What is sin?
Ask what sin is and most people reach for a list of bad deeds, but Scripture answers with a definition that goes underneath behaviour altogether. The word John uses gathers up far more than crime or rule-breaking — and getting it right changes how we read the whole Bible.
Lawlessness, Not Merely Law-Breaking
Commentators repeatedly note that older English versions blurred John's definition by rendering one Greek word as a phrase about the law:
F. B. Hole1 John 3:4 answers this point, but unfortunately it is one of the verses where our excellent Authorized Version leads us astray. The one Greek word translated by the phrase "transgression of the law" really means "lawlessness," and is so translated in other Versions.
The difference is not academic. A wrong definition shrinks what counts as sin and misplaces who is guilty:
William KellySin is not at all limited to crime, or to glaring evil... Millions have taken their notion of sin from this, and have been misled into the great error, on the one hand, of ignoring a vast amount of real sin, and on the other of arguing that all men must be under the law, since it is certain that all sinned... the true meaning of the apostle's statement is that "sin is lawlessness," the far wider and subtler evil of doing one's own will without the check of divinely imposed authority.
Self-Will at the Root
If sin is lawlessness, then its centre is the will. One writer traces the chain from that unsubject spirit down to the appetites it produces:
Numerical Bible Notes"Lawlessness" is the unsubject spirit of self-will, which in the creature away from God shows itself as want, in cravings that find no satisfaction and so rule the man... This is the misery of the creature out of the creature's place, of independence on the part of one who is necessarily dependent.
Applied personally, this makes sin measurable by something other than scandal — and it sets the perfect contrast in Christ:
Robert F. KingscoteIt is lawlessness to set up our own will in opposition to God. That is why I said that if any one of us had a will independent of God's will, that in itself is sin... The Lord Jesus could say, "I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me."
Where It Entered
The account of the fall is often dismissed as a fuss over fruit. Read through John's definition, the size of the object is beside the point:
F. B. HoleThere was no shortage or want urging them to this disobedience. They were not hungry. It was pure defiance of God's command — just that lawlessness which is sin, according to the correct translation of 1 John 3:4.
Sin and Sins: Root and Fruit
Scripture uses two related words, and confusing them leaves people fighting the wrong battle. Writers commonly distinguish the principle from the actions it produces:
F. B. Hole"Sin" is that which gained entrance into the world at the fall of Adam. Just as the poison of a snake, once injected into a man's body, runs through his whole system doing its deadly work, so sin — the venom of that old serpent the devil — has spread through man's moral being to his ruin. The result is that "all have sinned."... "Sin," then, is the root principle, "sins" the shameful fruits that spring from it.
The two are not handled by God in the same way:
A. J. PollockWe start by being concerned about our sins — that is the FRUIT of the evil nature. But if the fruit is bad, the tree is bad... Sins are atoned for. The sinful nature is condemned... Sins can be and are forgiven. The sinful nature cannot be forgiven; it is CONDEMNED and set aside.
How Far the Word Reaches
Sin is not reserved for the dramatic. It covers the ordinary wrongs we prefer to rename:
The Bible TreasuryNow in the sight of God "all unrighteousness is sin"... Every unrighteousness toward God or man is sin. We admit to failures, inconsistencies, slips and mistakes; but to drop these softer words and put "sin" in their place would sharpen the moral sense.
It also reaches what we leave undone — Hole draws the point from James: "If we know the good and yet omit it, it is sin" (F. B. Hole).
What God Has Done About It
The answer to sin matches the size of the problem — not just the acts, but the whole disorder:
F. B. HoleLet us note that phrase, "to put away sin." How comprehensive it is! The expiation of our sins is of course included, but it is not limited to that... Sin, the root, and all the sins that are the fruit; sin as it has affected man and the earth, and sin as it has affected the heavens; sin in its totality — all put away by His sacrifice. And His sacrifice was the sacrifice of Himself!
Summary
- Definition — Sin is lawlessness: doing one's own will without the check of God's authority, a far wider and subtler evil than breaking a written command.
- Root — That self-will is the principle that entered at the fall; it belongs to the creature who refuses the creature's place of dependence.
- Fruit — "Sins" are the actions the root produces; sins are forgiven, while the nature behind them is condemned rather than pardoned.
- Reach — Every unrighteousness toward God or man is sin, including known good left undone; softer words for it dull the conscience.
- Remedy — Christ appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself — root and fruit, in its totality.