totally uncalled for that is a “sin”, if you act like a Christian one time and then when someone makes you upset or angry, then you act differently then what you normally act then that is a “sin.”

(Matthew 6:22-23)

22 “Your eye is a lamp for your body. A pure eye lets sunshine into your soul.”

23 But an evil eye shuts out the light and plunges you into darkness. If the light you think you have is really darkness, how deep that darkness will be!

The apostle Paul taught that the solution for the evil of sin is the new life that comes from faith in Christ.

TERMINOLOGY OF SIN

Israel’s God sets the rule for all human behavior. The Hebrew words for sin, therefore, are usually words that speak of violating a standard, of missing a mark. The word hata and the Greek word hamartia originally meant “to miss the mark; to fail in carrying out a duty” (Romans 3:23). As the one who gives us laws, God sets limits on our freedom, telling us we cannot do certain things; so another word (Hebrew abar; Greek parabasis) describes sin as:

• “overstepping one’s limits”

Other terms meaning

• rebellion
• transgression
• intruding on God’s territory
• a false step
• lawbreaking
• lawlessness
• trespassing

Also appear in the Bible, and these words each give us an idea of what sin can mean.

IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

In the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve are given freedom by God; when they misuse that freedom to eat from the tree of knowledge, sin is born. Ezekiel tells us that sin is a matter of each person’s individual choices (Ezekiel 18), and that good outward behavior can only come from a cleansed, renewed inner life; sin is overcome when people desire to follow God’s law (Jeremiah 31:29; Ezekiel 36:24-29).

Psalm 51 carefully and deeply describes the inner workings of sin in human lives. We are sinful from the very beginning, down to our roots: “In sin did my mother conceive me.” The writer of the Psalm says that his whole personality needs “purging” because he is defiled. Ritual sacrifice of animals is no solution.

Only a broken, repentant heart prepares a sinner for God’s cleansing; only God’s steadfast love and mercy allow that sinner to be cleansed. No other hope exists. But in spite of its stern view of sin, the Old Testament assures us of God’s forgiveness (Psalm 103:8-14; Isaiah 1:18, 55:6-7).

IN JESUS’ TEACHINGS

Jesus took up the Old Testament’s offer of God’s forgiveness, forgiving sins and showing such compassion that he came to be known as a friend of sinners. He called people to repent, restoring their sense of hope and dignity (Matthew 9:1-3; 11:19; Luke 15; 19:1-10).

Jesus tells us little about the origin of sin, only that it comes from the human heart and will (Matthew 6:22-23; 7:17-19; 18:7; Mark 7:20-23); but he did change the scope of sin.

While the Old Testament law addressed people’s outward behavior, telling them not to murder or commit adultery, Jesus showed that inner attitudes and feelings-hatred, contempt, lust, hardness of heart, deceitfulness-were also sinful.

He also spoke of sins of neglect, good left undone, talents left unused. Priests who ignore the injured and people who fail to show love were sinners in Jesus’ eyes (Matthew 25:41-46). He especially condemned sins against love-unbrotherliness, the refusal to forgive, selfishness, insensitivity (Luke 12:16-21; 16:19-31).

He hated self-righteousness and spiritual blindness (Matthew 23:16-26; Mark 3:22-30). He spoke of sin as a sickness (2:17) and as folly (Luke 12:20). But with God’s help, Jesus declared, humans can be set free from sin’s bondage (7:36-50).

IN JOHN’S WRITINGS

The Gospel of John assumes that humanity needs forgiveness for its sin, and that Christ, our sacrifice, takes away our sin, offering light and life. John stresses a new kind of sin that Christ’s death makes possible-refusing to accept the salvation provided in Christ, refusing to believe. Humans are judged for loving darkness, rejecting light, and refusing to accept Christ the Savior (John 3:16-21).

Early in Christianity’s history, a belief called Gnosticism claimed that highly advanced Christians did not need to worry about sin. John firmly rejected this. In 1 John, he offers fifteen reasons why sin cannot be tolerated in the Christian life.

Sin is ignorance of the truth and lack of love (1 John 3:3-10). Yet God forgives those who confess their sins, while Christ makes up for their sins and prays for them (1:7-2:2).

IN PAUL’S WRITINGS

Paul used both his observations and Scripture to argue that all people have sinned (Romans 1-3). To him, sin is a force, a power, a “law” that rules within people, in their “flesh” (5:21; 7:23; 8:2; 1 Corinthians 15:56). The force of sin produces all kinds of evil-the hardening of the conscience, so that we no longer care about right and wrong (Romans 7:21-24), alienation from God, and the certainty of death (5:10; 6:23; Ephesians 2:1-5, 12; Colossians 1:21).

Humans cannot change themselves (Romans 7:24). Paul says that “everyone is his or her own Adam,” which means that every person is fully responsible for her or his sin, even if we inherited our sin from Adam.

The solution to sin is to die with Christ-die to sin, to the world, to oneself-because Christ provided our justification. The Spirit, at the same time, gives us new life, making us new people by changing our inner selves into imitations of Christ in a process called sanctification (Romans 3:21-26; 5:6-9; 6; 8:1-4, 28-29; 2 Corinthians 5:14-21).

SIN UNTO DEATH

Sin mentioned in 1 John 5:16; in this verse John discourages prayer for those who sin in this way. Most likely, John was speaking of those who decisively turn their backs upon the truth, as well as those false teachers who deceive the church (Hebrews 6:4-6; 2 John 1:7-9).

SIN OF MAN

KJV rendering of an inferior textual variant in the Textus Receptus in 2 Thessalonians 2:3. The correct reading is “man of lawlessness,” an expression used by Paul of the Antichrist.

WILDERNESS OF SIN

Arid, sandy region in the southwestern part of the Sinai peninsula, described in the Bible as being “between Elim and Sinai” (Exodus 16:1). It is mentioned only four times in the Bible (Exodus 16:1; 17:1; Numbers 33:11-12) in itineraries of the exodus from Egypt.

The wilderness of Sin lies to the southeast of Elim, which generally is regarded as the Wadi Gharandel.

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