To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul,
in You I trust, O my God.
Do not let me be put to shame.
Psalm 25:1&2
What Is Sin?
‘Transgression’ is another word used. It is ‘pesha’ in Hebrew, or ‘paraptoma’ in Greek - betrayal where a relationship, treaty or expectation of good relations exists.
What would we like our relationship to others in the world to be like? In what ways might those who are being viewed in pornography feel about those who view them?
The Bible has another Hebrew word – ‘avon’/ ‘anomia’ in Greek – which can be translated as wickedness, sin or iniquity. It comes from a verb meaning, to be bent or crooked, out of shape or gone awry.
‘Sin’ is the usual translation for the Hebrew word ‘khata’ in the Old Testament or ‘hamartia’ in Greek New Testaments or translations. It means ‘to fail’ or ‘miss the target/goal’. If the whole of the Bible is about a relationship with God, who wants to love us and for us to return it, then we sin every time we don’t attain that goal. Every time we fail to honour God’s image in another person, we ‘sin’.
How much honour is given people who are in pornographic films or in chatrooms?..and indeed how much honour are the people frequenting them giving themselves? Noone is there to fulfil the design God had for them, are they? With a compassionate heart, I know that some people are trying to do the things that their God-designed bodies want...but they might not be able to to that in a fashion that brings dignity to everyone involved. That doesn't mean it's not sin.
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Sin Affects God's Plans
Sin can be seem as a rupture in the relationship between God and humanity or individual humans. I like to think of God’s plan for us as a loop, or circle – that He emanates love and purpose to us that we can then give back to Him in service, completing the loop. Where there is sin, that loop is broken. Christ came to restore the circle so that it can keep going. To mend that rift, the gap that represents the distance between what God wants for us and what we actually do.
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If we are required to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8), yet we live according to indulgence and selfishness and upend the principle of putting God first in all things, we are sinning. Our sin, our going a different way, our letting God down has massive consequences. When we really think about it... every thing we do that has consequences, which have consequences of their own,...it is a thing of horror. We can do nothing about the fact that we have done it and many people will be affected. God is the only One who can carry such a weight. Our sin is like a massive lump of metal that we carry, which, in its density weighs heavily…and sometimes takes us to hellish places. God, in His astonishing mercy, turns that metal into the nails that pinned Him to the cross.
There Is Hope
If this were all there is – the awfulness of God having to take our sin upon Himself and be punished as we deserve for all the consequences of it – then that would be the most miserable tale in history…but when we look deeper, we see that He takes that sin from us to set us free of it so that we can go ahead and be who he wants us to be. He tells us that his shed blood is the new covenant (Luke 22:20), a setting out of what God is showing He will do in relation to us. Our job in response is to accept it and what it means. We are told to drink of it each time we take communion. When we do, we acknowledge the severity of what we have done…but are simultaneously nourished and made ready for new life.
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For those of who you might happen to be here and not be Christian, perhaps this is language that makes zero sense. If that is the case, I will try, in my non-theological-seminary-trained way to make it simpler (it is a phenomenon that has been discussed in thousands of nuances and debated for centuries)....
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God is love. This means being compassionate, but also just. Love without justice would always leave someone hurt. If we break the law, we go to court and some kind of penalty is placed upon us. What if we can't pay the fine? The law court represents the judgment that we will all have to go through at the end of life. God gives us a way in which we can still have the eternal life that Jesus promised HIs followers. Jesus pays the price...for every single human on Earth's sin. He paid it when He allowed the Romans to crucify Him.
After that, He did not remain dead. He was brought back to life in the most astonishing event that ever hit this Earth. This was to represent death not defeating us.
