2. What is sin, and why does it matter?

From start to finish, the subject matter of the Bible is SALVATION.

If we fail to understand salvation, we will never understand the Bible; and we will never understand salvation if we fail to understand what it is that we need to be saved from.

The angel, or the heavenly messenger, of the Lord made it clear to Joseph that the sole purpose of the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the Son of God, was to SAVE His people from their SINS.

This is confirmed by Jesus Himself:

The apostle Paul adds the following comment:

Then sin must be a big deal, and sinners must be in big trouble, if the whole purpose of Jesus’s mission was to save those sinners from that sin.

What Is Sin?

So, what is sin anyway, and why is it such a serious problem?

I am a ‘baby-boomer’, born in the early 1950s in Northern Ireland. In the culture in which I grew up, everybody knew what sin was, and everybody knew that we were all sinners in the sight of God. But the word ‘sin’ is rarely heard in conversation these days. It’s a concept which has fallen out of vogue.

In our liberal-secular-humanist culture, where we all consider ourselves to be reasonable, decent, and basically good people who sometimes make the odd mistake but never do anything really bad, and are more concerned about our human rights being violated than we are about observing any overarching principles of righteousness or holiness, the idea that we might in any way be ‘sinful’ would, for most people, be incomprehensible, or even offensive.

However, perhaps if you play football or some other sport, you may have been consigned to the sin-bin for a while because of some infraction or misdemeanour!

Here is a dictionary definition of the word:

• Sin (noun): a crime, offence, misdemeanour; any action or behaviour that people disapprove of or consider morally wrong.
• To Sin (verb): to transgress, offend, lapse.
• Sinner (noun): wrongdoer, offender, evildoer.

“OK”, I can hear you saying to yourself, “we all get it wrong from time to time, say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, but – hey – that’s life! nobody’s perfect; what’s the big deal? Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and move on with life.”

From your perspective as an imperfect human being, that sounds perfectly reasonable. But we need to look at this from God’s perspective as a holy, pure, and perfectly righteous creator, redeemer, judge, and father.

Let’s begin by considering a conversation which Jesus had with a teacher of the law:

In short, God is looking for people who are motivated and driven by a heart of LOVE – firstly, a love for God Himself, and secondly, a love for other people.

In the 1960s, the hippy movement was all about peace and love. “I love everybody, man!”

Really?

‘Love’ is probably the most over-used word in the English language. We ‘love’ lots of things - we love ice cream and chocolate; we love football; we love sun-bathing on a beach in Spain; we love our boyfriends or girlfriends; we love our husbands or wives; we love our children; and, of course, we all love William Shakespeare and Seamus Heaney.

The Greek verb translated as ‘love’ in the passage quoted above is pronounced ‘a-ga-pey-o’, and it has the underlying sense of desiring the best for the other person. In other words, this is a selfless love, where your concern is for the well-being of the other person, and you are motivated to do whatever you can to provide them with what they need.

In the parallel passage in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 10:25-37), Jesus goes on to answer the question, “who is my neighbour?” by telling the parable of the Good Samaritan.

In this story, a Samaritan traveller finds a Jewish man, beaten and robbed, lying on the roadside. Although Samaritans and Jews were sworn enemies, this man takes care of the victim as best he can and puts him up in an inn at his own expense, asking the inn-keeper to look after him, and promising to pay any extra expenses on his return journey.

The Good Samaritan’s motivation is totally benevolent. He is looking for nothing in return – not even gratitude. This is the meaning of that Greek word ‘a-ga-pey-o’.

This is the ‘love’ that God wants us all to live by.

Consider the following passages of scripture:

The Love Thermometer

Let’s imagine for a moment that we have an instrument like a thermometer that can measure love.

At the top of the scale we have 100 degrees – boiling point. This is the perfect love of God that Jesus spoke about and the apostles wrote about. This is true selflessness, where the only concern in your heart is the well-being of others, and you have no desire for anything for yourself.

At the other end of the scale is zero degrees – freezing point. This is the place of utter selfishness, where nothing matters to you except getting your own way. No-one and nothing else in existence has any importance or value except in so far as they either feed into your agenda or work against it.

At the top end, we find God. At the bottom end, we find Satan, the enemy of God who, by rebelling against God and rejecting His ways, made himself the opposite of God.

Where do you and I fit on the scale of this thermometer?

I would suggest that most people in the world are somewhere around the middle – some a bit above and some a bit below.

Many people are well below the middle, such as thieves, conmen, murderers, pimps, dictators, drug-dealers, and people-traffickers.

Some are well above the middle, but we very rarely hear about them because they live out their lives in humility and don’t attract much attention. Some are honoured as saints; some are persecuted and martyred by evil, godless regimes; some get on quietly, known simply as good neighbours, but behind the scenes, in their private devotions, are moving heaven and earth in their daily intercessions, which are known only to God Himself (see Matthew 6:6).

No human being is right at the bottom, although some are very close to it.

No human being is anywhere near the top.

A narcissist is someone who sees themselves as the centre of the universe. The term comes from Narcissus, the name of the mythical character who was so stunningly beautiful that when he saw his reflection in a pool of water he became so besotted with his appearance that he was unable to drag his eyes away, and eventually died there, gazing at his image in the pond.

We all start our journey through life as total narcissists.

The new-born babe knows nothing outside of his own feelings. He does not recognise anyone else as being a separate person. He expects to be lifted, laid, waited on hand and foot, and every whim to be satisfied, entirely devoid of any gratitude or even acknowledgement.

As we mature, we begin to recognise other people as being individuals in their own right, but we need our parents to teach us how to behave toward them, how to treat them with respect, how to be friendly, kind, considerate, polite, and so forth. These things do not come naturally. As Derek Prince once said, “I never knew a mother who had to teach her children how to be naughty!” By nature, we are fundamentally selfish, and that continues throughout our lives.

In societies that have been influenced by Judaeo/Christianity, most people have a sense of decency, fairness, social responsibility, honour, politeness, good manners, and kindness. Not every society shares in these virtues, and nor do all sectors of society that have come under that influence.

In Galatians 5:13, which was quoted above, the apostle Paul says: “do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another” (emphasis added).

What does he mean by ‘the flesh’?

It has been suggested that the human body operates on three distinct but inter-related layers:

1. The REPTILIAN layer, controlled by the Basal Ganglia, or Primal (Instinctive) Brain. This covers all of the automatic physical processes such as breathing, heart-beat, digestion, elimination of waste, and so forth. It also deals with the instinct of self preservation. When the brain senses danger, the self preservation instinct kicks in, adrenalin is released, fight/flight/freeze mode is activated and, unless controlled by strong discipline, takes over. Reptiles function only at this level
2. The MAMMALIAN layer, controlled by the Limbic System, or Emotional Brain. This covers the social/emotional processes that mammals experience and reptiles don’t. All those feelings of acceptance or rejection, safety or vulnerability, being wanted or being ignored, being in love or being lonely, being valued or being belittled, and all of the other emotions that we experience to different levels every day of our lives are part and parcel of this mammalian layer.
3. The HUMAN layer, controlled by the Neocortex, or Rational Brain. At this level we are dealing with human reason, which no other being on earth possesses. It enables us to make sense of our environment and of our emotions and our instincts, although we are usually unable to understand them fully. In fact, our reason is more often than not held ransom by our instincts or our emotions, and probably by both. Instead of using reason to keep these lower layers in check, our reason is press-ganged into justifying what our instincts and emotions have done, or want to do, however unreasonable they may be.

Every human being functions at all three of these levels, whether it be looking for food, looking for friendship, looking for a mate, looking for a career opportunity, or looking for a way to make a quick buck without having to work for it. All of these are natural, bodily, or fleshly functions. We can live like this all of our days without any reference at all to the things of the spirit.

When the Bible talks about ‘the flesh’ it is referring to the natural man’s physical functioning, which is fundamentally self-centred.

Take the ‘h’ off the end of ‘flesh’ and then spell it backwards. What do you get?

It is very difficult for the natural man – the man of the flesh – to behave in a way that is not self-centred, self-serving, or self-promoting, so even the kindest and most loving of people is, most of the time, far closer to freezing than to boiling on the love thermometer.

The apostle Paul puts it this way:

Now, if he says that ALL have sinned, how many are included? How many are left out? What about you? Are you included in this number, or are you somehow not being counted?

When he says that we all fall short of the glory of God, what does he mean? Is he talking about being honest, decent, law-abiding citizens who pay our taxes and obey the highway code? Or is he referring to something of a higher order?

Is he, perhaps, suggesting that not only some but, in fact, all of us – every human being who ever lived – is so far down on the love thermometer scale that every single one of us is in trouble?

What does God want or expect from us, anyway?

Paul helps us again:

Eager to do what is right in the sight of God. Eager to love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Eager to love our neighbours as ourselves. Eager, even, to be able to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us, and pray for those who ill-treat us (see Luke 6:27-28).

Are you in that place?

Why Does it Matter?

Let’s imagine somebody trying to run a project. It doesn’t matter what type of project it is. Think of one that has meaning for you. In fact, imagine yourself as the project leader. The only important thing about this project is that it’s a really important project. For you, the project leader, it’s the most important thing you’ve ever been involved with. It really matters to you that the project gets completed – and completed well.

Now imagine that you’ve got a team working for you who all showed great promise at the start, but as time goes on, things begin to go down-hill.

• Team member A has decided that he ought to be the team leader instead of you, and is going around the other team members trying to recruit their support for a mutiny.
• Team member B has come up with the bizarre notion that there is no team leader really, because all of the meetings he attends are online and he’s concluded that you’re just an AI-generated avatar. He’s busy trying to convince the rest of the team that you don’t exist.
• Members C and D spend most of their time re-interpreting your instructions and then fighting each other over whose interpretation is correct. They never go back and ask for your input.
• Member E is a devotee of the project and of you personally, but spends more time admiring your photograph and meditating on your memos than doing any actual work.
• Members F, G, and H have decided that they know a better way to do things, and have gone off on their own project without telling you anything about it.
• Members I and J do nothing but complain. Everything is your fault, even when you had nothing to do with it.
• For member K, the only thing that matters is that she gets treated in a manner that she considers to be appropriate, no matter how anyone else is affected.
• Members L, M, and N are diligent, obedient, and reliable workers who get on with their jobs and return consistently high standards of workmanship, and never cause you any bother.
• Member O is like them in most ways, but is always demanding credit and special reward for his achievements.

Now, as the leader of this project, given its vital importance, how would you deal with the members of this team? Would you:

1. Let everybody carry on doing their own thing and allow the project to crash?
2. Chuck them off the team and try to find replacements?
3. Use the carrot and the stick to try to bring them into line?
4. Modify the goals and methodology of the project to try and please everybody?
5. Abandon the project?
6. Do something else?

For God, the creation of mankind was His biggest and most important project, and that project is being scuppered by man’s sinfulness.

What can God do to rescue the project?

Well, man is the most important element of the project, so in order to save the project, He has to save man. But what is it that He has to save man from?

Do you remember this passage of scripture, which was quoted at the beginning of this article?