What is evil according to the Bible?

But what is wickedness? we may well inquire. The word for "wicked" in Greek is "poneros" and signifies the active exercise of corrupt and unruly desires, not just a single act, but a positive injurious activity of evil, a living in sin. Generally speaking, a wicked person is one who is morally bad and evil in principle and practice. He is characterized by either violence or corruption as in the days of Noah (see Gen. 6:5, 11-13) and is full of bitterness and enmity and viciously bent on doing harm or evil. Wickedness is more a course of conduct than a single act of wrong. It is evidenced by a persistent course of evil in which the will is actively engaged.

Disobedience to God, i.e. sin, has brought sorrow into the world, and sin perpetuates it. "Sin is lawlessness" (anomia), the principle of self-will and independence in the creature, — insubjection to God; and this too often is carried to such an extent as to lead even to the rejection of all religion, whether natural or revealed.

In its fruits, however multiform, evil is, in its essential principle, absolutely one. The creature leaving the creature place — setting itself up in independence of God: — this is its character at bottom ever. Thus the light is darkened with us, and the terrible slavery to a depraved will results. We need not, therefore, be at a loss as to what Chushan-rishathaim represents. The first step on the downward path to ruin is always the same.

But evil never came from God — only from the creature once innocent, now fallen, that kept not his first estate, but chose to do his own will and have his own way. An angel did this first. Man was misled by him who, straying and exalting himself, beguiled others both in heaven and on earth. That creature is called Satan — the Devil. All efforts to get rid of this fact have proved utterly vain, so much so that the boasted lights of antiquity fell consequently into one or other of these notions: either that God is everything, which denies sin; or, secondly, that there is no such being as God at all; while both cases led to worshipping ever so many false gods. Witness now the two greatest philosophers of Greece who have exercised perhaps the largest and most enduring influence over civilised men outside the Bible — the one the head of Pantheism, the other of Atheism. There is what man's thought ends in when it is logically carried out. Man in his fallen estate may reason God away; yet he excludes God, not from his conscience, but in his reason; for at the bottom of the man's heart who does so there is the uneasy feeling that what he sees around him did not grow like a potato — least of all, he himself and his fellows. He feels that, though fallen, he is a moral being who will have to give an account of his action; and to whom but to God — the One who made him and all things?

349 In verse 13, the apostle goes on to describe the effect of the law on the experience of the soul who thus desires what is good. In the previous verse it is recognised that the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. The question now naturally arises, "Was then that which is good made death unto me?" In nowise. But sin worked death by that which is good (the law) in order that sin might be fully manifested, might assume its true character, and become exceeding sinful, in that it has made use of what is good to bring about death. The evil does not manifest itself only as evil in itself, but also as disobedience, because it is forbidden, and thus through the prohibition becomes exceeding sinful. Sin in man has a strong will; in that he wills to do what is evil, even when God has forbidden it. If my child runs out to amuse himself instead of doing his tasks, it is a bad habit; but if I forbid him to run out, and he still goes on with the bad habit, it is disobedience besides. By the commandment sin has become exceeding sinful. It shews that in me not only were there evil lusts, but that self-will which commits the evil, in spite of God's prohibition, is also there; God and His word are despised.

There are two forms in which sin, or the activity of man's will, manifests itself — violence and corruption. This was seen at the time of the deluge. The earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. Satan is a liar and murderer. In man, corrupt lusts are even a more abundant source of evil.

The principle is clear. Man has always sinned in one or other of these two ways, looking now at evil in its broadest forms. The "strange woman" figures corruption, human nature indulging itself in its own selfish desires, irrespective of God's will. The Beast is the expression of man's will raising itself up in direct antagonism to God. In short one may be described as corruption, and the other as violence; for we see both before the deluge (Gen. 6:11-12), and they go down to the close. More than this on the subject is given with great precision in scripture, because it is just the principle of sin in one or other form from the beginning.

How incisive is verse 5! Man's wickedness became great, or abundant, for he was wholly evil in the deepest springs of his being. His heart was evil; the thoughts of his heart were evil, and the imagination, which lay behind and prompted his thoughts, was evil. And all this was only evil — not one trace of good — and that continually. Thus before the flood we have exactly the same verdict as to man as is presented to us in Romans 3:10-18, by quotations extracted from scriptures, which describe the condition of men after the flood.

In reply to the questions put to Him in the house, the Lord declared to his disciples (1) what was the root, and (2) what were the fruits of evil in men. The root was the evil thought of the heart, and the fruits were the specific acts of wickednesses some of which He named. In the evil thought therefore the evil deed is contained in embryo. Jesus said to them, "From within out of the heart of men evil thoughts proceed… .;" then He enumerated a list of some of the vile deeds which spring from man's inner motives, adding, "all these evil things proceed from within, and defile the man."

Evil thoughts. These are the inward reasonings and debates of man's mind. Within himself he deliberates, he calculates, he plans his schemes of sinful indulgence or wilful rebellion. "Things come into his mind, and he devises an evil device" (Ezek. 38:10; Micah 2:1-2). Thus, in describing the appalling moral degradation of the human race, the apostle traces it to this inward source: "knowing God they glorified him not as God, neither gave thanks; but became vain in their reasonings [thoughts] and their senseless heart was darkened" (Rom. 1:21). Hidden within the heart, it is one of man's strange delusions that his thoughts are thereby concealed from Omniscience, yet it is written, "The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise that they are vain" (1 Cor. 3:20; Ps. 94:51). The incarnate Son possessed and displayed this omniscience; indeed, according to the word of Simeon to Mary, one of the purposes of His mission was that "the thoughts of many hearts might be revealed" (Luke 2:35).

121 As to the disciples, the Lord's answer goes much farther, while at the same time it makes evident the apostle's want of intelligence; in effect, the principle is evident. But what a picture of the heart of man followed, thanks be to God, by that of the heart of God and of His ways in grace! That which went out of the heart defiled the man. All is simple. But what is it that went out from it? Evil thoughts, murders, then a terrible list of those dark productions of a depraved and corrupt heart. But cannot the Lord relieve a little this gloomy picture by touches of light which are found in these hearts! He finds none. Thus characterised, He leaves the heart of man. He was not wanting in goodness, He knew the heart - knew everything about man; but beyond that list He is silent. It is not saying that there are not amiable features in the natural heart (that may be so even in animals), but morally this is what comes out of the heart, the fruits of the root of the sin which is there, restrained, kept in, modified, yet the fruit that man's heart produces wherever he is permitted to follow his inclinations.