What is sin?

[FollowHim]

3 If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands,
4 I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit.
5 Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land.
Lev 26:3-5

Sin is a difficult term. Paul described love and living it, fulfilling the whole law and the prophets.

Sin could be called rebellion against Gods ways, but that begs the question what are Gods ways.

I was thinking "destructive impulses acted on"

In our modern world much confusion has been created around identity and sexual desire, where both are deemed to be self defined, as you feel they should be, not as they actually are.

Nitche defined God was dead, but what he actually meant was absolutes and definitive clarity was dead. It is like saying 1 cm is 1 cm but as you look closer it is actually impossible to say exactly where the 1 cm ends, but it does end.

So some simple issues in life are now ignored. Certain behaviour will kill you.
Certain behaviour will hurt and destroy essential and important relationships.
Certain behaviour will change your life, and will found your futures and must not be betrayed.

Family, marriage, intimacy are key examples of this. They form the fabric of our lives, of our security and belonging. So emotionally embedded in us are they, shake them too much and we end in instability with anxiety attacks and trauma which it appears only drugs seems to stabalise.

These issues are foundational to Jesus and to our walk in Christ, what we term purity, holiness, love with boundaries. We will never resolve our impulses, they are who our biology makes us, but we can choose the boundaries and direction they take. We are extraordinarily flexible and adaptable, if we understand ourselves, and Jesus calls us to learn His way, so rather than being victims of our impulses we can walk the road of our real emotional foundations in love and peace in Him.

 

[Jay Ross]

Perhaps we can consider not living within God's earth that He is showing us, is sin.

That was God's calling to Abraham, to walk "in an earth that God intended to show Abraham."

Just a simple thought about our relationship with God.

 

[DPMartin]

3 If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands,
4 I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit.
5 Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land.
Lev 26:3-5

Sin is a difficult term. Paul described love and living it, fulfilling the whole law and the prophets.

Sin could be called rebellion against Gods ways, but that begs the question what are Gods ways.

I was thinking "destructive impulses acted on"

.

your over complicating it. if you are in a agreement to pay for that candy bar and don't you've sinned again whom you are in agreement with.

therefore there is no expectation of peace between you and the one you agreed with, there is a lost one the other parties side and you remain in that sin unless you make it well and or are forgiven the offence.

in the case of the Almighty and mankind Adam offended the agreement (covenant, commandment) by as the Lord said:


Gen 3:17　 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;　


Adam and Eve after this had the life of flesh, dust to dust and continued in their sin condition which separated them from God's Presence, and all there children who receive the life they had. hence all mankind.

as far as destructive impulse King David had destructive impulse every time his nation was attacked. Joshua had destructive impulse when ever he was instructed by his God to do so. down to every living thing in many cases.

man's ultimate power in the world is to cause death at his own hand. hence man's judgement.

 

[FollowHim]

your over complicating it. if you are in a agreement to pay for that candy bar and don't you've sinned again whom you are in agreement with.

therefore there is no expectation of peace between you and the one you agreed with, there is a lost one the other parties side and you remain in that sin unless you make it well and or are forgiven the offence.

in the case of the Almighty and mankind Adam offended the agreement (covenant, commandment) by as the Lord said:


Gen 3:17　 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;　


Adam and Eve after this had the life of flesh, dust to dust and continued in their sin condition which separated them from God's Presence, and all there children who receive the life they had. hence all mankind.

as far as destructive impulse King David had destructive impulse every time his nation was attacked. Joshua had destructive impulse when ever he was instructed by his God to do so. down to every living thing in many cases.

man's ultimate power in the world is to cause death at his own hand. hence man's judgement.

Unfortunately things are not that simple.

The two greatest commandments are to love God with all your heart, strength and mind and love your neighbour as yourself.

This is a more subjective feel to it, because this is expressed in different ways by different people. Failure to do this could be deemed at many different levels.

So Paul talked about doing something in faith as you regard is sin, becomes sin, because you regard it as such. So how you define your faith becomes as important as ones own understanding. Paul felt his conscience was an important measure of where he stood before the Lord. He did not regard himself as being perfect, but he did talk about his and disciples behaviour as being pure, blameless and holy.

Some believe sin is our emotional response, anger, hurt, desire etc. not just our response and actions that result from these impulses. If one holds the impulse itself is sin, then we have a problem because part of our biology is about maintaining our sexual virility. Often you find the way we meet another is by being impacted by their health, their presence, their ability to be a partner.

Now these divides become important, crucial if one is going to talk about being pure and holy.
If you read about not having steps up to the altar, in case people become exposed in some way, even nakedness is regarded as unclean.

If one regards sin as a state of being, the flesh is innately evil, gnostic in essence, then any semblance of holiness is not possible.
But take the apostles with Jesus. He did not rebuke them continually for being in sin, or incapable of being acceptable to the Lord as they were.
Rather Jesus called them clean, by hearing and acting on the words He had spoken.

Penal substitution has a problem. If sin is forgiven for all believers without individual sinful act repentance, then when does this stop.
So people say one act forgives all sin for all time, so the only judgement issue is belief in Jesus or unbelief.

They also hold that sinful behaviour of believers is not an issue of being in the Kingdom but bad behaviour that should be resolved over time, and being in the Kingdom is eternal from the point of belief, even if the individual loses their faith, and goes back to the world, they will be forced into the Kingdom as part of the unblemished bride of Christ.

So what sin is and how we can walk cleansed and purified is a critical part of our faith. It cannot be ignored and God is very clear what He regards is a sinful lifestyle and unacceptable and that which is acceptable. And for our age sexual immorality is a key issue. Sex is part of life, but a distraction, which is best resolved and ignored, rather love, intimacy and support between individuals should be our key focus.

So this is not simple, or straight forward. Hebrews suggests only the mature or perfect properly can see the difference between good and evil.
And based on my experience of church, I would agree with Hebrews, after seeing many compromising their lives and commitments because of desire which is now pitched as Gods will, and their previous behaviour as deceived and flawed. Not exactly being open and honest.