Sin - What is Sin?

Once I started reading about Christianity and talking to other Christians it soon became clear that sin is one of the key concepts to grasp when trying to understand Christianity. I have come to realise my view of sin was totally mistaken and I don’t think I had a particularly different appreciation to many other non-Christians. It makes you wonder how Christians have so let others fail to understand their view of sin for the last 2000 years!

I had assumed Christianity was all about being good, doing your best to live a virtuous life. A life in many ways defined by no and not: no swearing, no drinking, no smoking, no drugs, not being materialistic, acquisitive or obsessed by earthly things like money, fashion and gadgets. In short no fun. I thought a Christian life was about being sensible, acing in moderation and avoiding excess. In my mind Christians were the good guys, despairing of everyone else; the sinners. This makes Christians seem judgemental and even superior and not surprisingly can cause resentment. But this is not what Christians believe nor is it what Christianity teaches about sin.

So what is sin? Well, it’s a difficult question but the answer starts with God and our old friends Adam and Eve. For me sin is perhaps the main reason why we hear about Adam and Eve in the Bible. Most people understand the traditional story in so far as Eve follows the advice of the serpent and influences Adam to eat an apple from the forbidden tree. Then there is much more confusion. Somehow this was not a good thing to have done and it had consequences for the whole of humanity, not just Adam and Eve who were expelled from the Garden of Eden.

My view is this is one of those Bible stories that make a far deeper point easier to understand. God created a perfect world, with everything in balance giving humans all they needed to live. There was no need to grow food, plough fields etc, we could enjoy nature and live in harmony with God. I think of this as the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve symbolise humanity and the choice humans make to go against the wishes of God. This is one of those other Christian concepts, what gets called “freewill”. God gave us the ability to think and make decisions and Adam and Eve used it to decide to go against God and follow the advice of the devil (serpent). The result of this turning away from God is man has to work to feed himself and woman has to suffer in childbirth. Being expelled from the Garden of Eden is saying the perfect world became corrupted with the man made introduction of sin.

Christians know the advent of sin as “the fall” or will say that we live in a “fallen world”. It is mankind’s turning away from God and doing anything in conflict with God’s wishes that is sin.

The story is so human. It has behaviour and characteristics that are directly relevant today. Adam and Eve had everything they needed, but they wanted more. They had to have the one thing they were expressly forbidden from having. When they finally succumbed to temptation and had the forbidden fruit they were embarrassed and hid from God. They knew they had done wrong. Today we still have an innate sense of when we are doing wrong, even if we have no idea where these values of right and wrong originate.

Humanity as a whole is sinful, we are all sinful. Christians are sinful. The only human life ever lived that has been without sin, is Jesus, the Son of God. Humans clearly do many bad things that most would recognise as bad or sinful, they murder, steal, cheat on marital partners. But sin runs much deeper than that, humans do things that might not necessarily seem bad for selfish reasons and to look good. Our motives for action can make those actions sinful. Our motives are suspect when we do not act out of love.

In being sinful Christians are no different to non-Christians, except perhaps they are more conscious of it!. It explains to me why my Grandmother always used to retort “I go to church because I’m bad, not because I’m good” when one the family teased her about being a goody-goody who went to church. Christians should not judge people as judgement is Gods prerogative not ours. There is no hierarchy of sin, there is no thinking “well this is only a tiny sin” and “this one is a much worse sin”. A Christian recognises the sinful world, believes in God and loves him wholeheartedly. A Christian tries to conduct their lives in accordance with Christian teachings out of their love for God.

Having now said that we are all sinful, my next blog must be more cheerful! The good news is there is plenty to be cheerful about in the face of sin.