What Is Sin? The Bible's Answer
Missing the mark, crossing the line, falling short — what Scripture means by its most uncomfortable word.
The Bible defines sin as lawlessness — “sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4) — and measures its reach universally: “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Its wage is death, “but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Scripture names the disease precisely because it has the cure.
The mark we miss
Scripture’s main words for sin picture an archer missing the target: falling short of the glory of God — the life of perfect love for God and neighbour we were made for. Sin is therefore wider than crimes; it includes good left undone (“to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin”) and wrong desired though never acted, as Jesus showed when he traced murder to anger and adultery to the look.
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
Deeper than deeds
The Bible locates sin upstream of behaviour, in the heart: “out of the heart proceed evil thoughts,” Jesus said, listing the catalogue. That is why rule-keeping alone never cures it and why David, after his worst season, asked for creation rather than correction: “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” Sin is a condition before it is a count of offences.
For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
Named to be forgiven
The Bible’s honesty about sin is severe mercy: the wages of sin is death — and the same verse pivots to the gift of God. Christ died for our sins; if we confess, he is faithful and just to forgive and cleanse. Scripture never diagnoses without prescribing. The one denial it warns against is claiming no sin at all — “we deceive ourselves” — because the self-declared healthy skip the physician.
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Quick answers
- Are all sins equal?
- All sin separates from God and needs the same grace (James 2:10), but Scripture recognises degrees of gravity and consequence — Jesus spoke of “greater sin” (John 19:11) and weightier matters of the law (Matthew 23:23).
- What is original sin?
- The doctrine, from Romans 5:12, that Adam’s fall brought sin and death to all his descendants — we sin because we are sinners, not the reverse. David traces it to his origin: “in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5).
- How do I deal with my sin?
- Scripture’s path: confess it honestly (1 John 1:9), receive Christ’s forgiveness (Romans 6:23), and walk in the Spirit who wars against the flesh (Galatians 5:16) — repeating as needed, with an Advocate retained (1 John 2:1).
