Theological Term of the Week: Sin

sin
Rebellion against God; any failure to conform to, or transgression of, any law of God.  

• From scripture:

Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. (1 John 3:4 ESV)

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

• From the Westminster Larger Catechism:

Question 24: What is sin?

Answer: Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, any law of God, given as a rule to the reasonable creature.

• From Systematic Theology by Louis Berkhof, page 232:

Sin always has a relation to God and His will. The older dogmaticians realized that is was impossible to have a correct conception of sin without contemplating it in relation to God and His will, and therefore emphasized this aspect and usually spoke of sin as “lack of conformity to the law of God.” This is undoubtedly a correct formal definition of sin. But the question arises, Just what is the material content of the law? What does it demand? If this question is answered, it will be possible to determine what sin is in a material sense. Now there is no doubt about it that the great central demand of the law is love to God. And if from the material point of view moral goodness consists in love to God, then moral evil must consist in the opposite. It is separation from God, opposition to God, hatred of God, and this manifests itself in constant transgression of the law of God in thought, word and deed. The following passages clearly show that Scripture contemplates sin in relation to God and His law, either as written on the tablets of the heart, or as given by Moses….

• From Daily Doctrine by Kevin DeYoung, page 116:

Sin is another name for that hideous rebellion, that God defiance, that wretched opposition to the Creator that crouches at the door of every fallen human heart. Sin is both a condition, inherited from Adam (Rom. 5:12-21), and an action, manifesting itself in thought, word, and deed, which, when full-grown, gives birth to death (James 1:15).

In simplest terms, sin is lawlessness (1 John 3:4). It means we have broken God’s commands and have fallen short of his glory (Rom. 3:23). But sin goes deeper than merely missing the mark. Sin is idolatry (Col. 3:5; 1 John 5:21). It is worshiping false gods, whether these deities are overt and physical, of more subtle and internal. Sin can also be considered adultery, a spiritual whoring after other lovers and other sources of satisfaction and meaning (Ezek. 16:15-42). Sin is pollution (James 1:27). Sin is pervasive (Rom. 3:9-20). And sin is the problem in the universe.

Learn more:

1. Got Questions: What is the definition of sin?
2. Don Stewart: What Is Sin?
3. Tim Challies: The Essential: Sin
4. R. C. Sproul: What Is Sin?
5. Tom Schreiner: What Is Sin?
6. Paul Carter: What Is Sin?

Related terms:

• fall of humanity
• image of God
• noetic effects of sin
• original sin
• total depravity

Filed under Anthropology

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Sunday Hymn: Jesus Shall Reign

Jesus shall reign wher­e’er the sun
Does his suc­cess­ive jou­rneys run;
His king­dom stretch from shore to shore,
Till moons shall wax and wane no more.

To Him shall end­less pray­er be made,
And prais­es throng to crown His head;
His name like sweet per­fume shall rise
With ev­ery morn­ing sac­ri­fice.

People and realms of ev­ery tongue
Dwell on His love with sweet­est song;
And in­fant voic­es shall pro­claim
Their ear­ly bless­ings on His name.

Blessings abound where’er He reigns;
The pri­son­er leaps to lose his chains;
The wea­ry find eter­nal rest,
And all the sons of want are blest.

Where He dis­plays His heal­ing pow­er,
Death and the curse are known no more:
In Him the tribes of Ad­am boast
More bless­ings than their fa­ther lost.

Let ev­ery crea­ture rise and bring
Peculiar hon­ors to our king;
Angels des­cend with songs again,
And earth re­peat the loud amen.

—Isaac Watts

Theological Term of the Week: Sensus Divinitatis

sensus divinitatis
A sense of God that all human beings are born with because they are created in the image of God; also called sensus, for short, or sense of deity. 

• From scripture:

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened (Romans 1:21 ESV).

[H]e has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end (Ecclesiastes 3:11 ESV).

• From Institutes of the Christian Religion (1.3.1) by John Calvin

That there exists in the human minds and indeed by natural instinct, some sense of Deity, we hold to be beyond dispute, since God himself, to prevent any man from pretending ignorance, has endued all men with some idea of his Godhead, the memory of which he constantly renews and occasionally enlarges, that all to a man being aware that there is a God, and that he is their Maker, may be condemned by their own conscience when they neither worship him nor consecrate their lives to his service. Certainly, if there is any quarter where it may be supposed that God is unknown, the most likely for such an instance to exist is among the dullest tribes farthest removed from civilisation. But, as a heathen tells us, there is no nation so barbarous, no race so brutish, as not to be imbued with the conviction that there is a God. Even those who, in other respects, seem to differ least from the lower animals, constantly retain some sense of religion; so thoroughly has this common conviction possessed the mind, so firmly is it stamped on the breasts of all men. Since, then, there never has been, from the very first, any quarter of the globe, any city, any household even, without religion, this amounts to a tacit confession, that a sense of Deity is inscribed on every heart. Nay, even idolatry is ample evidence of this fact. For we know how reluctant man is to lower himself, in order to set other creatures above him. Therefore, when he chooses to worship wood and stone rather than be thought to have no God, it is evident how very strong this impression of a Deity must be; since it is more difficult to obliterate it from the mind of man, than to break down the feelings of his nature,—these certainly being broken down, when, in opposition to his natural haughtiness, he spontaneously humbles himself before the meanest object as an act of reverence to God.

• From Covenantal Apologetics by K. Scott Oliphant: :

We know God not because we have reasoned our way to him, or have worked through the necessary scientific procedures, or have inferred his existence from other things that we know; rather, we know him by way of his revelation. We know what God is like “because God has shown it” to us.

The knowledge we have of God is knowledge that he has given to us. It is “implanted’ in us, “engraven” in our minds, “naturally inborn” in all of us, “fixed deep within” us, a knowledge “which nature permits none to forget.” As Creator, God has guaranteed that he will never be without witness to the creatures who have been made in his image. He has ensured that all of his human creatures will, and will always, know him. 

The sensus, then, is not a doctrine or teaching that is learned, but rather something that is present within us “from our mother’s womb.” Such is the case because this knowledge is not dependent on us to be acquired; it is givenby God. So we have the sensus because we are God’s image and God implants the knowledge of himself within each of us as his image. And this knowledge is, ipso facto, universal and infallible; to say otherwise would render those in Adam excused before God (cf. Rom. 1:20)

Learn more:

1. Got Questions: What is the sensus divinitatis?
2. Bruce P. Baugus: Is This Life All There Is?
3. John Frame: Unregenerate Knowledge of God
4. Louis Berkhof: The Knowability of God

Related terms:

• general revelation
• image of God
• noetic effects of sin

Filed under Anthropology

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Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured as a Theological Term of the Week? Email your suggestion using the contact button in the navigation bar above. 

Clicking on the Theological Terms button above the header will take you to an alphabetical list of all the theological terms.