STUDY TIP: It will be impossible to understand this series of pages without first reading these pages:

GOD’S DEFINITION OF SIN IS UNIQUE
Most people, including non-religious people, would agree that people who sin break some kind of law. The question about sin, therefore, is this: What laws are broken? Man’s laws or God’s laws?

To some degree, man’s religious laws are indeed based on Biblical laws. Thinking that says God’s laws and man’s laws are the same makes some logical sense since most civil and cultural laws closely parallel Biblical references to sin. But it is a great mistake to say that the laws upon which God judges sin are identical to man’s laws. If God judged sin according to man’s understanding of sin, his ways would not be higher than man’s ways.

The challenge in understanding God’s view of sin, therefore, is in understanding which laws are broken:

All cultural systems establish systems for making and enforcing civil, cultural and moral laws. Individuals have their own ways of making and enforcing their personal laws. And each religion has its own ways of making and enforcing its set of religious laws.

All man-made laws, except personal laws, are codified and enforced by organizations which have power and authority to punish lawbreakers. However, these systems of enforcement of man-made laws contrast greatly with God’s system which is that he writes his spiritual laws on the hearts of some men and then instructs/disciplines the hearts of individuals who break his laws through his spirit. This makes  sense, of course, because the heart is the place on which God places his focus.

But this still does not inform us about God’s concept of sin. The basic principles are these:

• • • Sin is lawlessness.
    • Showing partiality and favoritism for one religion over another is sin.
    • Lawlessness exists with respect to God’s spiritual laws.
    • Religious people obey religious laws.
    • Religious people are law-keepers with respect to religious laws, but are law-breakers with respect to God’s spiritual laws.
    • Thus, religious people are lawless with respect to God’s spiritual laws.

It is instructive to remember that the ancient Mesopotamians had a concept of sin, as did the Babylonians and Egyptians. This is important when we remember that God used several familiar terms (e.g. transgression, iniquity, trespass, rebellion, lawlessness, etc.) that had their origins in ancient religions to represent sin. Thus it can be said that the understanding of sin for ancient Israel and modern man has its foundations in ancient religions.  Knowing this we must keep in mind God’s many cautions to Israel, and us, that we should not do what other nations (i.e. religions) do — include not believing as they did about the nature of sin.

That most religions past and present recognize a doctrine about sin is a clue to us that the common understanding of sin as a violation of moral laws is not what God has in mind when he talks about sin. This is another example of God’s ways not being like man’s ways.

The lesson for us here is that we should not interpret the meaning, or definition, of sin according to the standards of the cultures in which we live and work or on the literal words of the Bible which reference ancient, pagan religious beliefs. We should, however, listen to God’s voice to tell us about his understanding of sin. To listen to God’s voice is true wisdom in which you trust God with all your heart and not leaning on your own understanding (i.e. interpretation).

If we define sin as lawbreaking with respect to laws (e.g. Cultural, Religious, Civil, etc.) made and enforced by man instead of God’s spiritual laws, we will totally miss God’s definition of sin: Eating the spoken or written words of anyone other than God or his anointed spokespersons