What exactly is sin, and what happens when I sin? Are people basically good to begin with, or are we flawed from the beginning? Hamartiology is a branch of theology that studies the totality of what sin is. A basic definition is that sin is any breaking of God’s law in thought, act or nature. Many like to see it as “missing the mark” between what God has shown us in the Bible
and what happens in our everyday lives.
Jesus actually taught that we are accountable for even the motives of our hearts and the very thoughts that we think against others. A sin of act would be anything against God’s moral laws, which are most famously known as being summed up in the 10 commandments. The Scriptures also teach that even by our very nature we are born into sin and are enemies of God. If you think about it, you don’t have to teach children to be bad, it just happens naturally. The hard part is teaching them the right thing to do.
Sin originally came when satan chose to rebel against God and first appeared here on earth when the devil tempted Adam and Eve to want to be like God in the Garden of Eden. Ever since then, death has entered into the world and put a break in our relationship with God known as sin. The Bible also teaches that we have all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and that there is none righteous who walks on this earth. The Bible then goes on to say that the punishment or the wages of sin is spiritual death away from God and his people.
But we also know that each of us has sinned many many times each day. So what do we do? Well, this was the very reason why Jesus Christ came into the world to die for our sins… it was the only way to be restored into right relationship with God. Apart from Jesus saving us from our sins we cannot please God, but once a person places their faith in Jesus and becomes a Christian, there is no longer condemnation for their sin. Jesus absorbed all of the wrath that was destined for us on the cross and gave us his perfect righteousness from his sinless life on earth.
Romans 5.18-19 says, “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by one one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” This basically says that when the sinless God, Jesus Christ came to earth and died, he made a way to make us justified, or legally clean in God’s eyes from all of the sin that we have. No longer are Christians under the curse of Adam’s sin, but are a child of God and eternally free from their sin.This week, take a few minutes and thank God that he made a way for our sin to be wiped away and for us to have the perfect righteousness of Jesus because of what he did here on earth.
Purposeful Theology 