What Is This Thing Called Sin?

There’s a story about a jet which was traveling from Chicago to Los Angeles. As the gigantic plane leveled out at forty thousand feet, the passengers heard a voice over the loudspeaker.

This is a recording. You have the privilege of being the first to fly in a wholly electronic jet. This plane took off electronically. It is now flying at forty thousand feet electronically. It will land in Los Angeles electronically.

This plane has no pilot, no copilot, no flight engineer. But don’t worry. Nothing can go wrong . . . go wrong . . . go wrong . . . go wrong . . . go wrong.

Something has gone wrong with our jet age. It’s supposed to be scientifically sophisticated and morally liberated. But it isn’t. What’s gone wrong?

In every major city in America and Europe crime is up. The crime wave has hit the world with hurricane force. A news magazine reported that in the United States “in the past 14 years, the rate of robberies has increased 255%, forcible rape 143%, aggravated assault 153% and murder 106%.”

Statistics are cold until they happen to you. I was told that at a fine private university in a small town in the West the girls don’t go out of their rooms at night for fear of mugging or rape. The father who told me this said he had sent his daughter there to get her away from the dangerous areas of the large cities. This was worse.

There is no longer a safety zone in any city. A woman may be pistol-whipped while parking her car in an underground structure, or a man beaten on his way out of his office. Criminals have no respect for age, with older citizens living in many areas in a nightmare of fear. In New York City, police charged a gang of six teenagers—one of whom was thirteen—with murdering three elderly and penniless men by asphyxiation. One man died with his prayer shawl stuffed into his mouth.

Man is a contradiction. On one side is hatred, depravity, and sin; on the other side is kindness, compassion, and love. Man is a helpless sinner on one hand and has capacities which would relate him to God on the other. No wonder Paul spoke of man’s disease as “the mystery of iniquity.”

Some people don’t like the word sin. They believe this is for the other person, not them. But everyone recognizes that the human race is sick and that whatever the disease is, it has affected all of life.

What is this thing called sin? The Westminster Confession defines it as “any want of conformity to or transgression of the law of God.” Sin is anything contrary to the will of God.

The Beginning of Sinning

Where did sin begin and why did God allow it? The Bible hints at the answer to this riddle when it teaches that sin did not originate with man, but with the angel whom we know as Satan. This was no ordinary angel, but the most magnificent of creatures!

The prophet Ezekiel describes this noble being this way: “‘You were the anointed cherub who covers, and I placed you there. You were on the holy mountain of God. . . . You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created until unrighteousness was found in you’” (Ezek. 28:14, 15, emphasis mine). Here is a glimpse of where it started. In some unknown past, sin was found in the heart of this magnificent creature of heaven.

The prophet Isaiah gives us another hint of the origin of evil: “‘How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning [Lucifer], son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, you who have weakened the nations! But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol, to the recesses of the pit” (Isa. 14:12-15, emphasis mine).

There’s the picture. Lucifer’s sin was that of the five “I wills.” He fell and became Satan because of his undue ambition. He wanted to be like God! He wanted to be equal to God. This was conceit in its strongest form. The New Testament gives us a glimpse of the sin of pride or conceit when it speaks of a person who might “become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil” (1 Tim. 3:6).

From Satan to Sinners

Sin began with the revolt of Lucifer and continued with man’s revolt against God. In place of “living for God,” sin substitutes “living for self.”

The Bible makes it quite clear how sin entered the human race. In that luscious garden of Eden there were many trees. One tree symbolized the knowledge of good and evil, and God in His wisdom said, “You shall not eat.” Adam and Eve with one or two bites violated what they knew to be God’s will (see Rom. 5:12-19; Gen. 3:1-8; 1 Tim. 2:13-14).

God could have created us as human robots who would respond mechanically to His direction. Obviously this would be a response over which man had no control. But instead, God created us in His image, and He desires that the creature worship the Creator as a response of love. This can be accomplished when “free will” is exercised. Love and obedience which are compelled do not satisfy. God wanted sons, not machines.

A pastor friend who was having dinner with us one evening told us about his son who was attending a state university and becoming “very wise.” “Dad,” he said to his father one day, “I’m not sure that when I get out of school I will be able to follow you in your simple Christian faith.” Our friend looked his son in the eyes and replied, “Son, that is your freedom—your terrible freedom.”

And that is what God gave Adam and Eve—and what He gives us—our freedom to choose. Our “terrible freedom.” God gave humankind the gift of freedom. Our first parents had the choice: whether to love God or rebel and build their world without Him. The tree of knowledge of good and evil was their test—and they flunked.

Sin Is Rebellion

Why did Adam and Eve, with all of Paradise to enjoy, choose to rebel? The cause of rebellion was “the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life” (1 John 2:16). And this is the type of lust to which Eve submitted. “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate” (Gen. 3:6).

Centuries later, Christ faced the same three temptations in the wilderness. He overcame all of them and thereby showed us that it is possible to resist temptations of Satan (Matt. 4:1-11).

The Ten Commandments tell us not to covet or lust. However, all moral law is more than a test; it’s for our own good. Every law which God has given has been for our benefit. If a person breaks it, he is not only rebelling against God, he is hurting himself. God gave “the law” because He loves man. It is for man’s benefit. God’s commandments were given to protect and promote man’s happiness, not to restrict it. God wants the best for man. To ask God to revise His commandments would be to ask Him to stop loving man.

Children usually accuse their parents of “not understanding” and being too strict. When a father says to his teenager, “Be in at eleven o’clock, and let me know exactly where you are going to be,” he is protecting his child, not punishing him. God is a loving father.

When Adam and Eve broke God’s commandment, they died spiritually and faced eternal death. The consequences of that act were immediate and fearful. Sin became and is the stubborn fact of life.

In our universe we live under God’s law. In the physical realm, the planets move in split-second precision. There is no guesswork in the galaxies. We see in nature that everything is part of a plan which is harmonious, orderly, and obedient. Could a God who made the physical universe be any less exacting in the higher spiritual and moral order? God loves us with an infinite love, but He cannot and will not approve of disorder. Consequently, He has laid down spiritual laws which, if obeyed, bring harmony and fulfillment, but, if disobeyed, bring discord and disorder.

What were the results of Adam and Eve’s sin? When both Satan and Adam challenged God’s law, they did not break it; they broke themselves upon it. The life of beauty, freedom, and fellowship that Adam had known was gone; his sin resulted in a living death. Nature became cursed and the poison of sin infected the entire human family. The whole of creation was thrown into disharmony and the earth was now a planet in rebellion!

Missing the Target

One of the translations of the term sin in the New Testament means “a missing of the target.” Sin is failure to live up to God’s standards. All of us miss the target; there is not one person who is capable of fulfilling all of God’s laws at all times.

For some people, even the standards of the world seem unattainable. One of the most intense and exciting spectacles we ever view is the World Olympics. Athletes who have trained for years, disciplining their minds and bodies to attain greater and greater goals, often fall short of their target. One of the finest figure skaters said she was particularly afraid that a fall would ruin her performance. She said, “Think how much time I’ve put into this, and how much other people have to help me. With one mistake, it could all go down the drain.”²

In our spiritual lives we are constantly falling. There is no way we can turn in a perfect performance. King David said, “They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one” (Ps. 14:3).

The prophet Isaiah confessed, “All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way” (Isa. 53:6).

We have all been touched by the sin of Adam. David said, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Ps. 51:5). This doesn’t mean that he was born out of wedlock, but that he inherited the tendency to sin from his parents.

Why do we have to be punished for what Adam did? Think about it. Would you have done any better than Adam? I know I wouldn’t have.

We are all sinners by choice. When we reach the age of accountability and face the choice between good and evil, we will slip. We may choose to get angry, to lie, or to act selfishly. We will gossip or slander someone’s character. None of us can really trust his heart, any more than we can trust a lion. In an animal preserve in East Africa the lions are allowed to roam around as if they were in their native habitat. People drive their cars or jeeps through the area, watching the lions, but are warned not to get near them. One woman rolled down her car window to get a better look, and without warning a lion charged, critically mauling her. That lion looked so tame, acted so docile, and yet became ferocious in one frightening instant.

The Bible applies this principle like this: “Sin is crouching at the door” (Gen. 4:7). Most of us are capable of almost anything, given the right circumstances. David was a classic example. Under circumstances of fleshy desire he took a woman who belonged to another man, then saw to it that her husband was murdered by putting him in the front line of battle.

You may be saying, “You make everyone out to be so rotten, and that isn’t really true.” Of course it isn’t. A person may be a very moral individual and yet lack the love for God which is the fundamental requirement of the law.

Because we fail to meet God’s requirements, we are guilty and under condemnation. Being guilty means that we deserve punishment. The very holiness of God reacts against sin: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men . . .” (Rom. 1:18).

Guilty of What?

The Bible says that sin is falling short of the glory of God. Many people are unaware of the nature of the target, so they can’t understand why they are told that they are missing it. Let’s imagine that someone puts a blindfold around your eyes and ties it so tight that you are completely in the dark. Then you are told there is a dartboard across the room and you are to hit it with a dart. You throw in exactly the direction you are told, but when the blindfold is removed you find that your dart is stuck in a lampshade, three feet from the target. You aimed in the right direction, but you missed.

This is where the world is today, missing the target. It’s what Solomon meant when he said, “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Prov. 14:12).

When God begins to open our blindfolds so that a small amount of light begins to seep through, we may begin to see an outline, at least, of the target. We can see, for instance, how God was beginning to reveal a general sense of direction to a girl who wrote me: “I’m not in any serious trouble or anything, but I do need the help of Jesus Christ. This is my first attempt to reach out to Him. I’m seventeen, and seriously want to consider myself a Christian. I’m reaching out . . . please don’t disappoint me.”

Her letter shows that she senses “something” is wrong with her present life. Just what is wrong in her life and right in Christ’s life she isn’t yet able to say, but her life without Christ carries a kind of odor of death to it, and she wants to replace it by the fragrance of Christ. When she says she isn’t in any “serious trouble,” she means that she hasn’t been arrested, or shamed before the community. But she has an uneasiness in her heart.

To help us see that something is terribly wrong in our lives and that death—spiritual death—will result, God gives us “the law,” that is, a set of standards to sharpen our moral judgment so that we can recognize sin. The Ten Commandments form the backbone of the law. They are a giant x-ray machine to reveal the bone structure of our sinfulness. The first four x-ray plates concern our direct relationship to God. The last six concern our relationships with others.

Reading the X-Rays

“You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exod. 20:3). Another god is not necessarily a brass Buddha or a carved totem pole. Whatever captures our highest interest is our god. Sports can be a god—or work, or money. Sex may be a god to some, while travel may be a god to another. But our highest interest should be God. He alone is worthy of our worship. Jesus said that the greatest commandment was to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. If we were able to do this, we would be demonstrating that we have no other god except the Lord.

“You shall not make for yourself an idol” (Exod. 20:4). The first commandment dealt with whom we worship. This one concerns how. We are told to worship sincerely, with a heart for God. “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7). When we sit in a church, full of piety, but ignoring God, we make an idol of the church building.

“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain” (Exod. 20:7). This does not just apply to swearing, but even using the name for deity, such as God or Lord, without thinking of God Himself. If we vaguely mouth the words of a hymn, or call ourselves Christians without knowing Christ personally, we take the name of God in vain.

There is a story of Alexander the Great who met a disreputable character whose name was also Alexander. Alexander the Great said, “Either change your way of life or change your name.”

“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exod. 20:8). A day in seven set apart for special worship and rest is called for in Scripture. Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). This means that we need that special day. God in His wisdom tells us that our bodies need it for rest, just as our spirits need it for worship. The practice of turning weekends into long periods of leisure and entertainment to the exclusion of worship means that we lose the advantage of both leisure and worship.

We know that a nation or an individual that works seven days a week suffers physically, psychologically, and spiritually. All machinery needs occasional rest.

“Honor your father and your mother” (Exod. 20:12). This passage sets no age limit on such honor. In addition, it does not say they must be honorable to be honored. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we must “obey” parents who may be dishonorable. Not only while we are children, but as long as our parents live, we must honor them if we are to obey God. Honor has many shapes: affection, humor, financial aid, respect. And yet harsh words are often heard in the home more than anywhere else. We say things to our parents that we would never say to our friends at work or in church.

“You shall not murder” (Exod. 20:13). In the older translation of this command the word kill was used, but the original Hebrew properly refers to murder. The outward act of murder is the final act of many emotions. Behind it are the attitudes of irritation, envy, and hatred. Jesus said, “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder, and whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell” (Matt. 5:21-22).

Is anyone able to say that he has never been angry with someone else? We all stand condemned before such a law, even if we have never forcefully taken someone’s life.

“You shall not commit adultery” (Exod. 20:14). One scholar said: “One of the extraordinary things is that in the non-Christian religions time and time again immorality and obscenity flourish under the very protection of religion. It has often been said and said truly that chastity was the one completely new virtue which Christianity brought into this world.”³ Although that may be true, this commandment goes beyond chastity. It involves more than dishonoring a wife or husband by having sexual relations with others; it deals with the mentality which is occupied with sex. It means even looking at a man or woman with an attitude of desire or lust. To God, purity is first a matter of the heart, then of action.

Put in those terms you might say, “That’s ridiculous. No one can live up to that commandment.” And you would be right.

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Exod. 20:16). We think of a witness as one being in court. If we were to lie on a stand and say, “But, your honor, my dog was provoked into biting my neighbor. He started to hit my animal with a large stick and so he attacked in self-defense,” when, in fact, your dog had taken a chunk out of your neighbor’s leg without provocation, then you would be bearing false witness.

But what if you gossip in a “harmless” way? The commandment is just as shattered!

“You shall not covet” (Exod. 20:17). When we take something that belongs to another, that’s stealing. It is an act. Coveting is an attitude. When we desire something that belongs to someone else, that’s coveting. How many marriages have ended in divorce because a man replaced thoughts about his own wife with thoughts about the desirability of his neighbor’s wife? We are told not to covet anything, and that means our neighbor’s new house, his car, his TV set, or the camper in his driveway.

Results of the X-Rays

Can anyone read the Ten Commandments with insight and not feel condemned by them? They reveal our hearts. The apostle James made the comment that even one commandment broken would be enough to destroy us. If we are suspended over a pit by a chain of ten links, how many links have to break for us to fall into the pit? “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all” (James 2:10).

The Bible and our consciences tell us that we have seriously missed the target and are sinners. What does a holy God do? How does God deal with our sin?

We see a glimpse of this in the words of a young man who became painfully aware of the commandment, “You shall not steal.” He said, “My life was not a rosy one. Before I was thirteen years old I was a thief in heart, word, and action. I had been arrested many times. I spent time in a boy’s reformatory and less than a week after I left I was stealing again.” He said that his family gave up on him and thought that his future was destroyed. One night he heard the gospel on television, found a Bible, and started to read it. As a result he asked Christ to forgive him for his past. He is now looking to Christ to build a new foundation and give him a new future.

How can God forgive us? What happens if sin becomes a pattern in our lives? What if we are really caught up in the sin syndrome? Is there any hope?

If there weren’t any hope I wouldn’t be writing this book! If there weren’t any answers, you probably wouldn’t be reading!