Sin and Evil

Topic: The Difference between Sin and Evil and the authority of ownership.

Genesis 50:17 ‘Thus you shall say to Joseph: “I beg you, please forgive the trespass of your brothers and their sin; for they did evil to you.” ’ Now, please, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of your father.” And Joseph wept when they spoke to him. h5375 forgive nāśā’ to cause one to bear (iniquity), to lift up, to take, take away. h6588 trespass pešaʿ transgression, trespass, sin, rebellion. NOUN h2403 sin ḥaṭṭā’āṯ a miss, misstep, slip of the foot. NOUN h7451 evil raʿ An adjective: malignant, (giving pain, unhappiness, misery), vicious, deformed a masculine noun: distress, misery, injury, calamity feminine noun: misery, distress, injury 1 Samuel 25:28 Please forgive the trespass of your maidservant. For the Lord will certainly make for my lord an enduring house, because my lord fights the battles of the Lord, and evil is not found in you throughout your days. h5375 forgive nāśā’ to cause one to bear (iniquity), to lift up, to take, take away. h6588 trespass pešaʿ transgression, trespass, sin, rebellion. h7451 evil raʿ An adjective: malignant, (giving pain, unhappiness, misery), vicious, deformed A masculine noun: distress, misery, injury, calamity Feminine noun: misery, distress, injury Jeremiah 36:3 It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the adversities/evil which I purpose to bring upon them, that everyone may turn from his evil way, that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.” h7451 evil raʿ An adjective: malignant, (giving pain, unhappiness, misery), vicious, deformed A masculine noun: distress, misery, injury, calamity Feminine noun: misery, distress, injury h5545 forgive sālaḥ to forgive, pardon, spare. Merciful, gentle, propitious. h5771 iniquity ʿāôn perversity, depravity, iniquity, guilt or punishment of iniquity h2403 sin ḥaṭṭā’āṯ a miss, misstep, slip of the foot. Luke 11:4 And forgive us our sins, For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one.” g863 forgive aphiēmi leave, divorce, to depart from g266 sins hamartia to be without a share in, to miss the mark, to err, be mistake, to miss or wander from the path of uprightness and honor, to do or go wrong, to wander from the law of God, violate God’s law, sin (Mat 1:21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins. G266) g4190 evil (one): ponēros full of labors, annoyances, hardships, pressed and harassed by labors, bringing toils, annoyances, perils; of a time full of peril to Christian faith and steadfastness; causing pain and trouble. Bad, of a bad nature or condition, in a physical sense: diseased or blind, in an ethical sense: evil wicked, bad.Men Sin, but Evil is Demonic. Evil is an entity which has no consideration in which to acknowledge its sin and no intention of being other than what it is. Its darkness has no open doors to Light and no capability to repent. Evil can only be cast out by the Son of God. Evil goes beyond the need to satisfy itself, it enjoys bathing in its own evil self. It pleasures itself. Evil is addicting, the more evil evil becomes, the more evil it needs to obtain its pleasure. Jesus died to forgive men of their sin, not to forgive demons of their evil. “Be wise as a serpents and harmless as doves.”~ Jesus the Christ. Don’t be naïve in your innocence. Both God and Evil demand perfection. God provides a Bridge for men in order to meet His standard of perfection. When sin misses the mark, the blood of Jesus fills the gap. Evil demands perfection, but uses it for imprisonment. It cannot accept losing its host to God because Evil believes it owns its host. Evil has a hunger to punish people for their sins. Evil wants to punish people for their sins. “Satan” means “the Accuser”. Free will is non existent with Evil. Evil demands absolute authority. Evil is an entity which justifies sin against God but is intolerant of what it perceives to be sinning against its own absolute authority because Evil believes it owns you. This is the twisted logic of Evil. Evil seeks out that which is cleansed It seeks out that which is cleansed in order to subjugate it. It already owns those who are not cleansed. Evil is an addiction Evil is an addiction which is never satisfied, constantly yearning, constantly hungry, driving its host into insanity. Over time the roots of Evil reach deep into the soul choking the spirit of the unsaved becoming more morbid, more violent, more fascinating. When a man hears the Word of God and repents, giving himself to God, God will peal away the attachment(s) of Evil like velcro, which has taken hold of that person. God cleanses him of his sins and seals him by the Holy Spirit. The roots of Evil can no longer penetrate his spirit securing his salvation. Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Ephesians 1:13 In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, The Soul, unlike Man’s Spirit is not sealed upon Salvation and is subject to Evil’s oppression. Man’s thoughts, emotions, and will continue to struggle with Evil. Romans 7:19 For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. Ephesians 6:12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Evil is the “god of this world”, Satan and his influence (demons) Does Satan argue with God concerning his authority over people? When Adam sinned, Satan took Adam’s dominion away and became the “god of this world (age)”. Without the intervention of God, Satan owns mankind and man is subjected to him. God intervened with the promises and actions in the death and blood of His Son. There is a battle that goes on between two Ranchers, or Shepherds as to who owns men. Men are “branded” by Satan such as the “Mark of the Beast” and the Holocaust. Men are circumcised by God, not of the flesh but of the heart (spirit) and “sealed” by God. The blood sacrifices applied to the mercy seat in the “Holy of Holies” in the temple covered only unintentional sin. The two sacrifices related to forgiveness of sin were the sin offering and the guilt offering. These are extensively described in Leviticus chapters 4-6. They were not sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins in general, but could be offered only for “unintentional” sins. Leviticus chapters 4-6 “when anyone sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the Lord’s commands…” In contrast, Intentional sins create individual guilt and an accumulation of uncleanness that needed to be cleansed. This occurred on the annual Day of Atonement. Described in Leviticus 16, this involved the cleansing of the tabernacle through the sprinkling of the blood of a slaughtered goat and the cleansing of the people through the use of a scapegoat. The slaughtered goat points us to Jesus’ death while Barabbas fills the description of the scapegoat who was released in the place of the sacrificial goat, Jesus. Barabbas’ first name was also Jesus, meaning “salvation”. His last name in Hebrew meant “son (bar)” (of the) “father (abba)”. The leaders of the Jews demanded the release of Jesus Barabbas: A (false) salvation from “the son of the father” who was a murderer from the beginning. The same leaders demanded the death of Jesus the Messiah: A (true) Salvation as THE Son of THE Father. Barabbas and the leaders of the Jews were children of the devil, called “the seed of the serpent” in Genesis. Compare Genesis with the gospel Matthew: Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity (war) between you (Satan) and the woman (person and nation who will bear the Messiah Jesus), And between your (Satan’s) seed and her Seed (Jesus); He shall bruise (destroy) your head (power), And you shall bruise (destroy) His heel (h6119 Remain hidden while preparing to attack).” [Satan didn’t understand that killing Jesus was the act that killed himself when Jesus rose from the dead.] [The word “heel” means “lier in wait”. Jesus waited for Satan to make his move and destroyed Satan’s power by Satan’s own hand.] John 8:44 You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. The leaders of the Jews wanted to murder Jesus but release the murderer. Jesus was the “lier in wait” (heel) and the Jewish leaders were “liars in wait” (head of the serpent). Barabbas was the scapegoat upon whose head the Jewish High Priest put the sins of the nation and released him into the wilderness of people. What then? Was the nation and people forgiven? No they did not repent. To reiterate: Jesus died to forgive men of their sin, not to forgive demons of their evil. The scapegoat took on the entity of Evil as it was cast out; in the same way Jesus cast out legions of demons to inhabit a herd of swine causing them to go insane: “suddenly the whole herd of swine ran violently down the steep place into the sea, and perished in the water.” Matthew 8:32b Recognizing Evil: The presence of Evil is indicated by intentional sin; which include tarot cards, a Ouija board, fortune telling, calling up the spirits of the dead, pornography, pedophilia, Necrophilia, bestialities, drugs used for conscious altering, greed, lying to manipulate your sphere of influence for your own benefit and to use others, violence, entitlement (complaining), enticement, lawlessness, and the like. 1 Corinthians 11:28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. (Representing the body and blood of Jesus) Demons cannot dwell together; infighting, they try to force each other out in futility, wrestling together in eternal confusion chaos. Evil believes it owns you. The mafia believes your money belongs to them and it is their job to get it. This includes scam artists, corrupt politicians, companies providing valueless products, and corrupt money managers. Abusive husbands believe they own their wives. The government believes it owns your house, home, and family, desiring not only want to tax you out of house and home, they want to “re-educate” your children, and propagandize you with a twisting of logic that ends in destruction. When Evil grows, it takes away your land but leaves your house, then it will tax you by your carbon footprint in your house, ultimately taking your house. If your carbon footprint is unacceptable, Evil will level it by forcing compliance in other ways. Evil owns your body. You are its slave unless you are saved as a child of God, then your body becomes God’s temple where the Holy Spirit resides. Evil owns your soul. You are subject to its addictions and must war against them. Evil owns your spirit UNLESS you are a child of God with your name written in God’s Book of Life. John 3:14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. Evil is persistent. Until Perfection comes the flesh must battle Evil until death and hell are thrown into the Lake of Fire. Definitions of sin and evil:

Sin and Evil

By R. J. Rushdoony May 25, 2021

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Chalcedon Position Paper No. 90, September 1987

Words often tend to be dulled and cheapened with time. Careless usage, poor education, and indifference to clarity serve to blur the meaning of words, so that we often inherit words which were once sharp tools but now have dulled edges.

Two such words are sin and evil. Until recently, the dictionary definition of sin retained its Biblical focus: “sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4), God’s law. The Biblical orientation of the word “sin” tells us why the term is not much used outside of the church: it speaks too clearly of personal responsibility to God.

“Evil,” on the other hand, has a broader definition, in the Bible and in dictionaries. It can and does include sin, but it means much more. It covers calamities, diseases, death, disasters, and the like.

Evil can be a result of sin; thus, sexually transmitted diseases are always evil, but they are not always a result of sin, if caught innocently. On the other hand, death is a result of the fall and of man’s sin, but death itself is not a sin, although it is called an “enemy” (1 Cor. 15:26). Sickness is an evil, but not necessarily a sin, although on occasion it can be a result of sin.

The distinction between sin and evil is a very important one. Theological errors have resulted from their confusion. Thus, Christ by His atonement redeems us from sin; He takes upon Himself the penalty for sin, the death sentence, so that we are delivered into everlasting life. By His atonement, we are made a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17), and our calling is to reconstruction, to the restoration of all things and the elimination of all evils until, with Christ’s coming again, “the last enemy . . . death,” is then destroyed (1 Cor. 15:25–26).

The atonement thus covers sin, not evil. The redeemed man has a duty to destroy the effect of sin in himself, i.e., to “mortify” it (Rom. 8:13; Col. 3:5). Christ must reign in the new man and through him subjugate “all rule and all authority and power,” so that only “the last enemy . . . death,” remains at Christ’s coming (1 Cor. 15:24–26). This destruction of evil comes through sanctification; it comes also through scientific work which overcomes diseases and “natural” threats of a fallen world. In every sphere, we are to work to overcome evil and enthrone Christ.

Our atonement does not sanctify us perfectly: it gives us the power to make our lives and spheres holy. Our standing before God is as innocent in Christ, but we now have the duty to develop the new life of righteousness or justice in every sphere.

In false views of the atonement, sin and evil are both seen as destroyed, not only with respect to our legal status before God, but in our psychological status, so that we are supposedly perfect in holiness and freed from evil. To be sick then becomes evidence of sin! A generation or two ago, one minor cult leader was sure that the atonement had freed him from sin and death so that he would neither sin nor die. (He did both.)

In terms of such thinking, healing, instead of being a ministry of compassion, became a demand for trust or belief in the atonement.

A key difference between sin and evil is that sin is always personal, whereas evil is often impersonal. Sins are the acts of men and have no existence apart from human action, creaturely action, in transgression of the law of God. It is thus an absurdity to say we should hate the sin and love the sinner. It is an artificial distinction. Theft, adultery, murder, false witness, covetousness, idolatry, dishonoring parents, and other sins are the acts of men and are the expressions of their moral nature. The man who steals is a thief, and the man who commits murder is a murderer. The act does not occur of itself; it is the act of a sinful man, and it is an expression of his will and life. Our Lord insists on the unity of a man’s life and his works; hence, “by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matt. 7:20). “Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit. O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matt. 12:33–34).

Sin is not an entity: it is an act of man’s will, whereby he transgresses God’s law because man prefers his own will and way to God’s requirements. Its origins are in Genesis 3:5, man’s will to be his own god.

Modern man does not like to speak of “sin.” Many churches have dropped the word “sin” from their vocabulary. Pastoral psychology finds all kinds of good reasons for sins: need, loneliness, neglect, self-realization, deprivation, and much, much more. All these “reasons” have a common purpose, to diminish personal responsibility for sin. We are full of “good excuses,” and we encourage them. “I didn’t know what I was doing.” “My intentions were good, but, before I knew what I was doing, I was in trouble.” “If only my training had better prepared me, this never would have happened.” Or, in “Flip” Wilson’s words, “The devil made me do it.” Perhaps the most common “not guilty” plea is this: “Well, I’m only human!” In other words, God made me this way, so He is to blame.

Sin is not a popular subject for preaching these days! Many church officers and members will insist on “positive preaching” to “build up” the listeners, and the congregation’s size. (For a year or two, one woman wrote me particularly vicious letters every few weeks to let me know what a hateful person I obviously was because of my writings. Particular statements would move her to fury; they obviously troubled her, and she called me every kind of ugly name. She demanded a gospel of love, told me she was praying for my salvation, and then signed her letters, “In Christian love.” I have received, over the years, much hatred and venom by mail, all in the name of love! Show me a “love-baby,” and I will likely be face to face with an accomplished hater!)

Modern man does not like to hear anything about sin, but he does speak freely of evil. Remember, sin is personal, very personal. If someone talks about sin in your life and mine, they are getting totally personal! However, if they talk about the evil we experience, the talk is impersonal. A disastrous storm, or a tornado, can do much evil, but it involves no guilt on your part and mine. But if you talk about my sin, you are getting very personal!

Today, because fallen men run nations, the talk is about evils, not sins. These evils are outside of us. They are things like poverty, hunger, war, sickness, and more. The “solution” to social evils is then declared to be the appropriation of more money; more power to the state; more money for education, research, and study; more social engineers and planners; and so on and on.

The cost of these legislative and bureaucratic solutions is very, very great. For one thing, it means more and more taxation. In the United States, it adds up, on all levels, to a taxation in excess of 45 percent of our income. In most countries, the direct and indirect taxes add up to far more. This, however, is only the taxation cost by income, sales, manufacturing, and other taxes. An even more deadly form of taxation is inflation, which steadily devours savings and capital; it also destroys the value of pensions and life insurance. There is also the cost of freedom, and we continually see our freedom diminished in the name of this war against social evils.

Meanwhile, the evils increase, because the solution is a false one and only aggravates the problem. It was man’s sin that brought evil into the world, and to bypass sin is to give evil greater freedom. God declares (Deut. 28) that He diminishes evils as men believe and obey Him, and increases and intensifies them as men disobey Him. We also aggravate our plight by insisting that sin is not sin but a social evil, not personal but impersonal. Sociologists do not call sin by its proper name; criminals are explained by heredity, or by environment. Their genes were bad, or their family environment was entirely wrong for them. This is another way of saying that criminals are “not guilty.”

Drop the word “sin” from law, and in time you drop also the word “guilty.” Remember, sin is personal; it is the transgression of the law of God. It is a personal act of rebellion by man against God and His Word.

Dostoyevsky saw the logic of unbelief: if there were no God, all men could do as they pleased, because there would then be no sin. Nietzsche embraced this belief: the new man must live beyond good and evil because, he held, God is dead. Walter Kaufmann, in Without Guilt and Justice (1973), held that guilt and innocence, justice and injustice, are theological doctrines. Because man now lives beyond this belief in God, in autonomy, he can dispense with guilt and justice, because neither concept now has meaning. The last “chapter” of Kaufmann’s book is his retelling of Genesis 3:5; man is now ready to be his own god and determine good and evil for himself. “Nobody knows what is good. There is no such knowledge. Once upon a time God decided, but now that he is dead it is up to you to decide. It is up to you to leave behind guilt and fear. You can be autonomous” (p. 237). (We should not be surprised at any kind of madness in Kaufmann’s writings: he was a man who not only read Hegel on his honeymoon but wrote proudly of it!)

No God, no sin, no guilt — this is the modern equation, a thoroughly suicidal one. God declares, “he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death” (Prov. 8:36). The men who heralded the death of God were actually declaring the death of man.

Long before Nietzsche and Kaufmann, men were paving the way for them by subverting the moral criteria. When Milton’s Satan, in Paradise Lost, says, “Evil be thou my good,” Milton was giving us a long-current opinion through Satan. The humanist scholar, Lorenzo Valla, in De voluptate (1431), held that pleasure is the only authentic good of man; all goods can be reduced to pleasure. This is man’s natural and hence normative goal. True, Valla could say, and his apologists use it to justify him, that glory and a contemplative life give pleasure to some. Let us remember, however, the pleasure Valla took in declaring, “courtesans and harlots are more deserving of honor from humankind than holy and chaste virgins.” Some men try to tell us that Renaissance humanism meant simply the study of classical literature. It was indeed that, but it was commonly governed by a delight in classical immoralism. For too many classical scholars, sin was a form of freedom, and for some the key form.

This is still true of many circles, including the circles in which Lord Keynes, Strachey, and others, the so-called “Apostles,” moved. It is basic to the “sexual revolution,” to abortion, and to the homosexual agitation: sin is declared to be the new freedom. Evil is by some then defined as restriction on the freedom of man to live in defiance of God and to declare sin to be man’s true freedom.

It is instructive, in this regard, to remember that this was the creed of developed and mature paganism in imperial Rome. As Donald Earl noted, in The Age of Augustus (1980), “Sexual freedom . . . was a prerogative of the Roman noble, female as well as male” (p. 192). Now, with the prevalence of the democratic spirit, this “right” to immoralism is claimed by all classes. Less than ten years ago, a raging University of California Los Angeles student insisted to me that the wages of sin are not death (Rom. 6:23), but a richer and freer life.

The Westminster Larger Catechism echoes Scripture to declare, “Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, any law of God, given as a rule to the reasonable creature” (Question 24). As 1 John 3:4 and all of Scripture makes clear, “sin is the transgression of the law,” i.e., the law of God.

This brings us to the heart of our problem. When the church is antinomian and despises the law of God, what can we expect of the world? When the church bypasses the Bible’s definition of sin, why should the world pay attention to it? The reformation of society must begin with the reformation of the church.

Topics: Biblical Law, Church, The, Culture , Economics, Government, Humanism, Justice, Philosophy, Psychology, Statism, Theology

R. J. Rushdoony Rev. R.J. Rushdoony (1916–2001), was a leading theologian, church/state expert, and author of numerous works on the application of Biblical law to society. He started the Chalcedon Foundation in 1965. His Institutes of Biblical Law (1973) began the contemporary theonomy movement which posits the validity of Biblical law as God’s standard of obedience for all. He therefore saw God’s law as the basis of the modern Christian response to the cultural decline, one he attributed to the church’s false view of God’s law being opposed to His grace. This broad Christian response he described as “Christian Reconstruction.” He is credited with igniting the modern Christian school and homeschooling movements in the mid to late 20th century. He also traveled extensively lecturing and serving as an expert witness in numerous court cases regarding religious liberty. Many ministry and educational efforts that continue today, took their philosophical and Biblical roots from his lectures and books.