Understanding Sin

‘Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires’ Galatians 5:24

Yesterday, we saw how temptation develops in stages.

First, there is a desire – our sinful natures desire something that God doesn’t want us to do - something that would damage another person. Then the desire is nurtured and cultivated. And then there’s a point where we act on the desire, we say or do something, (or we don’t do something we know God does want us to do). And then, either slowly or quickly, we begin to get the results of what we have done. This process can happen almost instantly in a second, or, it can develop over months.

But what exactly is sin? There are two places in the Bible where sin is defined;

Romans 3:23 states; ‘for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’

1 John 3:4 – ‘Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact sin is lawlessness’

Sin is ‘breaking (God’s) law’, with the result that we ‘fall short of the glory of God’. Jesus himself described this process of temptation and sin using a different perspective in Mark 7:20-23, ‘What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come – sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.’

The New Testament shows us that there are different types, categories, and groupings of sin. Paul groups sin into three different types of behaviour; Sexual immorality, Idolatry, and Hatred. He expounds these three groups in Galatians 5:19-21, and Romans 1:18-32, (also 1 Corinthians). John explains sin in another helpful perspective in his first letter; ‘the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life’ in 1 John 2:15-16, and ‘idolatry’ in 1 John 5:21.

To sin means to break God’s law, to transgress the boundary of his permitted will, and to do what he has told us not to do. Sin is what happens when we give in to and pursue the desires deep in our sinful natures. If we desire something God does not want us to do then we are being tempted. Temptation in itself is not a sin. Jesus himself was tempted just as we are. But if we give in to the temptation then we sin; (we might give in and say something unkind and aggressive to someone we are angry with).

Next, we’ll look at how discipleship addresses the different stages of this process in which desire leads to temptation which then leads to sin, and how we can learn to reduce our vulnerability to giving into temptation.

But today you might like to consider the three areas Paul mentions: Idolatry, Sexual immorality, and Hatred, and try and identify if and how you experience temptation in each area.

‘So I say live by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature’ Galatians 5:16.