The end of our first parents’ holiness and happiness is rooted in sin. Since sin has such disastrous effects, we are right to ask, “What is it anyway?”
Q: What is sin?
A: Sin is any transgression of the law of God.
(1 John 3:4; Romans 3:20; James 2:9–11)
Our first passage of the day contains as succinct an explanation of sin as you will find anywhere in Scripture. 1 John 3:4 equates the practice of sinning to the practice of lawlessness. Why is this the case? Because, as John then says, “sin is lawlessness.” To be lawless in this sense is not to simply be unregulated, such as living in an area with no functioning government. Rather, to be lawless is to reject the constraints of the law, to break the law willfully. So, when John says that sin is lawlessness, what he is saying is to sin is to reject the law in one’s heart or actions.
Our second passage for the day explains that the Law is how we know what it is to sin. In the Law God has spoken. The one who has created and who sustains all things, including us, has spoken. He spoke to our first parents, giving them a Law to obey. He has spoken beyond them to us and given us a Law to obey as well. For both them and for us, knowledge of what it is to sin comes in the Law. Therefore, to go against the Law is to sin for both them and for us. God created man for a purpose, to glorify himself. He did not create our first parents and then leave them to their own devices to know how to glorify him. He gave them a law to keep. In keeping it, our first parents exhibited their desire to love him and do what he commands. Sin then is going against the Law that God has given, and thereby failing to fulfill the purpose of creation, glorifying God. So, in transgressing the Law, both they and we exhibit hatred and rebelliousness toward God. Perhaps you think this idea of sin exhibiting hatred for God is a harsh way of stating it. If so, I would challenge you to find any indication of human neutrality in the Bible. There is not middle ground with God or his law. We either love him and keep it or hate him and break it. When we understand ourselves this way, this only magnifies the amazing grace of God. His grace is amazing precisely because, “…while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son…” (Romans 5:10).
For our third passage today, we turn to James 2:9–11. We see in this passage that the law alone convicts one of sin. What is sinful has limits, and they are not limits of our own making. We are not at liberty to reduce the law. We do not have the authority to say that adultery is either good, or even just okay, because God has outlawed adultery. Further, we are not at liberty to expand the law. Sin is any transgression of the law of God. It is not the transgression of tradition, nor transgressing another person’s sensibilities, at least usually. There are instances where offending the conscience of another person may be sin, but even this is covered in the Law of God and has limits.
We must all look carefully at the Law of God. Transgressing it marred the holy and happy estate of our first parents. Going against the command of God caused them to fail in their created purpose, glorifying God. We all know that we have done the same and more. We have transgressed the law of God numerous times. Only one man ever kept the whole law. Only one man ever lived without ever transgressing the Law of God. As good as keeping the Law is, and as much as we must strive to keep it, none of us will ever be justified by it. We cannot keep it enough to make up for how we have already broken it. Like it or not, based on our own keeping of the law, we are outlaws. If we would be not only acquitted by the law, but confirmed as righteous, it will only be because we have the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ credited to us. No amount of ministry work, money given, church attendance, or just being a “good person” will ever be enough, because, “whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.” Praise be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, that in him we may stand perfect in every point of the Law, because he kept the Law on our behalf.
Yours in Christ,