What is a sinner?
What the Bible means by "sinner" is not what most people mean by it. The word describes a condition before God, not merely a tally of wrong actions — and everything about how a person hears the gospel depends on which definition he is working with.
Not Simply Someone Who Does Wrong
Ask most people if they are sinners and they will agree cheerfully, because they hear the word as "nobody's perfect." One writer presses that the word carries far more weight than that:
VariousAs a rule, when a person is asked the question: "Are you a sinner?" he replies glibly: "Oh, yes, we are all sinners." But what does he mean by this? Merely that we all sometimes do wrong. This, however, is not at all the meaning of the word sinner, as used in God's word. He whom God calls a sinner is one who is alienated from God, and all whose works are hateful to God, and therefore one upon whom the wrath of God rests.
Sin Is Independence From God
If a sinner is someone characterised by sin, then everything turns on what sin actually is. The definition offered is not a list of crimes but a posture:
W. W. FeredayGod's definition of it — which alone is authoritative — may be found in 1 John 3:4: "Sin is lawlessness." This way of defining it cuts very deep. Every exercise of the human will in independence of God is by this divine statement declared to be sin. It matters not what the act may be, whether it be that which human courts would punish, or whether it be what would pass muster in the eyes of men, every action taken without reference to God is sin. This leaves no loophole for escape to any of us.
That definition reaches people who never had a law to break. William Kelly notes that Scripture reserves a different word for those who did:
William KellyWho then is the sinner but every man as such in his natural state?… What is its true character then? Lawlessness, the principle of self-will and of total independence of God… The moment you bring in such a definition of sin as is here revealed, it applies to everybody whether Jew or Gentile. The Jew had a claim of righteousness, because he was under law; but the consequence if he sinned was the additional guilt of breaking a known law… He was therefore a "transgressor," which the Gentile could not be… Scripture never does so speak, but calls them lawless or sinners.
A Sinner Before Ever Sinning
Sinful acts are the evidence, not the origin. Commentators trace the condition back to Adam, from whom the whole race descends:
L. M. GrantHis posterity have inherited his fallen nature: they are consequently sinners by nature and by practice: they fall under the same sentence of death as Adam.
This is why Scripture separates "sin" from "sins," and why the discovery usually comes in two stages:
Mark BestSins are wilful acts done in defiance of God's sovereign authority. Sins are the corrupt fruit of the corrupt tree of sin… It is not only that we have committed sins, but we have to learn the deeper lesson that we are sinners by nature.
No Big and Little Sinners
Once the root is in view, comparisons between people collapse. A. J. Pollock uses an image anyone can check:
A. J. PollockThere are great sinners and little sinners, as men talk, but all are sinners. If only we knew that one sin in God's holy sight is infinitely worse than ten thousand in ours, we would not draw such distinctions. God says, "For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." One apple upon a tree proves it to be an apple tree, just as much as if it were laden to the ground with fruit.
And this standing is a fact whether or not it is felt: "Every sinner, whether he knows it or not, whether he has been awakened to a sense of it or not, this is his condition — 'guilty before God.'" (Robert F. Kingscote)
Owning the Name
In Jesus' story of two men praying, one man says the word about himself. F. B. Hole shows how much is packed into that scene:
F. B. HoleHis position: "afar off," indicating he knew he had no right to draw near. His attitude: not lifting "his eyes to heaven" — heaven was no place for such a man as he. His action: "beat his breast," thus confessing that he was the man who deserved to be struck. His words: "me, the sinner," for it is the rather than a here. The Pharisee had said, "I am not like other men," striking at other men rather than himself. The tax collector hit the right man, and humbling himself was blessed.
The One Word Grace Is Waiting For
Far from being an insult, "sinner" is the only title the gospel addresses. Darby puts it starkly: "The only ground on which God addresses man in the ministry of reconciliation is that he is a lost sinner." (J. N. Darby) That is why nothing has to be repaired first:
C. H. MackintoshThe very first thing that grace does for the lost sinner is to save him unconditionally, perfectly and eternally. It does not ask him to be anything but what he is. It does not ask him to give anything. It brings him salvation on the ground of his being lost.
Summary
- Root: A sinner is not merely someone who sometimes does wrong; he is someone alienated from God, with a fallen nature inherited from Adam.
- Rule: Sin is lawlessness — every act done in independence of God — so the definition leaves no one out, religious or irreligious.
- Reach: Because the root is the problem, there are no big and little sinners; one apple proves the tree.
- Recognition: Blessing begins when a person stops comparing himself with others and says "me, the sinner."
- Rescue: God speaks to man on the ground that he is a lost sinner, and grace asks him to be nothing but what he already is.