What is sin?
Sin Is Lawlessness
The scriptural definition of sin is found in 1 John 3:4 — and it is widely misunderstood. The Authorised Version renders the verse "sin is the transgression of the law," but this is a mistranslation. The Greek word is anomia (lawlessness), not a phrase about breaking the Mosaic law.
F. B. Hole draws the distinction plainly:
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 verse, then, should run thus, "Whosoever commits sin practises lawlessness; for sin is lawlessness."
He explains the immense difference this makes:
There is an immense difference between these two things. "Transgression of the law" is, indeed, the breaking of a clear-cut commandment. There can be no transgression of the law where there is no law to transgress. There was no law in the world from Adam until the days of Moses, hence there was no transgression and sin was not imputed; yet sin was there in awful malignancy, and death its penalty was there. This is just the argument of Romans 5:13-14.
So what, then, is lawlessness?
What, then, is lawlessness? It is simply the refusal of all rule, the throwing off of all divine restraint. The assertion of man's will in defiance of God's. Sin is just that. Such was the course to which Adam committed himself in eating the forbidden fruit. How bitter the results!
Self-Will: The Essence of Sin
W. Kelly, in his exposition of 1 John, presses the same point with great force:
W. KellyWho then is the sinner but every man as such in his natural state? Was not this your life and mine before we learned Christ? God was unknown to our souls except in a certain dread of Him — a fear that He would cast us into hell some day. If God was not in our thoughts, sin was. What is its true character then? Lawlessness, the principle of self-will and of total independence of God. Man finds it not so easy now to be independent of his fellow; he has no difficulty in being thoroughly indifferent to God. How mad, wicked, awful a state! God is in none of his thoughts; this is sin.
He further expands:
It is self-will, whether ignorant, or regardless, of God's will. ... It is leaving God altogether out of the case, and a man just doing what he pleases and because he likes it.
The Root and the Fruit: "Sin" vs. "Sins"
A vital distinction runs through Scripture between "sin" (the root principle) and "sins" (the fruits it produces). F. B. Hole makes this vivid:
"Sin" is that which at the fall of Adam gained an entrance into the world. Just as the poison of a snake, once injected into a man's body, will run through his whole system doing its deadly work, so sin — the virus of that old serpent the devil — has permeated man's moral being to his ruin. The result of this is "all have sinned." "Sins," of thought, word, or act, whether of omission or commission, are chargeable to each of us.
"Sin," then, is the root principle, "sins" the shameful fruits that spring therefrom.
He offers a striking analogy:
Sin is something like the subtle and indefinable electric fluid making its influence felt in every direction.
The flesh is like the wire, the seat of the electricity, and the vehicle through which it acts.
Sins are like the shocks dealt out in every direction, resulting in death.
Morrish's Bible Dictionary confirms this and traces sin to its origin:
Morrish's Bible DictionarySin did not originate in man, but with the devil. 1 John 3:8. It came into the world by man, and brought in death as its penalty.
The 'sins' of a man are what he actually commits, and are the ground of judgement, while also proving the man to be the servant of sin. ... 'Sin' as to the principle, involving the alienation of all things from God since the fall of man, and especially seen in man's evil nature, has been judicially removed from before God in the cross of Christ.
Christ: The Perfect Contrast
Hamilton Smith, commenting on 1 John 3, holds up Christ as the One in whom there was no trace of this principle:
Hamilton SmithBecoming flesh, He was entirely subject to the will of the Father. Coming into the world, He could say, "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God" (Hebrews 10:9). Passing through the world He could say, "I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which has sent Me" (John 5:30). Going out of the world, He could say, "Not My will, but Thine, be done" (Luke 22:42). ... In Him, then, there was no sin, or principle of lawlessness.
And he draws out the wider consequence — what happens when man becomes his own centre:
Fallen man is under death, marked by lawlessness, hatred and violence. The lawless man is always self-centred, seeking only to gratify himself by doing his own will, apart from all restraint. This, of necessity, leads to the hatred of every one that thwarts his will; and hatred leads to violent acts, expressed in an extreme form by murder.
Thus all the misery of the world can be traced to the solemn fact that man became a centre to himself, independent of God, or "lawless".
God's Remedy
Sins — the acts — are dealt with by forgiveness through the blood of Christ. But sin — the root principle — is dealt with by death and condemnation. F. B. Hole explains:
He died FOR our sins, atoning for them; He died TO sin, and therefore taught by the Spirit we recognize that we are identified with our great Representative, and faith appropriates His death as ours. We, too, then, are "dead to sin," and cannot any longer consistently live in it.
God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and by a sacrifice for sin condemned sin in the flesh. At the Cross SIN, in its full hideousness, stood revealed, for lawlessness reached its flood-tide height then; and in that holy sacrifice its judgment was borne, and its condemnation expressed.
Remarkably, Scripture never speaks of the forgiveness of sin as a root principle — only of its condemnation:
Forgiveness of sins is found continually in the Bible, forgiveness of a sin, too, forgiveness of sin, the root principle, Never! ... God ... condemned sin in the flesh. He did not condone nor forgive it.
J. N. Darby adds the experimental side — the believer comes to know deliverance not merely by doctrine, but by discovering his own utter inability:
J. N. DarbyWhen I discover what I am; it is not only knowledge, but an experience which I make of myself. I have indeed the will to do good: but I find that I am incapable of doing it.
When we are justified, we hate evil; that is exactly holiness. Holiness makes me say, That is an evil thing, detestable!
Sin, then, in its deepest scriptural definition, is not merely the breaking of rules. It is lawlessness — the assertion of self-will in independence from God. It is the creature refusing the Creator's authority and becoming a centre to itself. This principle entered the world through Adam's disobedience, and from this poisoned root spring all the individual "sins" that mark every human life. The law of Moses exposed sin's character as transgression, but sin existed long before the law and is far wider than any code. Its essence is self-will — doing what one pleases, regardless of God. And Christ is the perfect opposite: the One who, from the manger to the cross, could say, "Not My will, but Thine, be done."
God's remedy matches the disease. Christ died for our sins, bearing their judgment, so that they are forgiven; He also died to sin, and God condemned sin in the flesh at the cross. The believer, identified with Christ in His death, is reckoned dead to sin's power and alive to God — not by self-effort, but by faith in the One who accomplished it all.