I was reading over chapters 3 and 4, and was planning initially to highlight a few things, but god changed my plans. I was unable to find a good thought train while on a dull moment at work, and then my computer decided last night that it was going to very ever so slowly catch up on about two years of windows updates, therefore leaving me unable to type thoughts. Then I started reading the text again, and thinking about the garbled start to what was the first attempt of this post in looking at the difference between wrong and sin. Needless to say, God had a few more lessons in store for me last night. I hope I am able to portray what He allowed me to begin to see and understand last night.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sin, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wrong
I added some links to sites with definitions of Sin and wrong. I feel that these to items, while often are one in the same, there needs to be a distinction drawn about what sin actually is. Sin has a lot to do with knowledge, as I will discuss more in a moment.
In looking at Genesis 3, we can read the story of the first sin. The rule of no eating or touching (translation depending) of the fruit of the tree was the first and only recorded rule on earth at this time, making this the law. Disobedience to that law is both wrong and a sin. The law here is exactly God's will. Sin specifically deals with an action that is against God. You can put the parentheses marks up to add to the "PC-ness" or call it a religious thing, but regardless, that is what distinguishes something that is simply wrong from what is a sin. While Christians are to live according to God's law, and therefore what is sin is always wrong, this is not to say that all wrong is a sin. If that were the case I might have studied a lot harder for several exams! The Key difference is who is defining the law. Is it God's law or man's? Ephesians states that the LOVE of money is the root of al evil, however man's law would tell you otherwise. I just want to make a distinction between wrong and sin examining more what sin is.
As sin is going against God's will, it requires us to know what God's will is. The tree that Eve ate from was said to be the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. That first act of was the first time in which men acted against God's will while simultaneously gaining knowledge of waht right and wrong, good and evil is. It is hard to imagine that the only sense of right and wrong before sin was the one command that God gave based on the rather rule driven society that we live in today. I am distracting myself a little too much from the point, and Genesis as well, but I wanted to point draw attention to the fact that knowledge has a lot to do with sin.
Romans 3:20 "For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin."
This verse shows that there is a knowledge of Sin. It is that knowledge that made Adam and Eve feel ashamed in the Garden. We hide from God's calling just as much as Adam and Eve did. Man's laws orginally were an attempt to lead us to living more Christ like, and gradually we became tainted in this and the laws were what were keeping us from Him. Romans describes this very well...
Romans 5: 12 "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— 13for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. ...18Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. 20Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. "
This is also summerized well in Hebrews. (See below) What Christ did was allow us to be under God's grace, rather than punishment for law breaking, both God's and man's in taking the punishment for us.
Hebrews 7:18-19 "The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God."
Romans 6:14 "For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace."
Ok, I feel I have discussed the topic of sin a lot, so I hope I didn't beat it to the ground, but I know there is also a lot of questions with it too, as I am still learning.
Leaving the Garden was in part our punishment, we were to begin to work the earth for out food, but also to keep us from the tree of life, which would give eternal life. God did not want us to live forever in sin. In a way I can see this was a way of protecting us too, this allowed us to recieve grace from Christ sacrifice and live forever with Him.
I want to comment a little on Cain and Abel before I sign off. There story is strangely amusing to me in that it really nails in the fact that humanity didn't do so well from the start. I find it interesting here that Cain begins to try to define what is pleasing to God. Cain became jealous of his brother, that his brother was pleasing God more than he was. This is where many of us still have troubles today. We judge ourselves based on others, and fall into a trap of more sin as a result. (Chapter 4:7) Now most of us do not kill out of jealousy, but do we not judge, covet, gossip, lie, steal, cheat, etc.
Also I want to look a little at why Cain sacrifice was not as pleasing to the Lord. Some may say it is what was sacrificed, meat vs. plant, but I feel this is not the case as Cain was not able to sacrifice meat out of his work and God would not punish him for that. Instead, I feel God understood something about Cain's intensions and sincerity. For example, Proverbs 21:27 "The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination; how much more when he brings it with evil intent." Just something to think about.
God Bless,
Monica
