What is sin?

What does the Bible say about sin?

  1. Transgression. Mt. 15:2-3
  2. Rebellion Romans 1:30 Disobedience to parents
  3. Treachery, Num. A Woman’s unfaithfulness to her husband
  4. Perversion. “to bend or to twist” Taking God’s creation and thinking or acting on it in a way which is not what God intended it to be…
  5. Ignorance, or error. Hebrews 9:7, The high priest entered the inner room, and that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance.
  1. Inattention. Heb. 2:2-3, For if the message spoken by angels was binding and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation. parakoe

Even on our best days, the best of us still sin even though we don’t want to. Sin has both individual and social implications. When someone looks lustfully at someone else, it hurts both families. Sin can appear in the form of racism, sexism, genocide.

The consequences of sin are guilt, shame, death, despair, and hell. Sin is not necessary, but it is inevitable because of the deviation of the human will. Sin is both an act and a fate. We sin not only because we freely chose to sin but also because the circumstances in life move us in this direction.

So what does God think about this, is he like touchdown Jesus, in Dogma or at Notre Dame? Does he think sin is a joke? It’s no joke.

Habakkuk writes, “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong” (Habakkuk 1.13).

David declared, “You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with you the wicked cannot dwell” (Ps. 5.4). This could be said as “Those who do what is wrong can’t live where you are”. Evil has no home with God. Evil could never stay with Him, lodge with Him, and be near to Him.

The good news is that God has not abandoned us….God has come among us.
Yet we considered “God so loved the world.” He had compassion for us. He yearned for us. What was a holy God to do? And, the message of the passion must not be lost on us, either. The Good Samaritan “climbed into the mix” with the man who had been beaten and robbed and did what no one else ‘could’ do, for various reasons. He did what was necessary for the saving of this precious human life! The Samaritan- the most unexpected helper- was much like God- the most unexpected helper- in the drama of our lives!

Because God’s love was so great, he sent His son to ‘climb into the playpen’ with us. We couldn’t live with God, so God came to live with us. Jesus couldn’t bring us to His house, so He came to our house. John writes: John 1.14- The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us…

Jesus pitched His tent among us. And the story of the entire work of God that we see between the celebration of the birth of Jesus and the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus is about the only way He could bring us home to Himself. The only way was for Him to become a man and then come and save us!