How do you explain to someone what sin is? That is quite a bit different to saying that ‘this is sin’ or ‘that is sin’ – why is it sin? How do we know something is sin and that something else is not?
Q14: What is sin?
A: Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.
Take a pencil and draw a line freehand from the top to the bottom of a sheet of paper. Now take a ruler and place it beside your freehand line. Make a sharp straight line alongside the ruler. Wherever your first line varies from the line of the ruler that is a “want of conformity unto” the ruled line.
Now draw a third line, a horizontal line, crossing the two vertical lines. Where the horizontal line ‘steps across’ the vertical line is ‘a transgression of’ that line.
God has given us His law to direct our lives. As we measure ourselves by this law we find where we fail to conform to His rule and where we step across or transgress the line He has given.
Some sins are failing to do what God tells us to do. We call these sins of omission. God tells us to honour our fathers and our mothers. When I fail to honour my mother, I commit a sin of omission.
Other sins are doing what God tells us not to do. We call these sins of commission. God tells me not to steal. If I take an apple from the grocer when he is not looking that is a sin of commission.
John tells us that sin is lawlessness, failing to live in line with or stepping across one of God’s commandments.
The Bible says “Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.” (1 John 3:4)