What is Sin? – Part 1

Sin is often seen as being wrong action. However, sin is much more a disposition, a nature, which gives rise to the wrong desires that influence and control our actions. In Romans 6:6, Paul says that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. The Wuest translation says …in order that the physical body dominated by the sinful nature might be rendered inoperative. The Living Bible says …that part of you that loves to sin was crushed and fatally wounded. This “old man” or “body of sin” is also referred to as “original sin” by some scholars.

Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible attempts to describe “the body of sin” in Romans 6:6 in the following manner:

That the body of sin - This expression doubtless means the same as that which he had just used, “our old man,” But why the term “body” is used, has been a subject in which interpreters have not been agreed. Some say that it is a Hebraism, denoting mere intensity or emphasis. Some that it means the same as flesh, that is, denoting our sinful propensities and lusts. Grotius thinks that the term “body” is elegantly attributed to sin, because the body of man is made up of many members joined together compactly, and sin also consists of numerous vices and evil propensities joined compactly, as it were, in one body. But the expression is evidently merely another form of conveying the idea contained in the phrase “our old man” - a personification of sin as if it had a living form, and as if it had been put to death on a cross. It refers to the moral destruction of the power of sin in the heart by the gospel, and not to any physical change in the nature or faculties of the soul; compare Col. 2:11.

The book of Romans is considered by many Christians as being the master-work of Paul. It is in the book of Romans that Paul takes on the subject of sin – to the extent that the word “sin” appears in Romans more than any other book of the New Testament. In the book of Romans the verb form of the Greek word for sin, hamartanō (G264), appears only seven times. Whilst the noun form, hamartia (G266), appears forty eight times. A verb is a word that denotes an action, whilst a noun is a person, place or thing. Clearly, Paul is emphasising sin in the book of Romans as a state of being rather than something we do or don’t do.

The theologian Andrew Murray wrote an analogy in his classic book, Absolute Surrender, about the soul of man being like a pen that God holds and writes with: if we still have hold of the pen then God cannot write with the pen properly. In other words, God can’t move in our lives the way He would like to. Therefore, how can God bless or guide us when we have a disposition, or nature, of sin?