Our 76th Word is Sin

Definition of sin is rejecting God and His rule and thus rebelling against His will.

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)

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Humanity’s biggest crisis isn’t climate change or the threat of nuclear war, or even covid. The biggest emergency facing the human race isn’t poverty or even pollution, nor is it the threat of yet another pandemic!

According to the Bible, those terrible evils and ills are only symptoms of a deeper, more pervasive problem: the deadly virus in the human soul called SIN.

The word translated ‘sin” in the verse above means “to miss the mark.” Picture an archer failing to hit the bull’s eye. At first blush, that doesn’t seem so bad, at least he was trying, right?

It’s when we read the detailed, biblical descriptions of sin that we get a more complete and more sickening picture of what sin really is. Sinning is literally rebelling and going astray It’s transgressing, that is, willfully crossing lines we know we should never cross. Lest anyone miss the point, the Bible keeps piling up the ugly adjectives. Sin is wickedness, hypocrisy, ungodliness, lawlessness, and unrighteousness. And sadly we see this all around us, right here in our own country, our very own government that we ourselves have put into office. The biggest kicker of all? We’re all guilty, every single one o us, whether we feel guilty or not.

Miss the mark? Of course we missed it! That’s because most days, we weren’t even trying to hit it, weren’t even thinking about the mark.

In short, the New Testament says we do sinful things because we have a sinful nature. That’s the crux of the issue. Sin is the hardened stance of every son  of Adam and daughter of Eve against God and His authority. The bad news? the “wages of sin”, that is, what sin earns us, is death. Spiritual death. The good news of the gospel? Through Jesus, God offers sinful people like us, eternal life.

When we trust in Christ, the living God forgives our sin and makes our dead souls come alive. How’s that for a divine mic drop?

When we read Romans, we discover that God doesn’t merely rescue us from the penalty of sin, as marvelous as that is. He also promises us power to overcome the pull of sin.

Read Romans 5-8. since faith in Christ means union with Christ, we’re dead now to old ways of living. We’ve “been set free from sin” Romans 6:7) and now have resurrection power to “live a new life” (Romans 6:4).

Grappling with those truths and helping others grasp them, won’t change the world overnight. But, hey, it’s a really good start.

Question to Ponder

1. How would you explain sin to a little kid?