What Is Sin?

How do I know if I have sinned against God if I do not know what sin is? The Law was given to Moses on Mt. Sinai that sin may be better known. Sin was known by men in their hearts prior to the Law but the Law removed any ambiguity and further exposed sin bringing it to light.

But then, did all those who lived before Moses received the Ten Commandments not sin? They did most certainly sin. Sin is something that is offensive to God. These things are already in our hearts and in our conscience’s. It is known that people not knowing God have a sense of morality. Even before the Law had been given to clearly define sin in written form, sin was known to us in our hearts and conscience’s.

When Adam committed the first sin, he and Eve made from fig leaves a cover for their bodies. When God called out to Adam in the Garden of Eden, Adam hid from God (as if that were possible, I am always so amused by that). When God asked Adam why he was hiding, Adam answered, "Because I am naked." God simply replied, "Who told you that you were naked?" You see, all the while since Adam had been created, he as well as Eve had been naked. It was never an issue until sin (the offense against God) occurred and entered the world for the very first time. So Adam and Eve felt shame for the first time and God shed light on their offense against Him by asking how they knew that they had shame. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit that God had forbidden them to eat, they disobeyed God and sin was born to man and though the seeds of Adam to mankind. As a result, the earth, serpents and man have been cursed. Adam and Eve were created as eternal beings intended to live forever with God. But as God had forewarned, if man ate from the fruit of the forbidden tree in the garden, he would surely die. Indeed, Adam and Eve died instantly in the Holy Spirit that God himself had breathed into the nostrils of Adam when He created him. In the flesh, man also now was doomed to die.

The Holy Spirit of God instantly left the bodies of Adam and Eve when they sinned against God. The curse and all the hardships of this world were instantly brought upon us. Our lives had become one of labor and strive ultimately ending in certain death. Man was still alive in the flesh now for a limited time with death of the flesh as his inevitable fate. But man had died instantly in that God’s Holy Spirit left him to no longer dwell within them until such time as sin no longer existed in man. Sin brings with it death. Where there is sin, death is inevitable. The wages of sin is death. If one sins, they are paid for their effort with death. Not even our Almighty God can change this. For to do so would cheat righteousness from its glory. Our God is pure, righteous and perfect. That righteousness might be satisfied, all who sin must die.

And so it is, that man is doomed to die both in the flesh as we are well aware but also that we were never born in the Holy Spirit as was our original fleshly father Adam. This is what Jesus meant when He told the Jewish Pharisee Nicodemus that he must be born again to enter the kingdom of heaven. Poor Nicodemus asked Jesus if he must crawl once again into his mother’s womb to be born again. Not having been born again himself (in the Spirit from above), he was unable to discern between those things of the flesh and those of the Spirit. To have any hope of getting into heaven, one must be born again in the Holy Spirit. He must first be born of the flesh, then of the Holy Spirit. To be born again one must accept on faith the existence of Jesus Christ as God/man and his redeeming work for you and for me. Namely that Christ came down from the heavenlies, became man, took all the sins of the world past, present and future including yours and mine and ascribed them to Himself (that He may die our death to satisfy all righteousness in paying the price for sin in full so that you, I and all believers could have eternal life without ever knowing death in the spirit), was crucified on a cross shedding His blood for the forgiveness of your sins and for mine my friend and on the third day resurrected from death to eternal life. That by accepting these truths about Jesus by faith, our sins are instantly and eternally forgiven and forgotten. For it is written that our Heavenly Father remembers them not.

All of or sins are forgiven, past, present and future. With no more sin in us evermore, His Holy Spirit instantly comes to live within us from that moment on into eternity future and hence we are finally complete as God our creator had originally intended it to be.

Do we still sin after we are born again in the Spirit from above? It is a matter of perspective. I did not say opinion, I said perspective. There are two measuring sticks here. One belongs to man, the other to God. From God the Father’s perspective, all sin has been already paid for and therefore in those who accept this most generous offer from God, He sees no sin in us. When the Father looks at a born again believer, He sees no sin in him, but only the pure white sinless righteous cloak of His beloved Son Jesus Christ. He sees those things that are not (that we are pure without sin from man’s perspective) as though they are (that we are pure without sin from God’s perspective). That is why once one becomes a believer, the Holy Spirit CAN come and live inside of us. The Holy Spirit could NEVER live within the hearts of mankind if they had sin also living in them. That is why all of mankind for the first 4,000 years from the beginning of creation until the death of Jesus did not have the Holy Spirit living within him. The Holy Spirit was manifest external to man as in the firey whilrwind in the desert to Israel for 40 years. That also is why all those who died during those years could not go straight to heaven as believers do today. As St. Paul tells us, "To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord." Only after the crucifiction was it possible for anyone to enter heaven save those few whom God took directly (Enoch and Elijah). So what happened to all those who died before the Crucifiction of Jesus? Another discussion. Hence, only believers, those who have FAITH in Jesus Christ and what He did can the Holy Spirit become one with and actually dwell within them. As also it was by Faith that righteousness was attributed to Abraham. Faith has always been the the saving attribute. But faith in just anything will not do. The object of our faith is the critical aspect. Before the crucifiction, those who had faith in God were heavenbound. Since the crucifiction, those who have faith in the finished work of Christ, in Jesus the Christ (Messiah or Redeemer) are heavenbound.

Now, from man’s perspective, we know and recognize sin. When our flesh sins, our conscious’s convict our hearts that we have sinned. For the believer, does the fact that the Father no longer sees our so called sins as sins mean that we can now sin all we want? "God forbid" St. Paul responds to the Romans. Of course not. And why not? Another discussion. From our earthly perspective, we have committed an offense against God. And indeed we have, but it is a sin which has already been paid for by the shed blood of Christ. In our eyes it is a sin. In the Father’s eyes, it has been already washed away. But only for believers. When our Heavenly Father looks at the non-believer, He sees the sin which has not been washed away by the shed blood of His Son Jesus Christ because the non-believer has not accepted the Son.

The believing Christian will continue to see sin in his fleshly deeds until he is no longer in the flesh. This is because this is how he is accustomed to seeing it complete with all guilt. Also, even though the sin is covered, the believer wishes not to sin more thereby spilling the shed blood of Jesus even more. The flesh remains cursed. It will surely die just as God said it would. Our flesh born spirit also dies. But the Spirit born from above lives for all eternity from the instant we believe. It outlives our earthly flesh only to be reunited later with a perfect body. It will be a nonperishable, non-corruptible body. Believers live with this dual nature struggling within them until the death of the flesh. Another discussion. Believers also live with the joy of knowing that they are destined for heaven being sealed (guaranteed) by the Holy Spirit. This is God’s promise. And God can never break a promise. His Word is true forever.