What is sin?

John says plainly that sin is lawlessness (anomia). It means living as though God's rightful order did not apply to us. The first sin in Eden was exactly this: hearing God's command and setting it aside.

Sin is anything out of line with what is right and just. This widens the picture: sin includes injustice toward others, not only offenses aimed directly at God.

Sin is not only doing wrong but leaving good undone. Jesus' parable of the sheep and goats judges people for what they failed to do for the hungry, the stranger and the prisoner.

Paul says that whatever is not done from faith is sin. Acting against what we sincerely believe God wants damages our relationship with Him, even when the act itself might be allowed for someone else.

Humanity was made in God's image to reflect His glory. Sin means we fall short of that calling. Paul links salvation to the restoration of this glory: we are being changed 'from glory to glory'.

Jeremiah pictures God as a spring of living water. His people abandoned the spring and dug cracked cisterns that hold no water. Sin is choosing something lesser in place of God, which is why the Bible often calls it idolatry.

Jesus teaches that evil comes from within. Outward acts grow from inward desires, so real change has to reach the heart.

In Romans 5–8, Paul writes of Sin almost as a person: a ruler that reigns, pays wages, and holds people as slaves. This is why the gospel is called freedom and rescue, not only forgiveness.

From Genesis onward, sin and death belong together. To turn from the source of life is to move toward death. Christ's resurrection is God's answer to both.

Here sin breaks God's just law and makes us guilty before the Judge. Jesus teaches us to pray 'forgive us our debts', and Paul pictures the record of our debt nailed to the cross. The answer to guilt is forgiveness and justification: God declares the guilty right with Him through Christ.

This picture is strongest in Western teaching, both Catholic and Protestant. Its strength is moral seriousness: sin is not merely unfortunate, it is wrong, and God's justice is real.

Here sin is a wound that spreads. Isaiah describes Israel as sick from head to foot. Jesus calls Himself a physician who came for the sick. The answer to sickness is healing: a slow restoration of the whole person by God's grace.

The early Greek fathers loved this picture. Athanasius taught that turning from God, who is life, sets humanity sliding toward corruption and death, so the Word became flesh to heal human nature from the inside.

Here humanity is held captive by Sin, Death and the devil. The answer is liberation: Christ defeats the powers and sets the captives free. This is why the early church sang of Christ 'trampling down death by death'.

The serpent asks, 'Did God really say you must not eat from any tree?' God had said the opposite: eat freely from every tree but one (2:16). Temptation begins by shrinking God's generosity and enlarging His restriction.

Eve adds 'or even touch it' to God's command. Many commentators note how quickly the command starts to feel heavier than God made it. A God imagined as harsh is easier to disobey.

'You won't die!' The serpent then claims God is holding back something good: 'you will be like God, knowing good and evil.' The irony is that humanity was already made in God's likeness (1:26). Sin grasps for what God intended to give as a gift.

The fruit is good for food, pleasing to the eye and desirable for wisdom. John later echoes these three: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life (1 John 2:16). Jesus faced the same three in the desert and did not fall.

The promised 'open eyes' only reveal nakedness. The couple hide from God, and when questioned, Adam blames Eve and even God ('the woman You gave me'), and Eve blames the serpent. Sin isolates, and then refuses responsibility.

The first words God speaks to sinners are a question: 'Where are you?' He announces consequences, but also the first promise of a Redeemer (3:15) and clothes them with skins. The early church called 3:15 the protoevangelium, the 'first gospel'.

A doctor who did not hate cancer would not love the patient. God's wrath is the shape His love takes toward what ruins His creatures. That is why the same God who judges sin also gives His Son to bear it (Romans 5:8–9).