SIN. There I said it. Too often we talk around it, try to deny it, hide it, or wish it away, but the truth remains: sin is real. It’s a difficult topic to discuss because we often get sin (in thought, word and deed) and Sin (a state of being) confused. Which is it? It depends on who you’re talking to and what you’re talking about.
Theologian and author Sam Storms says this about sin: “It’s all about understanding the character of God. If God is infinitely beautiful and glorious, the most wonderful treasure in all the universe, then what does it say about us that we refuse to acknowledge that? What does it say when we refuse to obey Him and worship Him? In fact, we try to make up our own rules that are in complete defiance of the reality He has revealed. We do what we think is right, in complete contrast to what God says is right. There’s often an attempt to quantify sin, and just do a few more good deeds than bad. But even one act of sin is an act of cosmic treason, deserving of eternal death. If we see that as injustice, we’ve not fully grasped the immeasurable holiness of God, and that He is so worthy to be honored and adored by His creatures; we only live by virtue of His mercy in the first place.”
I was taught a long time ago that sin was anything that separates us from God, and that’s still a pretty good definition, but there are still numerous aspects that follow the word. There are several different Hebrew words in the Old Testament translated as sin, just one in the New Testament, hamartia, which means to miss the mark, as one misses a target. To my mind there’s something to the notion of sin separating us from God, of sin somehow harming that relationship.
I don’t think that sinning makes us evil, or even necessarily bad people, though such might be the case. In its most basic form, sin breaks our connection with God and says something about us to which we need to pay that connection and examine, which is the whole purpose of Lent. To deny that we sin, or even to say that we have a proclivity toward sin (a sinful nature, saying nothing about original sin), denies the reality of our lives, the degree to which the world is broken and how far humanity has fallen.
Adam is viewed by some as the one man through whom sin (by his actions in the Garden of Eden) ultimately entered into the world; but that another man has overcomes Adam’s legacy of sin through his obedience. Of course, that man is Jesus Christ. Through his actions on the cross, he has done for us what we could never do ourselves, heal the rift between God and humankind, reconcile us to God and restore our inherent divinity. His vindication is ours.