What Is Sin? (YT)

Hook

(1) What is sin exactly, and why is God going to judge you for “bad actions” or choices? While many Christian leaders, teachers, and Pastors focus mostly on “sinful actions”, there is another part to sin that I don’t really hear anyone talk about or breakdown, the part of sin that is the cause of your bad choices, behaviors, and desires. So in this video and episode, we’re going to look at sin as a whole; what sin is, where sin comes from, why God is going to judge you based on your sinful actions, but also what God says about how to escape His judgment on sin when He comes to fully reclaim the world and establish His world government over it.

(2)What is sin? That’s a question many people come across when they began to look into questions like “if God exists?”, “Who Is God?”, “What Is God?”, “If God is Pure and Good, then why is there evil?”, etc. These are good, great, and valid questions, and these are the questions so many others have, including myself when God began to get my attention, unknown to myself at the time. But almost without fail, when you come across The God of Christianity and Judaism, you come across this concept or idea of sin, and so in this video and episode we’re going to learn what sin is, discuss some things that many Christians and Christian teachers or preachers seem to forget to teach/bring up, or perhaps even know about (our condition of sin), where sin comes from, and finally what God says we can and are to do about it.

Personal Intro

Living for the Lord Jesus since 2009

Ministry since 2014

Grew up in the streets

Encourage listeners/viewers to take a pause, pray, and then proceed.

What Others Say About Sin

Sinful actions

Hebrew and Greek definitions

Hebrew: An act or condition of ignorant or imprudent deviation from a code of behavior. A missing of the target in the sense of making a mistake. The sacrifice, which by transference, becomes the sin.

Greek: To sin, to miss a mark on the way, not to hit the mark. One who keeps missing the mark in his relationship to God is hamartōlós (268), sinner.

Breaking of God’s Commandments

While those are technically right, they’re not telling you the full story!

Sin Is A Condition

It’s a condition that we find ourselves in, and a condition that we have like a medical condition, or the condition of a car.

Romans 7:7–10 HCSB

7 What should we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin if it were not for the law. For example, I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, Do not covet. 8 And sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind. For apart from the law sin is dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life 10 and I died. The commandment that was meant for life resulted in death for me.

Medical/Mental Health condition that affects our lives

The Pandemic and how it affected us individually and societally with how we treated one another, we didn’t want to be near certain people who either had covid, or didn’t take the vaccine.

In regard to how we treat one another, think about drug addiction and how it makes people act.

If God is Perfect, Good, and Pure, why did He create us this way?

He didn’t! It was a condition that was introduced into the human race through the deception and rebellion of the first human couple that we all come from, Adam and Eve.

The Introduction of Sin

When God was creating everything, including the human race, He kept using the word “good” to describe how it turned out, including mankind;

Genesis 1:26–31 HCSB

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; He created him in the image of God; He created them male and female. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.” God also said, “Look, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the surface of the entire earth and every tree whose fruit contains seed. This food will be for you, for all the wildlife of the earth, for every bird of the sky, and for every creature that crawls on the earth—everything having the breath of life in it. I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. Evening came and then morning: the sixth day.

What it meant for things to be good: things turned out the way God intended and desired them to.

But there was something else going on, something Adam, and eventually Eve as well, had to be on the guard against.

Genesis 2:15–17 HCSB

The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.”

After God creates Eve, the woman, from the rib of Adam, there is another being that is said to have interacted with Eve and began to challenge what God had told her husband, who evidently told her what God said about the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil;

Genesis 3:1–7 HCSB

Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’ ” “No! You will not die,” the serpent said to the woman. “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Then the woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

So before Adam and Eve rebelled against and get out of alignment with God, there was at least one other being who had already made the choice to do so!

CTA

The Original Sinner!

As God is informing His Covenant People Israel throughout the centuries about the realities of their world, we are informed about the original rebel and sinner, the one who instigated a larger rebellion against God, not only in the natural, but also in the supernatural!

Through His Prophet, His Messenger Ezekiel, Yahweh tells us this;

Ezekiel 28:11–19 HCSB

The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, lament for the king of Tyre and say to him: This is what the Lord God says: You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God. Every kind of precious stone covered you: carnelian, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, turquoise and emerald. Your mountings and settings were crafted in gold; they were prepared on the day you were created. You were an anointed guardian cherub, for I had appointed you. You were on the holy mountain of God; you walked among the fiery stones. From the day you were created you were blameless in your ways until wickedness was found in you. Through the abundance of your trade, you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I expelled you in disgrace from the mountain of God, and banished you, guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones. Your heart became proud because of your beauty; For the sake of your splendor you corrupted your wisdom. So I threw you down to the earth; I made you a spectacle before kings. You profaned your sanctuaries by the magnitude of your iniquities in your dishonest trade. So I made fire come from within you, and it consumed you. I reduced you to ashes on the ground in the sight of everyone watching you. All those who know you among the nations are appalled at you. You have become an object of horror and will never exist again.”

Many people try to discount this passage as God addressing a human king, but God clearly calls this being a “cherub” or “keruv” in Hebrew, which is a class of supernatural being, often generalized as a type of “angel”.

God says this “Cherub” was in the Garden of Eden, and although this hints at a different series, this clearly can’t be another human because the only humans in the Garden of Eden were Adam and Eve.

God talks about how this “Cherub” was “blameless” from the time he was created, UNTIL wickedness was found in him, and he began to spread that wickedness to others through interaction.

The beauty that God gave him became his downfall by taking sinful pride in himself instead of giving thanks, honor, and praise to God for creating him that way!

God gives us more insight into this being through His Prophet Isaiah, telling us this

Isaiah 14:12–15 HCSB

Shining morning star, how you have fallen from the heavens! You destroyer of nations, you have been cut down to the ground. You said to yourself: “I will ascend to the heavens; I will set up my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on the mount of the gods’ assembly, in the remotest parts of the North. I will ascend above the highest clouds; I will make myself like the •Most High.” But you will be brought down to Sheol into the deepest regions of the •Pit.

In this portion, God is telling us what satan’s pride caused him to come up with within himself, he wanted to rise to a greater position than what He was created for and given by Yahweh, The One Who created him, he wanted to be equal to His Creator, or above Him.

But perhaps the language of “shining morning star” sounds confusing, while it may not be apparent to modern readers, this phrase was a clear reference to “the gods”, the supernatural or spiritual beings worshipped by the other nations of the world aside from Yahweh’s Covenant People Israel.

There are those like the late Dr. Michael Heiser that studied ancient spiritual and religious systems to confirm such points, to learn the concepts people used, and how they understood them.

This can be seen clearly in the oldest book of God’s Word, The Book of Job!

The book of Job uses the phrase “morning stars”, but also another phrase that confuses a lot of people “the sons of God” to describe beings such as this rebel that Isaiah is writing about;

Job 1:6–7 HCSB

One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord asked Satan, “Where have you come from?” “From roaming through the earth,” Satan answered Him, “and walking around on it.”

We are told that “the sons of God” presented themselves before Yahweh, with “satan” also presenting themselves among them.

Again, this phrase is used in Chapter 2 of Job indicating a very similar scene;

Job 2:1–2 HCSB

One day the sons of God came again to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before the Lord. The Lord asked Satan, “Where have you come from?” “From roaming through the earth,” Satan answered Him, “and walking around on it.”

Finally as we get to chapter 38 of The Book of Job, both the phrases “sons of God” and “morning stars” are brought together to give us a clear picture of what’s being talked about as Yahweh rebukes and corrects Job for talking foolishly about God;

Job 38:1–7 HCSB

Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind. He said: Who is this who obscures My counsel with ignorant words? Get ready to answer Me like a man; when I question you, you will inform Me. Where were you when I established the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who fixed its dimensions? Certainly you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? What supports its foundations? Or who laid its cornerstone while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

In this small portion of the passage, Yahweh speaks of the creation of earth, asking Job where he was when God was creating it?

Not only that, but Yahweh mentions that all the “morning stars” and “sons of God” were shouting for joy as He was creating the world we call home.

And so, because of this “morning star’s” inward rebellion, his internalizing of his pride and then spreading it to those around him, he caused the rebellion that God says got 1/3 of the angels in heaven to fall;

Revelation 12:1–9 HCSB

A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of 12 stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in labor and agony as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: There was a great fiery red dragon having seven heads and 10 horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. His tail swept away a third of the stars in heaven and hurled them to the earth. And the dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she did give birth he might devour her child. But she gave birth to a Son—a male who is going to shepherd all nations with an iron scepter —and her child was caught up to God and to His throne. The woman fled into the wilderness, where she had a place prepared by God, to be fed there for 1,260 days. Then war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels also fought, but he could not prevail, and there was no place for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was thrown out—the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the one who deceives the whole world. He was thrown to earth, and his angels with him.

But when he initial rebellion didn’t succeed, he had to settle for a plan b; ruling over the human race, which is why God gave Adam the warning, not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

True love and faithfulness has to have the ability to choose, to make a choice, and you can only choose when you have more than 1 option!

With Adam and Eve listening and obeying satan instead of God, the condition and nature of sin was introduced into the human genome, the genetic code of mankind, and has been genetically handed down to each new generation of human’s born on this earth.

The introduction of sin also disconnected us from God by causing our bodies and souls to become defiled, impure, a change from the state and condition of perfection and purity that He originally created us in so that He could be directly connected to us by and through our human spirit.

By being disconnected from God in this way, we “died”, although we are still “technically” alive because we are a soul living in an earth originated body. Think of it like having a cell phone that, although it’s battery is powering the device, because of a malfunction within it, it cannot connect to the cell towers around it or to any satellites that it might be able to use.

How Sin Affects Us

Sin, like a foreign disease introduced into the human family, affects our perspectives of self, of others, our understanding, our spirituality, it affects our desires, and our ACTIONS!

That’s not it however, we are also told that through the introduction of sin into our human nature, we have become enslaved to the original sinner, satan! By becoming disconnected from Yahweh the same way satan now was, we’re lumped together with him and are apart of his now rebellious family, and like those that rebelled with him, we are destined to be judged with them, and are to be forever imprisoned with those rebellious “angels” in the lake of fire at the final judgment.

It was this introduction of sin, of impurity and imperfection, into humanity that created the need for us to be delivered from God’s judgment on sin/error/rebellion, it created the need for us to be saved, that is, to be delivered from something that we are deserving off, but God desires to spare us from that, and to help us to become all He created and desires us to be!

Recap

**Created by God in perfection and purity

Sin introduced into our human condition through rebellion against God by listening to the original rebel and sinner, satan.

This placed us under a Perfect and Pure Creator’s Judgment, the need to remove those things and people who are corrupt, mistreat one another, and corrupt the world that He originally created, and is going to recreate in the future.

This created the need for us to be “saved”, that is to be delivered from God’s coming judgment on the impure and imperfect.**

Sin is more than just “sinful actions”, it’s a condition within our human bodies that causes us to be imperfect and impure, leading to imperfect and impure desires and actions.

Sin wasn’t something God came up with, but it was the outcome of making the choice to rebel against God, first by satan/lucifer, and then by Adam and Eve.

Because of this condition of sin, which is the cause of our impurity and imperfection before a Pure and Perfect Creator, it automatically condemns us from being in God’s Presence, and from entering into the next age/world where God renews and perfects everything yet again.

It is because of our condition of sin, which our actions display as proof and evidence against us, that we need to be “saved” since we cannot purify and perfect ourselves, like a broken car or having a fatal medical condition.

If you want to understand salvation better, what it takes to be saved and what it means to be saved, check out this next video and episode.