Study Focus:Ps. 119:93, 94; Eccles. 7:29; Matt. 7:24–29; Rom. 3:20.
A story is told of twin boys who learned from early childhood that all pleasure was sin. All their actions were restricted by stringent rules: do not read this book, for it is sin; do not eat that food, for it is sin; do not laugh, for it is sin; do not go to that place, for it is sin.
When these two boys grew up, their paths in life diverged. One brother developed a great fear of the forbidden and hardly dared to venture outside of his house for fear of coming into contact with morally, and physically, contaminating influences. He even was afraid to open the windows of his room and dared not eat widely of the produce sold in the market. He finally died young from being overly abstemious.
The other brother, however, suffered from the opposite problem. He developed a strong attraction for the forbidden. He experimented with drugs, binged on alcohol, and frequented all sorts of casinos and seedy dives. He developed a gustatory relish for certain proscribed foods. It was not too long before the young man got sick and died from overindulgence.
Was the education the boys received so very wrong? After all, shouldn’t we do our best to avoid sin? What was essentially wrong with their education is that they never learned what sin really was. Nor did they understand why sin was evil; thus, they weren’t equipped to fight against it. In this lesson, we will address what sin is and how to overcome it.
Part II: Commentary
What Is Sin, and Why Is Sin Evil?
Failing to Identify Sin. When we fail to call sin by its name, we add to the problem of sin. For instance, if we fail to call adultery a sin, we run the risk of minimizing its threat and, worse, of normalizing it.
The problem of failing to call sin by its name is particularly rampant in many cultures today. In secular society, we may avoid using the term “sin” for a number of reasons. First, secularized society may avoid the term “sin” because it has religious connotations. For most people, sin does not exist; it implies something that is forbidden by God or by religion. For most people who do not believe in God and do not adhere to the moral standards of religion, there is no such thing as sin. They speak of mistakes, crimes, ethical or social misbehaviors, but not of “sins.” From their perspective, a discussion of sin is, therefore, irrelevant or even is perceived as an attack on their liberties. However, one of the dire consequences of our refusing to acknowledge sin is remaining ignorant of evil. Thus, for the secular mind, the motivation for refraining from making a “mistake” is not because it is bad or evil; rather, refraining is simply a matter of social, or civic, consideration. The secular mind doesn’t know that it sins, because it has no knowledge of what the Bible calls the “fear of God.”
When Abraham traveled to a foreign land, he worried that he would be mistreated because the people there did not have the fear of God (Gen. 20:11) presiding over their hearts. Thus, the concept of “sin” was foreign to them. Just because the concept was foreign to them does not mean, however, that those who ignore sin are not responsible for their sins. Even if those who are ignorant of their sins do not believe in the God of Israel, this same God will judge them, just as surely as He will judge His people (Amos 1, 2). As for those who know that they “sin” and yet refuse to recognize it as such, but say that they have not sinned, God promises that He will make His case against them (Jer. 2:35).
Sin as a Distortion. The Hebrew word for sin kḥt’ means literally “missing the mark.” “Sin” is understood as a “deviation,” or a “distortion,” from the original “straight” way. Ecclesiastes describes the human condition as tragically “crooked”; it is irreparable: “What is crooked cannot be made straight” (Eccles. 1:15, NKJV). For this reason, the act of committing “sin” is connected with the problem of “forgetting,” referring to a past situation that is irredeemable, lost as it is to the passage of time. Hence, the existence of numerous biblical passages wherein the prophet urges God’s people not to forget, lest they fall into sin unawares (Deut. 6:12, Deut. 32:18; compare with James 1:24).
Sin Against God. In ancient Israel, sin was a religious act that concerned God directly, as, for instance, idolatry (Deut. 9:16) or disobedience to God (Deut. 1:41). Injustice, or ethical misbehavior against people, was also considered sin against God.
When Joseph resisted the lustful overtures of Potiphar’s wife, who tried to entice him to sleep with her, he identified her proposition not only as a crime against her husband but as a sin against the Lord (Gen. 39:9). When David committed adultery against Bathsheba and had her husband, Uriah the Hittite, killed, he later understood that by doing so, he had sinned against the Lord (2 Sam. 12:13).
Later in Old Testament history, the prophets confronted nations and Israel for committing violent crimes and unethical acts that harmed others (Amos 1:11, Amos 2:6–8). Micah even goes so far as to emphasize the superiority of the ethical duty over the religious ritual (Mic. 6:6–8).
The New Testament continues in the same line. For Jesus, if we sin against our neighbors or fail to take care of them, it is as if we sinned against or neglected Him (Matt. 25:45). For Paul, when you sin against the brothers, “you sin against Christ” (1 Cor. 8:12, NKJV). Even when we sin against ourselves in our own body, we sin against God. The reverse is also true: the first sin committed by Adam against God had an impact on his life and on his environment (Gen. 3:17–19). Sin is the cause of death for all humans (Gen. 2:17), a principle that will be repeated again and again in the Bible (Prov. 8:36, Ezek. 18:4, Rom. 5:12). Because our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, to sin against our body is to sin against God (1 Cor. 6:18, 19).
How Can We Fight Sin?
Knowledge of Sin. We can do nothing against sin in our own strength. Thus, the first solution to the problem is simply to recognize sin and to acknowledge that its very nature is evil. For that purpose, we need the law of God. For only “by the law is the knowledge of sin” made manifest (Rom. 3:20). The law is thus compared to a “tutor” who will bring us to Christ (Gal. 3:24, NKJV). Just as the tutor in ancient Greek society was to lead the child to his master, the law of God will lead us to Christ. As we strive in that struggle with the law of righteousness, we will realize how difficult it is and how hopeless we are. We will then realize that our only hope is to embrace God’s grace.
The Way of Adam and Eve. Let us consider Adam and Eve’s confession of sin. On one hand, we may infer that they realized they had broken God’s law because they hid themselves from the presence of a righteous God (Gen. 3:6–10). On the other hand, when God asked them to present themselves and then commenced to conduct His investigation as to what happened, they both responded by charging God with their wrongdoing. Adam referred to his nakedness, which was the original state in which God created him to exist (Gen. 2:25), and then to the woman, who had been given to him by God (Gen. 3:12). Eve blamed the serpent, who had been created by God (Gen. 3:1, 13).
The only passage that discloses the effect of sin on the nature of Adam and Eve is found in Genesis 3:22, 23, in which God notices that Adam and Eve were originally like God. (Note that the Hebrew verb hayah, translated “has become” in Genesis 3:22 [NKJV], should be translated as “was” in the past tense, just as in Genesis 3:1). The common translation “has become” wrongly suggests that the sin marked an improvement in their condition and status. In addition, such translation gives the impression that the serpent was right when he warned Eve that God did not want her and Adam to become like Him (Gen. 3:5). In reality, God deplores the tragic reality that, after sin, Adam and Eve have lost their likeness to Him. Only God acknowledges, then, the real negative effect of sin on them. Adam and Eve were unable to make a confession of sin because they had lost their connection with God. As long as Adam and Eve had not sinned, their connection with God allowed them to discern the reality of sin. As soon as they departed from God’s presence, they lost their capacity to discern between good and evil. As Ellen G. White comments: “By the mingling of evil with good, his [Adam’s] mind had become confused, his mental and spiritual powers benumbed. No longer could he appreciate the good God had so freely bestowed.”—Education, p. 25.
The basic lesson we learn from the fall of humanity is simply this: because humans have sinned, they have lost their innate sense of discernment, the capacity to distinguish between good and evil. So, apart from God, we are unable to exercise that judgment successfully. For this reason, God gave us the law and the gospel. We need the law to guide us in the right direction. Likewise, we need the grace of Christ to help us walk with hope and love in that direction.
Part III: Life Application
Teacher’s Tip: Ask for a volunteer to read the reflections on sin below. Permit time for discussion of the related questions that follow or for the sharing of testimonies as indicated below.
**For Reflection: Is Sin Ever Not Sin?**
A Christian man committed adultery. When his friends confronted him with his infidelity, he insisted that it was not sin because he loved the woman. Because God is love, the man argued that what he did was approved by God. Later, this man got involved with another woman, and then subsequent women after that. When his friends confronted him again on these latest developments and asked him whether God was still approving, the man responded that he did not believe in God anymore.
For Discussion:
Think of cases in your life, and in the lives of friends or in the news, in which sin is justified and even portrayed as a good action. What is the effect of such attitudes on the moral fabric of society? Why is this thinking so dangerous?
Think of cases from the Bible, history, and current events in which the dismissal or decriminalization of a person’s sin led to an increase in his or her misery.
What arguments would you use to help someone face the reality of his or her sin?
For Reflection: Sin and Happiness. On the basis of his work on the connection between ethics and happiness, psychiatrist Henri Baruk concluded, “One finds happiness in doing good to others. We are not happy when seeking our own happiness. The man who seeks happiness will never find it” (Henri Baruk, in Shabbat Shalom, December 1996).
Ask class members to give testimonies about the happiness they achieved from doing good to others.
Resolve to help someone in physical, financial, or spiritual need this week.
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Key Text: Matthew 5:17, 18
Study Focus: Ps. 119:93, 94; Eccles. 7:29; Matt. 7:24–29; Rom. 3:20.
A story is told of twin boys who learned from early childhood that all pleasure was sin. All their actions were restricted by stringent rules: do not read this book, for it is sin; do not eat that food, for it is sin; do not laugh, for it is sin; do not go to that place, for it is sin.
When these two boys grew up, their paths in life diverged. One brother developed a great fear of the forbidden and hardly dared to venture outside of his house for fear of coming into contact with morally, and physically, contaminating influences. He even was afraid to open the windows of his room and dared not eat widely of the produce sold in the market. He finally died young from being overly abstemious.
The other brother, however, suffered from the opposite problem. He developed a strong attraction for the forbidden. He experimented with drugs, binged on alcohol, and frequented all sorts of casinos and seedy dives. He developed a gustatory relish for certain proscribed foods. It was not too long before the young man got sick and died from overindulgence.
Was the education the boys received so very wrong? After all, shouldn’t we do our best to avoid sin? What was essentially wrong with their education is that they never learned what sin really was. Nor did they understand why sin was evil; thus, they weren’t equipped to fight against it. In this lesson, we will address what sin is and how to overcome it.
Part II: Commentary
What Is Sin, and Why Is Sin Evil?
Failing to Identify Sin. When we fail to call sin by its name, we add to the problem of sin. For instance, if we fail to call adultery a sin, we run the risk of minimizing its threat and, worse, of normalizing it.
The problem of failing to call sin by its name is particularly rampant in many cultures today. In secular society, we may avoid using the term “sin” for a number of reasons. First, secularized society may avoid the term “sin” because it has religious connotations. For most people, sin does not exist; it implies something that is forbidden by God or by religion. For most people who do not believe in God and do not adhere to the moral standards of religion, there is no such thing as sin. They speak of mistakes, crimes, ethical or social misbehaviors, but not of “sins.” From their perspective, a discussion of sin is, therefore, irrelevant or even is perceived as an attack on their liberties. However, one of the dire consequences of our refusing to acknowledge sin is remaining ignorant of evil. Thus, for the secular mind, the motivation for refraining from making a “mistake” is not because it is bad or evil; rather, refraining is simply a matter of social, or civic, consideration. The secular mind doesn’t know that it sins, because it has no knowledge of what the Bible calls the “fear of God.”
When Abraham traveled to a foreign land, he worried that he would be mistreated because the people there did not have the fear of God (Gen. 20:11) presiding over their hearts. Thus, the concept of “sin” was foreign to them. Just because the concept was foreign to them does not mean, however, that those who ignore sin are not responsible for their sins. Even if those who are ignorant of their sins do not believe in the God of Israel, this same God will judge them, just as surely as He will judge His people (Amos 1, 2). As for those who know that they “sin” and yet refuse to recognize it as such, but say that they have not sinned, God promises that He will make His case against them (Jer. 2:35).
Sin as a Distortion. The Hebrew word for sin kḥt’ means literally “missing the mark.” “Sin” is understood as a “deviation,” or a “distortion,” from the original “straight” way. Ecclesiastes describes the human condition as tragically “crooked”; it is irreparable: “What is crooked cannot be made straight” (Eccles. 1:15, NKJV). For this reason, the act of committing “sin” is connected with the problem of “forgetting,” referring to a past situation that is irredeemable, lost as it is to the passage of time. Hence, the existence of numerous biblical passages wherein the prophet urges God’s people not to forget, lest they fall into sin unawares (Deut. 6:12, Deut. 32:18; compare with James 1:24).
Sin Against God. In ancient Israel, sin was a religious act that concerned God directly, as, for instance, idolatry (Deut. 9:16) or disobedience to God (Deut. 1:41). Injustice, or ethical misbehavior against people, was also considered sin against God.
When Joseph resisted the lustful overtures of Potiphar’s wife, who tried to entice him to sleep with her, he identified her proposition not only as a crime against her husband but as a sin against the Lord (Gen. 39:9). When David committed adultery against Bathsheba and had her husband, Uriah the Hittite, killed, he later understood that by doing so, he had sinned against the Lord (2 Sam. 12:13).
Later in Old Testament history, the prophets confronted nations and Israel for committing violent crimes and unethical acts that harmed others (Amos 1:11, Amos 2:6–8). Micah even goes so far as to emphasize the superiority of the ethical duty over the religious ritual (Mic. 6:6–8).
The New Testament continues in the same line. For Jesus, if we sin against our neighbors or fail to take care of them, it is as if we sinned against or neglected Him (Matt. 25:45). For Paul, when you sin against the brothers, “you sin against Christ” (1 Cor. 8:12, NKJV). Even when we sin against ourselves in our own body, we sin against God. The reverse is also true: the first sin committed by Adam against God had an impact on his life and on his environment (Gen. 3:17–19). Sin is the cause of death for all humans (Gen. 2:17), a principle that will be repeated again and again in the Bible (Prov. 8:36, Ezek. 18:4, Rom. 5:12). Because our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, to sin against our body is to sin against God (1 Cor. 6:18, 19).
How Can We Fight Sin?
Knowledge of Sin. We can do nothing against sin in our own strength. Thus, the first solution to the problem is simply to recognize sin and to acknowledge that its very nature is evil. For that purpose, we need the law of God. For only “by the law is the knowledge of sin” made manifest (Rom. 3:20). The law is thus compared to a “tutor” who will bring us to Christ (Gal. 3:24, NKJV). Just as the tutor in ancient Greek society was to lead the child to his master, the law of God will lead us to Christ. As we strive in that struggle with the law of righteousness, we will realize how difficult it is and how hopeless we are. We will then realize that our only hope is to embrace God’s grace.
The Way of Adam and Eve. Let us consider Adam and Eve’s confession of sin. On one hand, we may infer that they realized they had broken God’s law because they hid themselves from the presence of a righteous God (Gen. 3:6–10). On the other hand, when God asked them to present themselves and then commenced to conduct His investigation as to what happened, they both responded by charging God with their wrongdoing. Adam referred to his nakedness, which was the original state in which God created him to exist (Gen. 2:25), and then to the woman, who had been given to him by God (Gen. 3:12). Eve blamed the serpent, who had been created by God (Gen. 3:1, 13).
The only passage that discloses the effect of sin on the nature of Adam and Eve is found in Genesis 3:22, 23, in which God notices that Adam and Eve were originally like God. (Note that the Hebrew verb hayah, translated “has become” in Genesis 3:22 [NKJV], should be translated as “was” in the past tense, just as in Genesis 3:1). The common translation “has become” wrongly suggests that the sin marked an improvement in their condition and status. In addition, such translation gives the impression that the serpent was right when he warned Eve that God did not want her and Adam to become like Him (Gen. 3:5). In reality, God deplores the tragic reality that, after sin, Adam and Eve have lost their likeness to Him. Only God acknowledges, then, the real negative effect of sin on them. Adam and Eve were unable to make a confession of sin because they had lost their connection with God. As long as Adam and Eve had not sinned, their connection with God allowed them to discern the reality of sin. As soon as they departed from God’s presence, they lost their capacity to discern between good and evil. As Ellen G. White comments: “By the mingling of evil with good, his [Adam’s] mind had become confused, his mental and spiritual powers benumbed. No longer could he appreciate the good God had so freely bestowed.”—Education, p. 25.
The basic lesson we learn from the fall of humanity is simply this: because humans have sinned, they have lost their innate sense of discernment, the capacity to distinguish between good and evil. So, apart from God, we are unable to exercise that judgment successfully. For this reason, God gave us the law and the gospel. We need the law to guide us in the right direction. Likewise, we need the grace of Christ to help us walk with hope and love in that direction.
Part III: Life Application
Teacher’s Tip: Ask for a volunteer to read the reflections on sin below. Permit time for discussion of the related questions that follow or for the sharing of testimonies as indicated below.
**For Reflection: Is Sin Ever Not Sin?**
A Christian man committed adultery. When his friends confronted him with his infidelity, he insisted that it was not sin because he loved the woman. Because God is love, the man argued that what he did was approved by God. Later, this man got involved with another woman, and then subsequent women after that. When his friends confronted him again on these latest developments and asked him whether God was still approving, the man responded that he did not believe in God anymore.
For Discussion:
For Reflection: Sin and Happiness. On the basis of his work on the connection between ethics and happiness, psychiatrist Henri Baruk concluded, “One finds happiness in doing good to others. We are not happy when seeking our own happiness. The man who seeks happiness will never find it” (Henri Baruk, in Shabbat Shalom, December 1996).