What Is Sin?
I Think I Know…
To build off of our post from last week, we are going to take the next step in our hamartiology study. As discussed previously, we know that hamartiology is a study of sin and that the Bible has much to say on this topic. However, if we want to answer the most intriguing questions about sin and look at the effects it has on God’s creation, we must first be able to define what sin is. Has someone ever asked you this question before? What was your response? If not, what would be your response if someone asked you right now? It’s a little difficult to answer, isn’t it? We are usually taught from a young age that sin is bad and God doesn’t like it, but why is that? Do we know what is so bad about what we call sin? When we don’t know how to answer simple questions like this one, it changes our whole view on everything that has to do with sin in the first place. Look at how John Piper beautifully explains this idea, “There is a great sadness that comes from not being saddened by knowing our sin. There is a great pain that comes to the soul and to the marriage and to the family and to the church and to the world from not tasting the pain of knowing our sin. There is a great self-destruction that comes from not experiencing the self-devastation of knowing our sin. There is an eternal loss that comes from not losing our pride in the knowledge of our sin. If there is any hope and any faith and any joy and peace and love, it will come from knowing our sin.” Why does Piper say this? Because just like Ray Comfort reminded us of last week, we will never know how deep our need for a savior is until we realize how lost we really are because of our sin. Let’s dive in.
A Definition
To start, let’s look at what the definition of this word is to get the most basic idea of the term. From its original Hebrew text, the word ‘sin’ is translated from the word ‘chata’ which means ‘to miss, go wrong in, or bear the blame’. This is why growing up you may have heard some pastors say to you that sinning is missing the mark. And essentially, they're not wrong. This breakdown comes right from the definition itself. If sinning means to miss, then this seems like a pretty simple way to interpret this word. But what exactly are we missing? Leviticus 19:2 gives us the exact answer. “Speak to all the congregation of the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.” If you were with us a few months ago, you know that we broke down the idea of holiness and looked into passages like this. This is written in the Pentateuch, meaning it was written down as a part of God’s Law for His people to follow. God is telling His people back then and today, that if we want to be able to have a relationship with Him, we must be perfectly holy just as He is. Obviously, we aren’t perfectly holy and that’s why we need the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, but I think I’ve made my point. It’s pretty easy to see what mark we missed here. If God calls us to be holy and live perfectly like He does, and we don’t, we miss the mark. Sinning is when we miss the mark of God’s holiness and we fail to live up to His perfect standard that He has for us. That’s a heavy meaning right there for such a small word. And yet, just like Piper and Comfort have explained, we need to feel the heaviness of that meaning. Because it’s that exact heaviness that shows us just how beautiful the gospel truly is.
The Penalty
To continue on with this definition, we also see that the later part of this description of sin is ‘to bear the blame.’ I’m going to be really straightforward here, but this is again why we must be able to feel the heaviness of this. Far too often our thankfulness and gratitude towards Christ are affected negatively because we never stop and think to ourselves what would happen if He didn’t die for us. The Old Testament tells us exactly what would happen to us. In fact, it’s in this definition itself. We would bear the blame for our sin. In other words, instead of Christ paying the penalty of our sin for us, we would. And how exactly do we pay for that? Look at what Paul says in Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God Is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The wages of our sin is death. This means that the unsaved sinner pays for his own sin with his own life by being separated from God for eternity. If our sin is not atoned for by the work that Christ accomplished on the cross, all of our sin now falls on us to make atonement for it. And how can sinners make redemption for sin itself? They can’t. That’s like expecting water to somehow make itself dry. Do you now see why it is so vital that we understand what sin is? Yes, the teachings are dark. Yes, sin is a terrible thing. Yes, it is not the most crowd-pleasing truth in the world. But it's true. And God wants us to learn about this truth, otherwise, it wouldn’t be in His Word.
Furthermore, the teaching of sin is indeed a heavy one, but oh how sweet it makes the truth of the gospel! Imagine feeling this weight on your shoulders that you simply can’t bear anymore and then you hear the good news of the gospel for the first time. It would feel like the greatest weight has been lifted off your shoulders! All the praise, honor, and glory that we have to offer would immediately go to God Himself for giving us a way to be redeemed from our sin. This wouldn’t be the reaction of someone who only felt like a 2lb dumbbell was lifted off of their back, would it? This is why hamartiology is so important to understand. The power of the gospel isn’t lackluster by any means, we just forget how lost, helpless, and dead we really are because of sin. I hope and pray that this series will make you not just more aware of the powers of sin, but more grateful for Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross as well.
Sources
[1] Blue Letter Bible. (n.d.). Blue Letter Bible. https://www.blueletterbible.org/
[2] Piper, J. (2023, December 18). The importance of knowing our sin. Desiring God. https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/the-importance-of-knowing-our-sin
[3] The Strongest NASB Exhaustive Concordance. Zondervan, 2004.
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