by Keith Sharp
When a horrible crime has been committed, some bleeding heart is always heard to say, “We can’t blame him. He was abused as a child. His was just ‘anti-social behavior.’” The poor victim is left high and dry from the flood-tide of sympathy. As the result of such confused thinking, the Bible concept of sin, along with personal responsibility and guilt, has been almost forgotten.
From beginning to end of the Scriptures, sin is a vital subject. Immediately after the first sin, the Lord God pronounced the curses that are its results.
So the LORD God said to the serpent: ‘Because you have done this, You are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel. To the woman He said: ‘I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain you shall bring forth children; your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. Then to Adam He said, ‘Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, “You shall not eat of it”: cursed is the ground for your sake; ‘in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life.’ Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return (Genesis 3:14-17).
In the concluding chapter of the Bible the apostle John envisions the lifting of the curses in the heavenly home. “And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him (Revelation 22:3). Human sin, its tragic consequences, and God’s eternal plan for the relief from those results are central to Scripture.
Certainly, then, it is important that you know what the Bible teaches about sin. What does sin mean to you if you are not a Christian?
Definition
What is “sin”? The word “sin” is a translation of the Greek term “hamartia,” which means “a failing to hit the mark.” Thus, if an archer shot his arrow toward the target but missed, whether the arrow went beyond, fell short, or swerved aside, he would have sinned. Thus, James identifies one who “wanders from the truth”as “a sinner.”
Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins (James 5:19-20).
The apostle John offers an inspired definition of “sin” by declaring, “sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4). Thus, when one practices that which is in violation of God’s law, he is guilty of sin.
If he practices that which is unauthorized, he sins by going beyond. Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son” (2 John 9, English Standard Version).
If he practices, speaks, or even thinks that which is forbidden, thus practicing “unrighteousness” (“adikia”: “a deed violating law and justice”), he sins by swerving aside. “All unrighteousness is sin” (1 John 5:17).
If he fails to do that which God demands, he sins by falling short. “Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin” (James 4:17).
Who Is Guilty?
Who, then, is guilty of such lawlessness? Some people say infants are born “inherently totally depraved.” This means children are born all bad, or, as the theologians explain, they are born “utterly indisposed, disabled and made opposite to all good and wholly inclined to all evil” (Westminster Confession of Faith. Chapter 6, article 4). These theologians assert that children inherent the guilt of Adam’s sin and a fallen nature as the result of Adam’s sin (article 3).
If we inherit Adam’s guilt because we are his descendants, why do we not also inherit Noah’s righteousness, since he also is our forefather? God’s word teaches:
The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself (Ezekiel 18:20).
Jesus affirmed the innocence of little children.
Then little children were brought to Him that He might put His hands on them and pray, but the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven’ (Matthew 19:13-14).
No, children are not guilty of sin. They are pure and innocent.
But, all who are responsible before God for their actions, words, and thoughts “have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). It’s not what we inherit but what we do. If you are old enough, sane enough, and intelligent enough to be responsible for what you do, you have sinned.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us (1 John 1:8-10).
Results of Sin
Since you have sinned, what is the result? What are sin’s consequences? Death is the universal result of sin.
Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’ (Genesis 2:15-17).
“Death” is the result of separation. “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also” (James 2:26). When the spirit is separated from the body, the body dies.
Physical death is a consequence of the sin of Adam and Eve that even innocent babes may suffer, since we are all separated from the tree of life.
Then the LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever’– therefore the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3:22-24).
But this is not the death of Genesis 2:15-17, for that death happened the very day Adam sinned, yet he lived physically at least 800 years after he sinned. “After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he had sons and daughters. So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died” (Genesis 5:4-5).
Spiritual death is the result of the soul being separated from God.
Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear (Isaiah 59:1-2).
Adam died spiritually the very day he sinned. Also, as results of Adam and Eve’s sin, the curses were pronounced upon the serpent, the woman, and the man (Genesis 3:14-19). But the most important consequence of sin to remember is that all those who remain in its guilt will spend eternity “in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death” (Revelation 21:8).
Salvation from Sin
Surely you wish to escape this awful fate! But how? It is true that the “wages (just reward) of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), but the very same verse also declares, “the gift (that which is freely given) of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” God, in His wondrous love and grace provided us an escape from sin’s consequences. Jesus Christ is the sacrificial Lamb offered to satisfy the law’s demand of death for our sins. “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’” (John 1:29) It is His blood, shed on the cross, which will remove the guilt of our sins. “For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matthew 26:28).
But how can you contact this blood? The blood of Jesus depicts His violent death for us.
Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life (Romans 5:9-10).
When you by faith are baptized into Christ, you are baptized into His death, His blood, and you are freed from the guilt of sin.
Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life (Romans 6:3-4).
Are you a responsible person? If so, you have sinned. Thus you have eternal spiritual death as your just reward. Will you not come to Christ so that God might freely bestow upon you eternal life?
