What is
Sin?
Webster's Dictionary says:
1. an offense against religious or
moral law
2. a. transgression of the law of God
b. a
vitiated state of human nature in which the self is estranged from
God God
has many things to say about sin in the Bible. Sin started in the
Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. God commanded them not to eat the
fruit of the tree of knowledge (Genesis 2:17). But they
disobeyed God (Genesis 3:6) and sin was born. This sinful
nature is something that all of us inherit from that very first
transgression by Adam and Eve:
"For all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God" Romans 3:23
"Therefore, just as sin
entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this
way death came to all men, because all sinned" Romans
5:12 God detests
sin and can not accept us in our sinful state, for
"For the wages of sin
is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our
Lord." Romans 6:23
Some examples of sins identified in the Bible
are:
- Adultery
- Bestiality
- Blasphemy
- Bribery
- Cursing & Swearing
- Coveting
- Debauchery
- Disobeying your parents
- Divination
- Drunkeness/debauchery
- Envy
- Fornication
- Fortune
telling
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- Greed
- Hatred
- Homosexual behavior
- Hypocrisy
- Idolatry
- Incest
- Jealously
Lewdness
- Licentiousness
- Lying
- Lust
- Murder
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- Necromancy
- Pride
- Prostitution
- Partiality
- Rage
- Rape
- Rebellion
- Selfishness
- Sodomy
- Sorcery
- Stealing
- Unforgiveness
- Witchcraft
| Slaves to Sin: The most
dangerous part about sin, is that it can actually take control and rule a
person’s life. God explained this quality of sin to Cain, who
shortly after became the first murderer, about sin's desire for
him:
If you do what is right, will
you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is
crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master
it." Genesis 4:7
The Apostle Paul echoed this in
Romans:
Therefore do not let
sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not
offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of
wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who
have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body
to him as instruments of righteousness. Romans 6:
12-13
We have the responsibility and power to
resist our sinful tendencies. God said we "must master" it, or we
will become slaves to it. By obeying sin’s evil desires, our body
parts can become "instruments of wickedness." Furthermore, obedience to
sin leads to a "slavery to impurity," enabling "ever-increasing
wickedness:"
Just as you
used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to
ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to
righteousness leading to holiness. Romans
6:19
Like a fire growing out of control,
sin will spread to every area of your life in this "slavery
condition." It opens the door for all kinds of perversions,
especially sexual perversions:
Furthermore, since they did
not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them
over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They
have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and
depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice.
They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and
boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;
they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Romans
1:28-31 Jesus
Christ died to give us eternal life: That is the Gospel
("good news") taught in the Bible---that Jesus Christ died in our place to
pay the penalty due for our sins against God, that we might join God after
our death for life in Heaven for eternity! Jesus Christ is the one
who gives us a new life, breaking us free from the bondage of our sinful
nature.
Therefore, there is now no
condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ
Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and
death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by
the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of
sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man,
in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met
in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to
the Spirit.
Romans 8:1-4
For God so loved the world
that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him
shall not perish but have eternal life. John
3:16
Home Peace with God
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