Jesus Is the Bridge Ministries

Key Verses Matthew 18:15 Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.

Matthew 6:12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

Psalm 51:4 Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

When I was a young man, I thought, at one point, that the terms used in traditional churches, like "sin", were passé, and that we should invent a new vocabulary. As I matured in the Lord, though, I realized that efforts to use new words for old ideas were really just ways to water down, and avoid, the truths of the Gospel. After thousands of years of creation, sin is still sin. But -- just what is it?

At its heart, sin is not so much an action, or any set of actions, as a way of life. Yes, breaking the commandments is sin, but the reason why we break them is because that's our nature, the sin nature inherited from Adam. In the broadest sense, sin is rebellion against God, breaking fellowship with him by refusing to acknowledge him as ruler of our lives. Within the broad definition, the Bible uses several terms to characterize different aspects of sin.

To "trespass" means to go beyond the bounds. When we do something that causes hurt to someone else, when we "invade their space", we are committing a trespass. There is an old saying, "your liberty ends at the end of someone else's nose", which roughly conveys the idea. A trespass is an active sin, a sin of commission, based on doing something we should not do.

A "debt" involves not paying something we owe. As Christians, we are to demonstrate to others the same measure of love and compassion that Christ showed toward us. When we fail to do that, or when others fail to act in a loving way toward us, we incur a debt. These are sins of commission, though, in point of fact, all sin involves incurring a debt to God. That was the point of David's cry for forgiveness.

The actual sins David committed were against Uriah the Hittite; he stole the man's wife and had him murdered. Whenever we sin, though, it is ultimately charged to our account by God, and only God can wipe the slate clean, and remove the sin from our charge. That makes us all debtors; no matter how "good" someone may seem to be in our eyes, God says we have all sinned, and fallen short of his glory. The idea of "coming short", or "falling short" is another concept of sin, and means that, no matter what kind of efforts we make, we always fall short of God's standards. The only way of meeting those standards, of closing the gap between us and God, is in Jesus Christ. The consequence of not "closing the gap" is always the same; eternal death, passed in the lake of fire. Would we not much rather choose the gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ?

Jesus Is the Bridge Ministries

What's New

What Is Sin?

The Bible's Answers to Man's Questions