What is sin?

This article is about sin, a serious subject we need to understand. There are different types of actions God doesn’t like and they have different sources and consequences and they can get mixed up and confusing, so let’s classify them to understand them better and make sure we don’t treat them all the same way.

 

 

1) There are many things we do that grieve God because it hurts us or others but they are not sin. E.g. when we accidentally make a bad friendship that God knows is going to hurt us. Or when we eat or work with something like saccharin or asbestos, lead, etc, which we don’t know is bad for us. These can’t be called sin but they certainly grieve God because of what it does to us.

 

 

2) In Romans chapter 14 and the first part of 15 Paul takes a chapter and a half to explain that there are differences of beliefs in “disputable matters” (The Greek word supports this definition) where both are acceptable and not sin. It says we must strive to be united in spite of these differences because, as other passages say, our unity is a testimony to the world and glorifies God. So this is an important concept. He mentions only two examples in this chapter, eating meat and observing special days, but the language of the passage flows with these as only being examples of many things. Otherwise it would have said, “these disputable matters”. So I’ll go out on a limb here and say it may also grieve God when we do too many things that aren’t sinful (e.g. games, crafts) but that waste time when we could be using it more effectively. I feel pretty strongly about this and the Bible does tell us to “redeem the time”. There are many verses with this attitude. I’ve even wrote an article citing 90 scriptures that support this concept. So I could be tempted to call this a sin issue. And Romans 14 makes it clear that for me it certainly is. But though the verses like “redeeming the time” are all pretty strong towards a high level of fervency, they are not clear of just how much fun time we can have. The concept is certainly there so if you really don’t do anything for God I’d say that’s a real problem. But Romans 14 tells me I have to leave it to God to make this judgment. All I can do is encourage people with these scriptures that it’s a high level of fervency. I read that there are 45,000 denominations and I may have personally heard of 50 various unique denominational interpretations on disputable issues (eternal security, predestination, tongues, dispensationalism, dominionism, lots on eschatology, replacement theology, etc). And people are always fervent to convince you to join them in their group. So this divisiveness is a problem that Paul predicted in Acts 20:29-30, where people make unique doctrines to pull people away to themselves. But thankfully they still accept each other as Christians. I’ve only heard a few people take what I see as a disputable issue and say it’s an actual sin issue. These are more concerning. And I actually see this issue about fervency for serving God being clearer in the scriptures than the ones I’ve heard. So we need to be careful. Among serious Christians I’ve seen a tendency to remove this category altogether.

 

 

3) These are actual sins as clearly defined by scripture but for a new Christian it may take time to understand the specific applications of them. E.g. initially you may not see anything wrong with watching a movie that blasphemes God’s name because you think it’s just entertainment and you’re not actually doing it. Or you may not understand that clearly immodest clothing is wrong. These are still very serious things to God, and clearly defined in scripture, though the exact application is not as evident so He gives you time to grow in them. Paul specifically addresses this growing process in Philippians 3:12-16. Our conscience is key here. When we understand them to be sin, then that is when we need to stop by God’s help, or we are judged by it. We can’t hide it from God, He knows our conscience. So again, with these the basic principle is clearly defined (modesty, greed, blasphemy etc) but the application isn’t so it takes time for people to understand them.

 

 

3x) I’ll put this one here since we’re talking about the conscience. This is a unique one. In the last half of Romans 14, Paul specifically talks about things that are absolutely not sin but due to a person’s weak faith or sensitive conscience they think something is sin. So when they do it, it “isn’t from faith” and so is actually a sin to them. So we are encouraged not to cause them to fall into that. That’s why I’ve called it “3x”, X for false. The example that is given is someone who’s used to eating meat sacrificed to idols in a sinful ritual, probably that they took part in. So they don’t want to do that anymore. It would be wrong to eat a juicy steak right in front of them and tempt them to as well, because it would actually be sin for them. This all makes perfect sense with the example of a person who has this extra sensitive conscience because of their unique past. It doesn’t really fit with someone who has come to a unique and errant interpretation of scripture that something is sin and who asks others to practice it as well for their sake. For one thing a brother can’t use Romans 14 unless he admits he’s doing something that actually isn’t sin which self-defeats his argument to have others comply because he thinks it’s sin. Then he also has to show how you doing something causes him to sin. It’s not meant to be a way to lead the church, a term called “weaker brother tyranny,” which has been a real problem. The Jewish converts could have easily made this same weaker brother argument with keeping their Old Testament Law. But it’s interesting to see that the Council in Acts 15 correctly made two decisions based on this same Romans 14 principle on only things that entice: to encourage the Gentiles refrain from meat sacrificed to idols and refrain from blood (this may surprise you but some, e.g. in Mexico, actually love the taste of blood). The other decision they passed down was against immorality which is obvious (they must have needed an extra reminder). But for the issues that were regarding the Old Testament Law, it was only on these two things that appeal to the flesh. But they didn’t give into their doctrinal requests of circumcision any other aspect of keeping the Old Testament Law, which didn’t have that entice factor. In fact, throughout the New Testament, Paul fought very hard against the slightest influence of these “weaker brothers” on the Gentile church on those issues. So it seems this category should be reserved for things that actually entice people to do something they think is sin. Interpretation differences over disputable matters (matters not clearly spelled out in the Bible) belong in category 2. 

 

 

4) These are things that God has clearly forbidden with clearly stated eternal punishment for those who do them. There are many things the Bible commands against but there is no stated punishment, so you can see that in some of them there is a growing process before they are understood and affect the conscience, so those would be in category 3. But these in category 4 are more serious, obvious, and clearly defined in scripture – sins so serious they will always hit our conscience, which is what distinguishes these from category 3. Everyone always knows these are wrong. The Bible lists them in a few places (Romans 1:28-32, 1 Corinthians 6:9,10, Galatians 5:19-21, Ephesians 5:5,6) as things that will clearly condemn you, and we know they are wrong: immorality, e.g. lust, hate, slander, theft, greed, coveting, lying, gossip, etc.