Sin

Heard in the wild

The longer version

What it means

Sin, in Christian teaching, has two layers. The obvious one is wrong actions: lying, cheating, cruelty, greed, and the rest. The deeper one is a condition: a bent away from God and toward self that every person is born with and can't fix on their own. Christians call the first "sins" (plural) and the second "sin" (singular, sometimes "the sin nature" or "original sin"). When a preacher says everyone is a sinner, he means the second layer — not that everyone has done something terrible, but that no one is naturally pointed the right way.

The word's root in both Hebrew and Greek means "to miss the mark" — an archery image. Sin is falling short of the target, not just breaking a rule.

Why people say it

Because the whole Christian story depends on it. If nothing is wrong with people, Jesus is unnecessary. Christians name sin not because they enjoy guilt but because they believe it's the accurate diagnosis, and that a right diagnosis is what makes the cure make sense. That's why a Christian can say "I'm a sinner" without despair: the sentence is usually followed, spoken or unspoken, by "and I'm forgiven."

How to respond

If a Christian calls something you did a sin, they're using their moral vocabulary, and you're free to disagree. If they call themselves a sinner, they're not fishing for reassurance; "aren't we all" is a fine reply, and they'll probably laugh. Don't assume that someone who talks about sin is judging you. In the church, the most frequent target of the word is the speaker.

If you hear it in different churches

Universal, with different emphases. Catholics distinguish mortal sin (serious, deliberate, breaks the relationship with God) from venial sin (lesser) and have the sacrament of confession for dealing with both. Orthodox Christians tend to describe sin more as sickness than crime — a wound needing healing. Reformed and evangelical churches stress the depth of the condition ("total depravity"). All agree on the two layers.

Where does “Sin” come from?

The Hebrew chata and Greek hamartia both mean to miss a mark or go astray. Sin first appears by name in Genesis 4:7, where God warns Cain that "sin is crouching at your door." Paul's summary in Romans 3:23 — "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" — is the verse most often quoted. The doctrine of original sin, that the human condition itself is fallen from birth, was developed by Augustine in the 400s from Romans 5 and Psalm 51:5 and shaped all of Western Christianity; the Eastern church holds a related but softer view, "ancestral sin."

Good to know

You might also hear

Common questions

Further reading

• Romans 7 — Paul's famously honest account of struggling with sin (Logos)(affiliate)