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852. Escaping From a Consciousness of Sins

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This week, church pastors around the world will be providing sermons about sin, sinning less, seeking more forgiveness because of new sins, and perhaps erroneously declaring how sin is separating you from God. Avoiding sinful behavior is good advice, but there is more to the story. The letter to the Hebrews reveals how the blood of Jesus put sin away once for all. Although all people would continue to fall short of the perfect and holy standard that the law of commandments required, the cross dealt with sin in such a way that Jesus and the Father would not have to deal with it ever again.

If forgiveness from God is still needed for new sins committed, more blood would also have to be spilled. Jesus would not be required to keep offering Himself repeatedly for the forgiveness of sins because the cross would finish the need for more blood being shed. He paid for an eternal redemption—redeeming the Jews from a ministry of death and condemnation—and opening the door for Gentiles to also partake of a New Covenant. The old, obsolete law of works with ongoing sacrifices brought a reminder of sins and left people trapped within a sin consciousness which Jesus came to deliver people from.


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What is the Definition of Sin?

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What is sin?

Some define sin as transgression of God’s law. “We need to keep the law because ‘sin is lawlessness’” (see 1 John 3:4). Okay, but which law?

“We have to keep all of the commands.”

Including the ones about not wearing poly-blend clothing or eating bacon?

“Well, not those ones. But at least the Ten Commandments. Plus everything Jesus said.”

But the Bible says we are not under law (see Rom. 6:14). Which means we can’t use the law to define sin.

“What…?”

And since the law is not of faith, we might say that trying to live under the law is itself a kind of sin (see Gal. 3:11–12).

“You’re breaking my brain.”

What you misdiagnose, you mistreat. If you define sin as law-breaking, you’ll think the remedy to sin is law-keeping. But to live under the law is to walk after the flesh.

We are supposed to look to the Lord, not the law, which means you cannot use the law as a guide for holy living. In the Holy Spirit you have a better Guide by far.

Which brings me back to my original question.

What is sin in the Bible?

In the Bible, the word sin can be a verb (an action) or a noun (a thing). Let’s talk about sin as a verb. Those with a legal mindset define sin (or sinning) as law-breaking, while moral people tend to define sin as immoral behavior. But this is not how the Bible defines sin.

The original verb for sin (hamartano) means to miss the mark and not share the prize. But what is the mark that we are supposed to hit and what is the prize?

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)

What does it mean to sin? To sin is to fall short of the glorious life God has for us (to paraphrase the Message Bible).

God has divine life; we do not. His life is whole, good, and perfect, but our lives are bruised and broken.

Because we fall short, we miss the mark and don’t get to share in the divine life that God wants for us. This falling short is called sin.

All of us are sinners and none of us can live at God’s level. It’s impossible. But the next verse reveals God’s plan for closing the gap:

And all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:24, NIV)

The sinful life is what we have; the glorious life is what he offers, and this new life comes to us through the grace of Jesus Christ.

TL:DR: We are all sinners, but we are freely justified (made right with God) by grace.

Sin is a fruit

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve turned their back on God and the result was sin and death.

Sin and disobedience are the fruit of distrust. Adam and Eve did not believe God and chose the path of independence. Ever since then, humans have been operating from a baseline of self-trust (what the Bible calls walking after the flesh) and the result is sin.

The remedy for sin is to turn back to God and receive the grace he freely offers. Those who do this hit the bullseye and receive the prize. They are made new and get to share in his divine life (2 Pet. 1:4).

Now that we know what sin is (missing the mark), it will help to identify what sin is not. Sin is not merely doing bad things, because any time we walk after the flesh we miss the mark – even when we are doing good.

Nor is sin merely breaking the rules. The devil does not really mind if you are a reckless law-breaker or a religious law-keeper. As long as you are walking after the flesh you are going to fall short of the life God has for you.

What is the definition of sin? It is not rule breaking or acting immorally as much as it is walking by sight and leaning on your own abilities and understanding. It is trusting in yourself and living without regard for the things of God.

And who is a sinner? A sinner is not merely someone who does bad things. A sinner could just as easily be a churchgoer or charity worker, or a Pharisee and a publican. There are good sinners and bad sinners but they are all sinners alike if they are relying on themselves and living independently of God.

Until we come to Christ and receive by faith the gracious gift of his life, we remain dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1).

How is sin a noun?

There are two ways that sin is a noun (hamartia). First, if you rake all your sins, trespasses, offenses, and mistakes into a big stinky pile, what you have is a noun: your sin.

Here is the first thing the New Testament says about your sin:

Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people (Matthew 12:31a)

All sinners have a pile of sins, and some piles are bigger than others. But on the cross the Lamb of God bore your sin and my sin and now there are no more piles. Thank you, Jesus!

Because Christ “gave himself for our sins” and “died for our sins”, God is no longer in the business of holding our sins and trespasses against us (1 Cor. 15:3, 2 Cor. 5:19, Gal. 1:4).

You may have sinful regrets, and sin still has consequences – don’t be fooled into thinking otherwise. But the good news is that God chooses to remember our sins and lawless deeds no more (Heb. 10:17). As far as he is concerned, they don’t exist.

Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. (Romans 4:7–8)

“But what about the sin that I sinned just this morning?”

God has no record of that sin. Your conscience may keep a record, and the devil may keep a record, but love keeps no record of wrongs.

Sin as a tyrant

There is another way that sin is a noun. In the Bible, sin is sometimes described as a personality with desires, intelligence, and an agenda.

God told Cain that sin was crouching at his door (Gen. 4:7). Paul described sin as a tyrant with lusts and a desire to master you (see Rom. 6:14).

In the book of Romans, the word sin or sins appears 47 times and on all but one occasion it is a noun. Sin wants to enslave you, deceive you and kill you (Rom. 6:6, 17, 20, 7:14, 7:11). Paul was not talking about a sinful nature or some impersonal power. He was describing Satan.

Both sin and Satan seek to devour us (Gen. 4:7, 1 Pet. 5:8) and kill us (Rom 7:11, John 8:44). But the good news is that both sin and Satan have been defeated by Jesus (Heb. 9:26, John 12:31).

In Christ, you have been freed from sin (see Rom. 6:7). You are not freed from sinning but from sin the tyrant. Because there has been a change of government, you are free to sin no more. You don’t have to obey your former master.

From time to time, we all stumble. The difference now is that when you sin, your new master speaks in your defense.

If anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. (1 John 2:1)

When you sin, Jesus speaks to defend you. He does not do it to justify sin, but to justify you and to remind you that you have been freed from sin.

Since you died with Christ, you are a sinner no more. You are a new creature, with a new heart and new desires to please the Lord.

Now go learn to speak the new language of the new covenant and be who you truly are – a saint and a dearly-loved child of God.

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Does Sin Hinder our Prayers?

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Ever heard this one: “God is holy. If you have unconfessed sin in your life, he will not hear your prayers.”

It’s. Not. True.

If sin made God deaf, no sinner could be saved. They would pray the sinner’s prayer, but God wouldn’t hear them.

Pray all you like, but I’m not listening. Lalalala. I’ve got fingers in my ears.

Imagine if you had to confess all your sins before God would listen. Most people would die of old age before they were done! And there would be no guarantee you got them all.

Sorry, kiddo. You forgot a sin from the summer of ’82. You’re toast.

“Confess your sins so that God will hear you.” What a stupid theology. Forgive me for getting agitated, but this sort of nonsense leaves people crippled with guilt and condemnation. It causes them to hide from their Father in fear.

Imagine if Jesus had not listened to sinners.

“Sorry, woman-with-a-hemorrhage, I can’t heal you because there’s unconfessed sin in your life.”

“Sorry, woman-caught-in-the-wrong-bed, I can’t stop these men from stoning you.”

“Peter, James, John, I can’t hear a word you’re saying. What’s that, Judas? I see your lips moving but I can’t hear you.”

Jesus is the exact representation of God the Father. If the Son listened to sinners, it’s because the Father listens to sinners. He hears our prayers. Every single one.

God hears us because he loves us

But didn’t David say, “If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened” (Ps. 66:18)? Keep reading:

Hear my prayer, O Lord, give ear to my supplications! Answer me in your faithfulness, in your righteousness! And do not enter into judgment with your servant, for in your sight no one living is righteous. (Ps. 143:1-2)

David, knowing that he was not righteous, asked God to hear him on account of his righteousness, and God did. Your heavenly Father hears your prayers not because you are good but because he is good and he loves you.

But what about that verse that says, “God does not hear sinners” (John 9:31)? The Jews believed that, but Jesus didn’t. He said things like “When you pray” as if we are to pray all the time, and he told stories to encourage us to pray (Matt. 6:7, Luke 18:1, 10-14).

The Bible never discourages prayer. Instead it says things like “devote yourselves to prayer” (Col. 4:2), and “pray continually” (1 Th. 5:17). Only one person is looking for excuses to get you not to pray, and it’s not the Lord.

Okay, what about John. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Keep reading:

I am writing to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven you for his name’s sake. (1 John 2:12)

In the new covenant you are not forgiven because you confess; you are forgiven on account of Jesus’ name.

This idea that we have to confess or cleanse ourselves before God will hear us, forgive us, or receive us comes straight out of the old covenant. See the cross. Your sins are there, every last one of them, including all the sins you confessed and all the sins you didn’t.

What really hinders prayer

Jesus said, “And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive” (Matt. 21:22).

The number one hindrance to prayer is not sin but unbelief, and notice that unbelief is not a hindrance to God hearing us but us receiving from him.

We need to pray with faith. We need to pray believing that God hears our prayers no matter who we are or what we’ve done because of who Jesus is and what he has done.

When John says confess he means “agree with God.” Agree that Jesus has dealt with all your sins once and for all. Agree that God is good and he longs to be good to you. Agree that your Father loves you and cares for you and he hears your prayers.

You may say, “But I don’t know how to pray. I’m afraid I will pray wrong.” Here’s Brennan Manning writing in The Ragamuffin Gospel:

There is no such thing as bad prayer…. A little child cannot do a bad coloring; nor can a child of God do bad prayer.

Your heavenly Father loves it when you talk to him. Whatever is on your mind, you can tell him all about it.

Talk to him about your hurts and worries, your hopes and dreams.

Tell him about your secret fears and struggles.

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from him. (1 John 5:14-15)

The key word in that passage is confidence. You can be confident of your Father’s goodness, and you can be confident when you pray.

Whatever your need today, ask your heavenly Father for help. Ask with the confidence that he hears your prayers and rides across the heavens to help you (Deu. 33:26).

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Escape to Reality is entirely free thanks to the support of our readers. Patrons gets bonus articles like these:

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5 Myths about God’s Forgiveness

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No religion preaches the complete forgiveness of sins like Christianity. You might say it’s one of our unique selling points.

So why do we do such a bad job with it?

We tell people God may forgive them if they say the right words and keep on the straight and narrow, and then we try and pass off this awful message as though it were good news.

Newsflash: telling people they have to work for divine favor is neither news nor good. In fact, it’s bad news because there is nothing you can do to atone for your sins. Happily, the good news is so much better.

Here are five things the Bible says about forgiveness, and five things it doesn’t.

Myth 1: God may forgive you

Manmade religion manipulates people with carrots (God might forgive you) and sticks (he might not). It’s an ancient racket that leaves people anxious and susceptible to extortion (give us your money and service). But if we preached the true meaning of forgiveness, we would disarm religious bullies and liberate those whom Jesus loves.

Here are two related questions: When were you forgiven? And when were your sins carried away? The answer to one is the answer to the other because forgiveness has to do with the removal of sins.

On the cross your sins were carried away by the Lamb of God. This is Christianity 101, yet most Christians don’t know it. Instead of thanking Jesus for carrying all their sins – past, present, and future – they’re begging him to do what he’s already done. They need to hear the good news:

I am writing to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven you for his name’s sake. (1 John 2:12)

God may forgive you? Look to the cross. He already did!

Myth 2: God’s forgiveness comes with price tags

Prior to the cross, Jesus preached conditional forgiveness to people living under the old law-keeping covenant. “If you forgive, God will forgive” (Matt. 6:14). But on the cross Jesus fulfilled the righteous requirements of the law so that we might live under a new and better covenant of grace.

Instead of preaching a law that never applied to us in the first place, we ought to tell people what Jesus said after he rose from the dead: “The forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to all nations!” (Luke 24:47). Do you see? Your forgiveness is a done deal. This is the good news the apostles proclaimed all around the world:

Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. (Acts 13:38)

Forgiveness is not a reward to be earned but a gift we receive by faith (Acts 10:43). You can’t work for it because Jesus did it all.

Myth 3: God forgives in instalments

The standard maintenance myth goes like this: “God forgave some of your sins, but now it’s up to you to keep the ledger clean.” How do you do that? You have to be good and faithful. You have to give and serve. You have to repent and confess.

Now those are all good things, but if you think doing them earns you forgiveness, you’re captive to superstition and unbelief. You need to repent from your dead works and agree with God’s Word.

The Lord “pardons all your iniquities” (Ps. 103:3). All means all. Before he died, Jesus prophesied that all sins would be forgiven (Mark 3:28), and on the cross his prophecy was fulfilled (Heb. 9:16). Here’s the good news:

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace. (Eph. 1:7)

You have been completely and eternally forgiven through the blood of the Lamb (Heb. 9:12). God doesn’t forgive on the instalment plan. In Christ, you are as forgiven as forgiven can be.

Myth 4: God only forgives some people

The Catholics say only those who confess are forgiven and the Protestants say the same thing! What does the Bible say?

“Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). To forgive means to carry or take away sins and Jesus carried all our sin. There’s no sin he did not bear. “He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself” (Heb. 7:27).

Some people hold onto their sins as though they were unforgiven, but as far God is concerned, all our sins were dealt with at the cross (Heb. 9:26). Here’s the good news:

He himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. (1 John 2:2)

Propitiation means satisfied. Because of Jesus, the demands of justice have been fully satisfied. Once upon a time the world was under the condemnation of sin, but God has forgiven all sin and there is nothing left to forgive. If God is satisfied with the sacrifice of the Son, let us be satisfied too.

Myth 5: God forgives but never forgets

Ah, the ol’ videotape chestnut. You know the one. “One day God will play a tape showing all your secret sins.” Yeah, that’s great news. Just terrific.

Beware this fake news! There are no videotapes because love keeps no record of wrongs (1 Cor. 13:5). You may have regrets that keep you awake at night, but God remembers your sins no more (Heb. 8:12, 10:17).

God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. (2 Cor. 5:19)

Here’s the good news: Your heavenly Father loves you more than you know. The only tapes he has on you are highlight reels!

During his time on earth, Jesus went around forgiving people who had done nothing to deserve it, and while he hung on the cross he forgave those who put him there. The Son of God did this to give us a picture of what true forgiveness looks like; it looks like love.

This is the good news the Church ought to be preaching to a world condemned by sin and guilt. “God holds nothing against you! He loves you and wants you to enjoy his love.”

What can we say in response to this happy news? There is only one thing:

“Thank you, Jesus.”

Want to go deeper? Check out the Bonus Materials for this article on Patreon.

812. The 800 Club: Looking Back – Repentance and What It Means Under Grace

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We grace renegades often get accused of not talking about repentance enough. That’s really not accurate, but what comes to mind when you hear the word repent? If you’ve spent at least a few weeks in a church building, most likely you’ve been under the assumption that to repent means to stop sinning and start living a better and improved moral standard. That’s great advice, but is this the core of what repentance is supposed to be about? We revisit the meaning of repentance in the Greek and how this ties into what Jesus was trying to get the Jewish people to do when He told them to “repent and believe the good news.”

The gospel isn’t about attaining right-standing with God through what we do … or what the Jewish people were attempting to do by the works of the law. Repentance involves a change of mind by realizing the more excellent ministry of the New Covenant—which ended a religious merit system—and to begin trusting in what Jesus did to bring us to a place of righteousness and perfection.



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Why Do We Need A Personal Revelation of Grace?

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My friend Michelle asked me a great question the other day after observing someone who doesn’t seem to understand grace yet. “I have a question….the message that God loved you just for you was not something you had never heard before.  Why do u think it didn’t register for all that time previous?  What was […]

Why Do We Need A Personal Revelation of Grace?

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My friend Michelle asked me a great question the other day after observing someone who doesn’t seem to understand grace yet. “I have a question….the message that God loved you […]

Why Do We Need A Personal Revelation of Grace?

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My friend Michelle asked me a great question the other day after observing someone who doesn’t seem to understand grace yet. “I have a question….the message that God loved you […]

My Dramatic Presentation This Morning and God’s Great Grace

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Get ready for a laugh, cuz I’m about to get real. This morning I woke up super negative because last night I was thinking, “Ok! When I get these few last things checked off my list I’ll be all caught up!” But suddenly I remembered I am suppose to be gathering information for a certain […]

752. Hebrews 10: Forgiven and Sanctified (Jesus Sat Down)

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When the commandments which came through Moses were still in effect during the first covenant, every priest under the law stood daily while offering the same sacrifices over and over which could never take away sins. The only time a priest would be allowed to sit is if there were no further forgiveness needed for sin … of course, that never happened.

But Jesus offered one (1) sacrifice for sins resulting in forgiveness … and not just up until that moment … but all sins for all time. Afterwards, we find His offering was more than enough as our new High Priest sat down at the right hand of God. The job was truly complete, and the work of forgiveness was finished, once for all. It also gifted us with instant sanctification and perfection—something the law could never do, no matter how hard one tried to keep it.



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736. Hebrews 2: Don’t Neglect Such a Great Salvation

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In the second program of our series in Hebrews, we find the writer reminding these new Jewish believers about their past covenant when every transgression or act of disobedience was rewarded with a just punishment. But it’s always compared and contrasted with the solution found within the Person of Jesus Christ. He is where salvation is found and He is the solution to the previous problem with sin.  The writer is laying a foundation as to why they do not want to disregard such a great deliverance. Jesus is superior to the former priesthood and covenant which was established with Israel through Moses.



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715. Grace Is Never Dangerous

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The bad news police who are established in a legalistic mindset will caution believers in Christ that too much teaching about God’s grace will lead to an unhealthy and perilous plight. Their tangled view of the testaments wrongly assumes grace needs to be balanced with law.

We’ve been supplied with an abundance of grace for a reason and it has no connection to law or a rules-based religion.



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