What is “Sin”?

This is another in a series of decoding the Christianese series. Where I revisit Christian words and concepts that (for some reason or another) have come to hold less tangible, practical meaning than they should for me.

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Sin is a word that has tripped me up a lot over the years. When you are a kid you learn that sins are bad things: lying, stealing, cheating, being mean, violence, etc. And for those years of your life, when things are black and white, that’s a great definition.

But as you get a bit more nuanced, the word itself seems to get so equally nuanced that it’s almost relative… (and we know relative truths can’t exist in Christianity)… yet there they are.

Consider this…

Is it a sin to engage in sexual immorality? yes. Is it still a sin if you are made to engage in immoral sexual acts against your will? Complex.

is it a sin to kill? Clearly. Is it a sin to kill when you are at war and there is someone trying to do the same to you? Yikes.

(One that was particularly harmful to my faith as a teenager)
Is it a sin to feel lust? Yes. What if that lust is a natural, hormonal response to stimuli, and it strikes before my conscious brain can react and control it… as a boy who is trying his best to please God, and show him my piety… have I displeased God? Am I proving to him even further my unworthiness?

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First off, the definition:

The Hebrew word for sin means to “miss the mark.” As in, an arrow shooting at a target, but missing.

There are three points here that I think are important.

1. To “miss the mark” can be a very large margin or a very short margin, but it’s all a miss. In this way sin is sin. Jesus even says this in the Sermon on the Mount. (Matt 5:21-22, 27-28, 33-34, etc) Outwardly expressed sin is as condemning as inwardly expressed sin… (so far, this sounds really disheartening… but stick with me… it gets better)
2. In order to “miss” with your arrow, you must first aim (or at bare minimum, have an intended target in mind). I could also argue that you would have to prepare your bow and arrow in order to shoot, as well… but I’ll leave it at the aiming. This alone takes a huge weight off of the shoulders of teenage me. Unintended thoughts are neither conscious nor intentional… and therefore not sin. You can’t sin until you KNOW you are aim in away from a target. Once the target comes into focus however… now it’s on you.
3. Whether you are Christian or not, we all know the truths of what is good and right in God’s eyes (Rom 1:18). We all know which target we should be aiming at.

So, let’s put these ideas together:

When you aim for God… When you know right from wrong. When you have a conscience (or Holy Spirit) that informs you of the should’s and the shouldn’ts… your choice to do anything other that what is goodly/Godly is sin. And that sin IS sin from the inception of internal consideration to partake in it, to the outward expression of it. And each part of that is equal in weight to the other. Ouch…

Here is where it gets a little more dark before the dawn…

No one wants to acknowledge that God sees their anger as equal to murder? Or their harsh words to a loved one as equal to striking them? But they are. Taking it further, even less want to acknowledge that their “few,” “relatively minor” sins cumulatively weigh about the same as some of histories worst characters. Harsh, but biblically true.

But here’s the dawn:

Jesus knows us. And he can forgive all of them.When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior… the slate is wiped clean. We ARE judged at the end, (scripture is clear about that) but we are forgiven, pardoned, for all of those sins equally. We are absolved of our responsibility for those sins. (Our bodies may have to pay for them here on Earth, but for our souls, it’s a different story)

Practicalities about the concept of sin

So, what might I tell me at 16, who struggled with sin; who wanted to do right by God? Who wanted to please God? I would tell me this:

The fact that you care about not sinning tells me you are aiming. And the fact that the aim is ON God.. that’s what pleases him. You will fail. In both small and big ways. Yes, you may catch yourself the victim of hormones, or relishing in the desire to punch someone who did you wrong… but by his grace you’ll be forgiven for those lapses. And that you will be continuing to aim at him is what he will delight in.

Also, a wonderful byproduct of aiming to please God (even though you fail often) is that the fruit you bear because of that aim will be good, useful, beneficial fruits that will feed both you and those around you for a lifetime.)

——— Addendum 1: ———

One of the most profound learnings for me, even while writing this is the following:

Sin being equal reminds us of how imperfect we are. The reason it hurts to say “I’m just gossipy and judgmental… be HE’s a monster who X, Y, Z” is because we are averse to seeing ourselves in a true light; that we are all fallen, all imperfect, all flawed. BUT, besides the negative parts of being equal… there’s the reminder that we are also equal in positive ways. We are made in the image of God, we are made perfect, we are loved and meant to love equally.

——— Addendum 2: ———

P.S. I realized I never answered some of the previous examples practically. So here’s that:

If you are forced into sexually immoral acts, you didn’t aim to do them. No sin. (And if you were forced into something like that, I pray for you and your healing through that experience. Know that God is able to use all of man’s faults for good if you allow it. I pray that you do.)

If you have to kill for war, this again is a (sometimes) necessary tragedy of life itself. But no, it is not a sin. The “why” lies interwoven throughout scripture. God himself goes to war and asks his people to kill in his name, and in the name of quelling the effects of certain ungodly societies. God also says to be dutiful and obedient to one’s nation; and Jesus says “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s” comes to mind. Now, if that killing becomes torturous, the line into sin has been crossed, only the heart knows.

(Note: I want to be VERY clear that “war” here is defined as two factions, who have previously sought diplomatic resolution to an issue and were unable, and now have chosen weapons to settle it… this does not mean an individual can wage war and be justified, that is the sin of murder in all cases… because there are higher structures by which those conflicts could have been escalated without needing to take actions into one’s own hands.)