Chapter 2 - What is Sin?
Have you ever asked a question and heard back, “Now that’s a loaded question!”? The question, “What is sin?” is definitely one of those ‘loaded questions.” To be clear, the phrase, “loaded question” generally implies that the phrasing assumes either a fact or that the answer has the potential of being controversial. This question, “What is sin?” is both, as it presupposes the existence of sin and the answer can be somewhat controversial.
Let’s first get the definition of the words out of the way. The words that are most often translated as ’sin’ in the Bible in both the Hebrew (the primary language of the Old Testament) and the Greek (the language of the New Testament), convey the sense of missing the mark, such as an arrow being shot missing a target. While that idea may be the derivation of the words, the concepts of being disobedient or being offensive should never be forgotten. It is true that in most cases when someone speaks of sin they are using it in the context of disobeying God (I am assuming that when you discipline your children or someone else, you don’t tell them that they have sinned against you, please tell me I’m right). The word ‘sin’ almost automatically becomes a ‘religious’ word making it a word that people feel comfortable defining in their own terms. We don’t define what is or what is not, an act of disobedience against God, He does.
The book of Genesis, chapter three, records how sin got started. The Bible also teaches us that as the direct result of sin, mankind no longer had a close relationship with God and all of creation was cursed and death was introduced. Possibly due to God being invisible and the post-cursed creation and death is all that mankind has ever known, sin seems so nebulous and unimportant for us today.
Instead of studying what sin is, we should be looking at how sin affects us and our relationship with God. In order to do that, bear with me, we need to first explore a few additional words found in the Bible.
The first word is holy; I think everyone has heard this word, but most are unaware of what it truly represents. The word holy essentially refers that something that, if unclean, was cleansed and then set aside. In the Bible, the word usually means that some thing or some person has been purified and set aside for use exclusively by and for God. When God called His people holy, He was saying that they should only pay attention to Him and His Word, meaning they should disregard any influence by those not called holy. One way to look at this would be to say that God’s people were to be peculiar or different to everyone else! God Himself is holy, being separated from sin, since He is without sin, He does not need to be first cleansed or purified. He is pure.
The next word is righteous; have you ever been called righteous? If you were, it probably wasn’t stated in a nice way as the term often implies arrogance or some other form of self-importance. The word simply means doing the right thing or thinking correctly, of course from a Biblical perspective, the right or correct way is governed by God.
Following close behind righteous is the word, pure. Here again we see how modern thinking has polluted the proper use of a word. Pure means pure, that would be 100 percent pure, not like some labels we see on consumables saying something like, this product is 90% pure. When we read in the Bible that God is pure, that means He is without sin, no corruption or perversion. When Adam and Eve were first created, they were perfect and without sin. That means they were holy, righteous and pure. When they sinned and disobeyed God, they were no longer holy, righteous or pure. Since God is a holy God, without sin, man could no longer enjoy the presence of God.
Through the years, theologians have pondered the issue of sin, trying desperately to understand the nature of sin in order to solve the problem. While their pursuit to find a solution is in vain, especially since God already provided the answer, their exploration of sin may be able to help us understand more fully the nature of sin.
Biblical scholars have identified three basic types of sin: 1) inherited sin; 2) imputed sin and 3) personal sin. Inherited sin is just as it sounds, we inherited sin from Adam and as a result, the entire human race has retained a sinful nature. Inherited sin is responsible for bringing death into the world, including those before the Law. After the Law was given to Moses, people, in addition to being guilty of inherited sin, were now also guilty of violating the Law. Due to inherited sin, people are born as sinners and since they are sinners they continue to sin, in this case in violation of God’s Law, this is referred to as imputed sin. The word ‘imputed’ is both a legal and a financial term, referring to moving something from one person (or account) and giving it to another. In this case due to the inclination to sin that was inherited from Adam, the sins that are committed in violation of the Law, even though sin was put into motion by Adam, are imputed to the sinner (Romans 5:13). The third type of sin is called a personal sin; these are those sins that get committed by us every day, because we are sinners (James 4:17).
I am avoiding using some popular terms that are often used to classify types of sin, such as original sin, ancestral sin and actual sin, as their definitions are not consistent among theologians and are often open to debate. While the three mentioned are also not always understood, or agreed upon, we will see later how all of this comes together.
Technically, we are guilty of all three; inherited sin, imputed sin and personal sin. Whenever we look at the problem of sin we can be overwhelmed, not just with guilt but also with a sense of it being surreal. Is sin real? If it is, wouldn’t it just be part of who we are? Why should we care about the, “behind the scenes” workings of the human existence? Well it probably would not matter if life evolved, sin would be part of our makeup and not some corruption of a perfect design. We could be whatever we wanted to be, just as our worldview allows us. Then there would not be anything called sin or disobedience since there was no creation nor would there be any need for God. Just think, any lifestyle, allowing anything and everything to be acceptable because there are no rules. But sin is real, there is a God and we were created perfect and corruption did enter His creation and we are sinners. Seeing how serious the problem of sin is, we may want to defend who we are by trying to put the blame on God, we might even want to say something like, “well if His design was so good how could corruption get in?” That’s a good question, if we were all ‘programmed’ to be perfect and love Him, would that be true love? No, the choice must be ours to be genuine.
Not knowing what it would have been like to experience the presence of God as Adam and Eve did, we might not know what we are missing, but what might be a surprise to some, God also missed that fellowship. We see in the Bible that God set up the Torah (the set of rules also known as the Law), also included a process for people to interact with God through a priest, along with instructions on how to build a rather unusual portable building called the Tabernacle. The purpose of that building could be summed up by translating the Hebrew word, ‘mishkan’, it means “to dwell” or “dwelling place” (the English word ‘tabernacle’ is derived from the Latin word for ‘tent’). It was a movable dwelling that was constructed for the sole purpose of God dwelling among His people. You are probably wondering, what does God need with a building or a tent? He didn’t need a building then nor does He need a building now or ever. Both the tabernacle and the Temple, which would be constructed later, are for the people as they represented in a tangible way, that God was with them.
Even though these buildings were the centerpieces of an Israelite’s life, there was a process to be maintained. The lesson God was teaching everyone was that due to the serious nature of sin, a life of an animal would need to be sacrificed as an offering for forgiveness. For some, this is another example of the meanness, or at least the cruelty, of God. This is understandable as life of any kind, be it animal or human, is precious. However, we also need to understand that the meat of most of these sacrifices went to support the priests and Levites (the group of people who were responsible for the daily operation of tabernacle and Temple). But don’t let our attitudes or perceptions of cruelty prevent us from grasping the reality that sin is a very serious problem that requires the spilling of innocent blood for forgiveness. This was an ongoing process requiring continual sacrifices.
So far we have discussed the effect of sin on creation and mankind and that God is holy, righteous and pure, but what makes something a sin? The Law that God gave to Moses gives us proper protocols and rules to follow, anytime someone does not follow these written regulations would be considered sinning. While the Law can be summarized to some extent using what are known as the Ten Commandments (Exodus chapter 20), the Law contains a whole lot more and elements of the Law can be found throughout the first five books of the Bible.
Okay, we can see how people could comprehend what to do and what not to do, but what part of sin are we born with? Is it some form of genetic deficiency, a disease or some other malady? Actually, it is worse than all of those combined. Even before the Law was made known, due the disobedience of Adam and Eve, we have all inherited sin. The Bible teaches that we sin because we are sinners, there is no way for us to avoid the penalties and the punishment of sin. While that seems unfair, especially if God, when He created us, knew mankind would become sinful resulting in eternal separation from Him and death, His plans for us did not stop there.
As one would expect, there are many theologians who do not like God’s solution to the problem. That is why Christians need to read and understand the Bible for themselves and not rely completely on books written by man. We are to know the real thing, not just a summary or someone’s opinion. That includes all Scripture, cover to cover. The entire Bible contains what many scholars call a thread that binds all 66 books together, and since innocent blood was necessary, it is often referred to as the Scarlet (red) Thread. For example every detail of the construction and operation of the tabernacle found in the book of Exodus literally point to some aspect of the coming Messiah, someone who will completely fulfill the Law and offer humanity salvation from sin. The Bible was written and provided to us so that we can know that Messiah.