1
What is sin?
The word for sin is hamartia which means “to miss the mark or standards.” 1 John 3:4
says that “Everyone who sins breaks
the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.”
Romans 7:8-10 says that “But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by
the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from
law, sin is dead. 9 Once I
was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and
I died. 10 I found that the
very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.” From
these verses sin can be understood in following way:
a) It is missing
the mark or failure to keep God’s standards.
b) Sin is breaking
the commandments of God/Law of God or disobeying the word of God (1John 3.4;
Romans 7). It is lawlessness. It is overstepping the commandments of God or
standards of the word of God.
c) It is an act
which is forbidden by God. Through the disobedience of the Adam and Eve, sin
entered into the world.
2 Origin of Satan and Sin
God had angels in the heaven. They were supposed to worship God. However, a
prominent angel, commonly known as Lucifer, revolted against God (Isaiah
14.12-15) and God casted him out of the heaven. Through this disobedience, sin
came to exist (cf. 1John 3.8). Several bible scholars also assume that the fall
of the Prince of Tyre (Ezekiel 28) refers to the fall of Lucifer. Jude 6 also
talks about the fallen angels. It is commonly believed that the fallen angels
are the devil. Bible recognizes that Satan is a real force in the world. He is against
God. Satan is referred as “the ruler of this world” in John 12.31 and “god of
this world” in 2Corinthians 4.4.
3 The Fall of Human Beings
God created human with free will. God also gave them a choice to love him
through obeying God. However, they disobeyed God and committed sin. First man
and woman disobeyed God by having the prohibited fruit (Genesis 3). Satan
persuaded and tempted the first woman called Eve to eat the prohibited fruit.
Eve and eventually the first man called Adam were fallen in this Satan’s
temptation and disobeyed God. Like this, sin entered into the world and human
being.
4 Consequences of the sin
a) Death
God informed the human beings the consequence of sin will be death in
Genesis 2.16-17. Bible talks about three kinds of death as consequence of sin:
Firstly, spiritual death which means humans are not able to relate with
true God or not able to know true God. Humans are spiritually dead because of
sin (Ephesians 2.5). It is spiritual blindness. When Adam and Eve committed
sin, they spiritually died. It means they had broken their relationship and
fellowship with God. However, a spiritually dead person can be made alive
through Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2.5).
Secondly, physical death which means literal death of humans. Death entered
to the world through sin (Romans 5.12). The wages of sin is death (Romans
6.23).
Finally, eternal death or second death which means sinner will be judged
and punished. As a punishment, God will put sinners into the hell for eternally
(Revelation 20.14).
b) Separation from God
As it discussed above, sin led humans into spiritual death. Death always
means separation. Human beings are separated from God because of sin. Isaiah 59:2 says that “your iniquities have separated you from
your God.” Thus, sin separates humans from God. It implies that humans have
broken relationship and fellowship with true God because of their sins.
c) Guilt and Shame
When Adam and Eve committed sin, immediately they realized that they were
naked and felt shame (Genesis 3.7). Shame is the result of the sin. Further,
Adam and Eve were not able to appear before God after the sin because of their
guilt (Genesis 3.8-10). The sin of Adam and Eve makes everyone in the world
sinner and guilty before God (Romans 5.18).
d) God’s judgment and punishment
God judges the sinners. Romans 2.12-16 clearly speak about the judgment of all
the sinners. Sinners are the objects of God’s wrath (Romans 1.18; Ephesians 2.3).
The punishment of sin is eternal destruction (2Thessalonians 1.9). God will
judge and throw away all the sinners into the lake of fire (Revelation 20.12-15;
Matthew 25.46).
e) Depravity of Human Character
Though human beings did not lose the image and likeness of God in them
after the fall, that is, after committing sin (Genesis 9.6), it is distorted.
This distortion is the cause of depravity of human character. Romans 3:23 says that
“all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God.” All humans have now sinful character. All are
sinners (Romans 5.12). Paul discusses some of the features of this human
depravity in Roman as follows:
a) Romans 1.18-20: Humans are filled with wickedness and godlessness which
lead them to deny God whose invisible eternal qualities are manifested to them
through the nature.
b) Romans 1.21-26: Even though the revelation of true God is plain to human
being, they exchanged the glory of immortal God for images of mortal being such
as man, reptiles and animals. They understood created beings such as humans,
animals and other creatures are the God. They worship them as God in their
foolishness.
c) Romans 1.28-32: Human mind is depraved and darkened. They lost power
over sin. They filled with wicked things. Romans 1:29-31 says that
“They have become filled
with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of
envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters,
insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey
their parents; 31 they are
senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.”
d)
Romans 7.21-25: Though humans can discern what is good and evil, they struggle
to take control over sin and evil because of sinful character or nature in
them. They always fail with sin without help God. Humans are slave to sin. They
are prisoners of law of sin. This is helplessness of humanity before sin.
f) Depravity of Nature
The human sin really destroyed the harmony of the entire creation. Sin
brought enmity into the creation (Genesis 3.15). Sin brought curse to the
creation (Genesis 3.17-18). The entire creation was subjected to frustration
and decay (Romans 8.20). This depravity of the harmony in the web of
relationship in the entire nature or creation made necessity of redemption of
the creation (Romans 8.22).
Questions
1. What is sin?
2. The
disobedience and rebellion of the angel is the origin of the ……………..
3. Fallen angels
are known as ………………………….
4. Sin came to the
world through the disobedience of Adam and Eve by having …………………….fruit.
5. What are the
consequences of sin?