22 but when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him his whole armor wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils.
23 He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth.”
Sin was mentioned tons of times in the Bible, talked about hundreds of times in daily lives, and is a word very common in an average person’s vocabulary. We live in a culture where the concept of sin has become entangled in legalistic arguments over right and wrong. When many of us consider "What is sin?" we think of violations of the Ten Commandments. Even then, we tend to think of murder and adultery as "major" sins compared with lying, cursing, or idolatry. Sin is mentioned hundreds of times in the Bible, starting with the "original" sin when Adam and Eve ate of the tree of knowledge. Often it seems as if sin is simply the violation of any of God's laws, including the Ten Commandments. But, do we honestly, logically, know what Sin REALLY is?
The truth is that sin, as defined in the original translations of the Bible, means "to miss the mark." The mark, in this case, is the standard of perfection established by God and evidenced by Jesus. Viewed in that light, it is clear that we are all sinners. It does no good to compare ourselves to others. We cannot escape our failure to be righteous in our own strength. This is by God's design, because only when we understand our weakness will we consider relying on the atoning sacrifice of Jesus.
God wanted us to recognize our sins. Even those who have not murdered or committed adultery will find themselves convicted of lying, or of worshipping false idols like wealth or power ahead of God.
Tragically, sin in any amount will distance us from God.
We must resist the temptation to act as if we are righteous, especially by leaning on our good works.
The good news in all of this is that, once we recognize ourselves as sinners, we need only to repent and embrace Jesus to be forgiven. Jesus can forgive us because he died and rose again three days later in victory over sin and death.
That’s what I’ve come up with so far with what Sin is all about.
In my life, seventeen years of it, I’ve never really thought about what kind of impact in my life Sin would create. I’ve thought about the consequences, yes but the “sinning” itself was never a problem for me. I always thought to do the sin I had/wanted to do, then prepare for and accept the consequence that would inevitably come afterwards.
But reading the passages I have this past semester, remembering the teachings of our Theology professor, somehow, gave me an idea of how sin would affect my personality as a Christian. It’s not the consequences I have to worry about; it’s about my faith, my dignity. Every little sin pulls me further away from my close-enough relationship with God. It’s not about the increasing number of sins I commit, it hurts because with the wrong I’ve done, the perfect things God created seem so useless, to Himself, mostly.
If sinning doesn’t hurt the sinner itself, it’s bound to hurt somebody else, right?
Otherwise, it wouldn’t be so bad. It wouldn’t cost so much. It wouldn’t be called ‘Sin’.
I do admit that I, myself, have made numerous, no, countless sins in my lifetime. Yes, even at this young an age. A lot of sins I have already forgotten with the reason that they were too insignificant to me. Other sins, I do recall, but they don’t exactly make me feel sorry with guilt. And some sins, I just couldn’t erase in my mind. These sins affected my dignity as a Christian, sins that affected God… to me that is the kind of sin that must matter. Not the sin that creates physical or emotional aftermath after you carry it out, but the sin that hurt your spirituality. The sin that hurt your God is the real ‘Sin’.
Sin, after all, is nothing unless God said it was Sin.
