So What Is Sin?

Someone once explained sin to me as ‘doing the don’ts and not doing the dos (not to be confused for the Spanish word meaning ‘two’).’ This is a wildly simplistic and unhelpful definition for a few reasons.

First, sin is an offense against God. As a Christian I understand God to be the Creator of everything—from a piece of dirt to every galaxy—and One who is still actively involved IN all of life, watching over and orchestrating the events of all life. In sum, He is both alive and powerful therefore to give some cheapish definition of the things which offend Him is not only a poor practice but a deadly one, and, to a degree, an enslaving one.

Second, not everything we are instructed to do in the Bible, if ignored or rejected, is considered an offense against God--sin. Take for example the one which the book of Proverbs calls the sluggard. The sluggard, in the English Standard Translation, is mentioned 12 times in Proverbs: he is called a fool, a disappointment and pain to his master, he is warned that poverty will be his companion. I do not want to be a sluggard and I think it unwise for anyone else to be such. God, in his kindness, inspired these true words for us to give us guidance and to help us prosper on earth, but I do not think that enjoying sleep too much nor working too little is SIN--something which incurs the eternal wrath of God. To clarify AGAIN, it is extremely unwise for an individual to practice such things for many reasons and the absolute extreme of these things can become sinful, but the sluggard is not to be deemed unfit for the kingdom of heaven only based on the fact that he does not want to get out of bed.

I hear some of you saying, ‘Yea, but Jesus instructed his followers to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.’ That he did, as I would tell anyone the same for their own good; as I hope everyone would tell anyone! Just because it came out of the inspiration or mouth of the Almighty does not mean neglecting it equals sin. Some things, for example the sacrifices in the Old Testament Law are obsolete now. God said them at one point, we are not doing them today, are we sinning by not offering them today? No. And we see that other things God gives as general wisdom for all of mankind—it is always helpful and profitable and good to do this or that; certainly though there are certain instructions that if rebelled against ARE sin.

So what IS considered by GOD—that’s essentially what we only care about here—to be sin? Glad you asked. The blanket answer is anything that is contrary to his nature. Where in the world could we figure out God’s nature? The Bible. The Bible, in its entirety brings us sharp images of God’s character. One big and obvious one is that He is life. In general then, killing of other soul-filled human beings is sin, take the even of Cain killing his brother Abel.

Not only is rebelling against God’s character sin, also rebelling or disobeying His commandments. This part sometimes does not seem to immediately flow from God’s character but most of the time does: In the book of Hosea God tells the prophet to go marry a prostitute, which is something in Leviticus God clearly instructs the people not to do. But at the end we see that Hosea, being a prophet, followed God’s instruction and in so doing became a picture for the entire nation of Israel of God’s love for them in that though Israel, like the prostitute, was continually unfaithful to God; God, though, would not leave them or break His promise and covenant with them. God was showing His love and grace in His faithfulness even when Israel was overtly UNfaithful.

There is more and many objections abound and caveats overflow but I think generally WE CAN DEFINE SIN AS: REBELLION AGAINST THE NATURE AND CHARACTER OF GOD, AND DISOBEYING HIS DIRECT COMMANDS TO US.

Making the definition of sin too broad is wrong and bad, for how can we call evil which God Himself does not? No need to add burdens to our conscience, for Jesus said his instructions are easy, his burden is light.