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Sin is bad ….. right? But what is it …… and why is it sin …… and what’s so bad about it? What makes it “sin.” Is the determination of sin a unilateral moral decision on the part of God (God decides it on His own), or is sin inherently bad? The Old Testament says that adultery is sin, but Jesus said if you even think about adultery it’s sin. If even thinking about sin is sin, is there any hope for any of us?
In these next studies we’ll take a look at the changing boundaries of what the Bible defines as sin. We’ll see why those boundaries changed. We’ll also discover why sin is sin, why it’s bad for us, what God thinks both about it and about us when we’re in sin, and how God saves and is saving us from it.
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The Greek word for sin is hamartia. Its root word, marainomai, is used but a single time in the Bible, and from it we get a glimmer of what sin really is.
James 1:9-13 Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted; But the rich, in that he is made low; because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withers the grass, and the flower thereof falls, and the grace of the fashion of it perishes; so also shall the rich man fade away (marainomai) in his ways.
The rich man who considers himself something special simply because of his wealth lives a life whose ways are not sustainable. Sin is that which is outside the natural order of life instituted by God the Creator. As such, it is not so much a single act, as an influence which lies outside the intended natural state of being, leading one into a self-destructive manner of living or behaving.
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In the garden, all things were available to this new being, man-created-in-God’s-image. According to God, E V E R Y T H I N G was okay for man to do, act on, play with, explore, commit, behave, partake of……..freely! Except for eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That was the only thing not allowed. One single thing.
Genesis 2:16, 17 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 of it; for in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die.
(Please see study What was The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? During this period of time, called the administration of the Original Paradise, there was only one sin, and that was to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (See study The Original Paradise ). So what was so “outside the intended natural order of things” about eating of that tree?
Romans 1:21, 22 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations (logizomai – logical reasonings), and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
Romans 1:18ff is the record of the spiritual fall of man as initiated and carried out by Satan. Not the physical act(s), but what was happening spiritually as man descended into the abyss of self-destruction, “fading away” from any semblance of the intended natural order of things.
The final step out of the intended natural order of things as instituted by God the Creator is to reject thankfulness. Being thankful makes a man a recipient of the things of God. Man needs God to continue to sustain his life, and thankfulness is the open door of that need being continually supplied. The first step into the unnatural order of things is to become vain in logic……to decide that the true means of sustaining life lies in ones own ability to reason and understand what is right (good) and what is not right (evil). The mark of a fool is “Because I think it, it is true.” (See study What is Truth?)
Instead of living in the need for God, which is how God designed man to live, vanity means trying to figure it out and solve it on ones own. It’s like trying to lift yourself up by your own bootstraps. It’s the act of a man, drowning in the ocean and being thrown a life preserver, who ignores that life preserver because he’s decided that flying is a much better means of salvation. The result? He drowns.
Sin is not the floundering in the ocean. Sin is ignoring that which provides life, and trying to sustain your own life. This always results in destruction and death. And so the consequence of the first sin, which was rejecting God and taking upon oneself the responsibility of sustaining life, was death.
Genesis 3:4-6 And the serpent said unto the woman, You shall not surely die; For God does know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
Sin is a liar. That which pushes us to try and sustain our own selves by promising better results than what the truth of God can accomplish is always a big fat lie. We’re never better off trying to sustain our lives by our own abilities. Both the initial inward consequence of rejecting the true God as the sustainer of life, and ever since, has always included an awareness of lack and a shamed avoidance of the true Sustainer of life.
Genesis 3:7, 8 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day; and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
To sum up this first part of our study on sin ……. Sin is that which is contrary to the sustainable natural order of things, evidenced in man by destructive moral thinking and behavior and eventually death.
I realize I am leaving you with a distaste in your mouth, for in this study is a description of the problem but not of the solution. So please be sure and finish up this study by reading True Christianity – in a Nutshell. A very short study that should remove that bad taste!
In our next studies we’ll see why God instituted a law that deals with the flesh, though that law could never restore man to sustainability. We’ll see why a man was needed for that restoration. We’ll take a look at the difference between sin and how God deals with sin ….. both then and now. We’ll see what the future holds as far as a life without sin.
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The book, Give Me Christ … Revelations of the Glorified Christ is now available on Amazon.
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Other studies related to sin are:
How God Deals with our Sin
Freedom from Sin’s Domination
Starve the Evil
