"Satan and sin command powerful forces over people." That statement is not biblical. It is Satan's lie.
Neither Satan
nor sin commands real power. Sin is
simply a thought or action directed by the person sinning. Satan wants us to think he controls the
world, claiming dominion through Adam’s sin.
In believing his lie, we grant him influence over our birthright and
credit him for making us sin. Actually, God
retains control over everything. Additions
to the biblical stories attribute God’s authority to something inside creation.
That is idolatry.
The Bible
stories credit God for the creation of everything. If everything truly meant everything, then
from the beginning, “everything” included sin and death.
God does not
sin (transgress law) nor does He force any person to sin (James 1:13 -15). Yet, God is responsible for giving humans the
ability to sin and become evil.
God is not
“too holy” to look on sin. That is a
religious addition. Sin never repulsed
God. Our all-knowing God deliberately spoke
to Adam and Eve after they sinned, then He taught them to make clothing to
relieve their discomfort. If God is
everywhere, then He is with each person while they sin. He is with us when we do evil. Without the capability to experience sin and
evil, His children would not be able to choose “goodness,” His image.
Satan knows our
animalistic cravings overwhelm self-control.
His whispers twist our desires to justify the want of possessions and
power. We stop resisting temptation and
do the work for him.
To preserve
reputation, people bend truth and embrace deception. They incorporate lies to hide behind a veil
of “good-ness.” We divert blame onto
someone else. We humans even kill to
conceal guilt. Evil becomes normal, and truth
turns loathsome. In a life filled with
evil thoughts, the soul is lost in the distortion.
Sin and evil
are similar but not the same. Sin is a
choice that goes against law (James 4:17 ;
Romans 5:13 ; 1 John 3:4) with a
distinction made between accidental sins and defiant sins. On the other hand, evil is a choice to
manipulate or harm someone for selfish gain or without just provocation. Sin is not always evil, yet evil always begins
as sin.
Eve sinned
before she touched the fruit and so did Adam, because they chose to
disobey. God let them. When Adam saw that Eve did not die, he trusted
his eyes and her taste buds over the command of God. They sinned against God’s law before either
knew evil.
Eating the
fruit gave Adam and Eve knowledge like God’s, the ability to choose between
good and evil. That knowledge came with
a price: shame. They realized they were
no longer innocent, so their spiritual self-image became distorted. Without something (repentance) to cleanse
within, sin slowly killed their souls.
The first
translation of the Old Testament was into Greek, and the New Testament was
written in Greek. This was done so more
people could read the message. However,
because of that, an outside definition of “sin” influenced, and still
influences, our understanding.
The most
common word for sin in the Hebrew depicts actions that are bad or evil because
they oppose God’s ways. Other words
imply actions that are morally wrong, cause guilt, or are rebellious. Such actions deserve punishment under Law
because they defy Law.
The literal
meaning of the word “sin” in Greek is “miss the mark,” or figuratively, “an
ethical error.” Too many Christians live
under the curse of “Greek sin.”
Imperfections become sin, where mistakes reap the consequence of eternal
punishment. Every denomination has
rituals to offset this outcome, but the next mistake returns guilt onto the
petitioner, which require more rituals (1 John 5:17 -18).
Most mistakes
are not sins. As in mathematics, 2+2=5
is wrong; correct the error and continue.
We make mistakes, but sin requires deliberate trespass against a law set
by an authority and held by community.
God asks us to repent. Do not
intensify what God simply erases.
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