What is sin?
Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, any law of God, given as a rule to the reasonable creature.
Sin is one of those things that we know what it is until we are asked to define it.
As we consider this question we need to think about it in reference to two related laws. The singular law given in the garden to Adam (“thou shall not eat”) and the related law given to Moses after the exodus from Egypt. These two are related in terms of the sin that is exposed by each: original and actual.
The Westminster Confession of Faith says,
Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto, doth in its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God, and curse of the law, and so made subject to death, with all miseries spiritual, temporal, and eternal.
WCF, chapter 6, paragraph 6
Original sin comes to us (humanity) from Adam failing to keep the one law. His sin brought about the corruption of the entire human nature from which all the rest of humanity is born. As a descendant of Adam, we then, from our corruption, violate God’s law (delivered by Moses) which has as its purpose to reveal the sin of Adam in us and by which we commit additional, actual sins.
All original and actual sin is committed from the soul of man with or without the aid of the body. It is good to remind ourselves what blessedness we were created in before the fall. Calvin says it well,
…though the primary seat of the divine image was in the mind and the heart, or in the soul and its powers, there was no part even of the body in which some rays of glory did not shine. It is certain that in every part of the world some lineaments of divine glory are beheld and hence we may infer, that when his image is placed in man, there is a kind of tacit antithesis, as it were, setting man apart from the crowd, and exalting him above all the other creatures.
ICR – Book 1, chapter 15
We must, therefore, look deeper than sensual intemperance. The prohibition to touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a trial of obedience, that Adam, by observing it, might prove his willing submission to the command of God.
John Calvin, ICR Book 2 chapter 1
Now after the fall and in the state of sin and depravity instead of being set apart and exalted above other creatures we find that sin leads to the complete reversal. Humanity subjects itself to the lesser creatures, idols of all sorts.
The upside down condition of sin is really a sorry state of affairs. Paul says, “For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the Law, to perform them.’” (Galatians 3:10) Our condition is such that the solution cannot arise from within man himself. There is no part of man able or worthy to be used by God to redeem man. On this Calvin says,
Hence it follows, that that part in which the dignity and excellence of the soul are most conspicuous, has not only been wounded, but so corrupted, that mere cure is not sufficient. There must be a new nature. How far sin has seized both on the mind and heart, we shall shortly see. Here I only wished briefly to observe, that the whole man, from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, is so deluged, as it were, that no part remains exempt from sin, and, therefore, everything which proceeds from him is imputed as sin.
John Calvin, ICR Book 1 chapter 1
As desperate a situation as our fallen state is, even in redemption the taint of sin remains. It is not until we are wholly glorified that this condition is fully remedied. Our hope is certain for Christ has secured for us this blessing of our glorified state in the present reality of His resurrection – a promise to us of our own physical resurrection.
We close today with this future Hope and this present reality – the remaining corruption of our nature remains and thus we are always in need to draw near to Christ in confession, repentance and faith. The gospel is needed every day when the Law rightly condemns us but the gospel offers us the only solution – Jesus Christ and His finished work in our place.
This corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated; and although it be, through Christ, pardoned, and mortified; yet both itself, and all the motions thereof, are truly and properly sin.
Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 6 paragraphs 5
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