Spir Dynamics 1426-28; 423-5; Eph 752 2/23/88

DOCTRINE OF SIN

A. Definition.

1. Sin is anything contrary to the character of God, or acting independently of God and God’s provision, Rom 3:23b. Sin is coming short of God’s righteousness. The doctrine of sin in theology is called hamartiology.

2. All sins are not the same to God and never have been. God knew about all sins in eternity past. God knew simultaneously every sin that would ever be committed by every member of the human race.

3. While all sins are not the same to God, the solution to all sins is the same.

a. God is perfect righteousness. What the righteousness of God demands, the justice of God executes. The righteousness of God condemned all sins in human history. Therefore, the righteousness of God demanded that the justice of God judge sin.

b. Therefore, the justice of God judged every sin in human history in Christ on the Cross as a substitute for us. This is the doctrine of substitutionary atonement. All sins were imputed to the perfect human nature of Christ on the Cross. Christ accepted this imputation and the sentence. Our Lord accepted the imputation because He had impersonal love for all mankind.

c. Then God the Father judged every sin in human history after our Lord accepted the imputation of all sins to His humanity. Our Lord accepted the judgment of all our sins by God the Father because of His personal love for God the Father.

d. The justice of God judged every sin in human history, so that the love of God can provide the solution as expressed in the grace of God, Eph 2:8-9.

e. In eternity past, Jesus Christ as eternal God made four decisions:

(1) Substitutionary unlimited atonement—He agreed to go to the Cross and be judged for the sins of the world in His humanity.

(2) Propitiation—He agreed to satisfy the justice and righteousness of the Father.

(3) Reconciliation—He agreed to reconcile man to God through faith alone.

(4) Redemption—He agreed to free man from slavery to the sin nature by providing the redemption solution of salvation through faith alone in Christ alone.

4. There was no forgiveness at the Cross. There was judgment, judgment, judgment.

a. Forgiveness is separated from the Cross.

b. Forgiveness does not occur at the Cross. Forgiveness is a result of the Cross. Before the judgment of the Cross began, our Lord prayed to the Father from His humanity to forgive those who were crucifying Him. That was personal forgiveness from Him and not the same as forgiveness of sins at the moment of salvation.

c. Eph 1:7, “by Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace.”

(1) “Redemption” is in the accusative case. “Forgiveness” is in the accusative case.

(2) Therefore, this is an Attic Greek double accusative. This is the accusative of object and result. This is not Koine Greek. This is not an accusative of apposition. There is no such thing as an accusative of apposition in the Greek language.

(3) Forgiveness is the result of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ on the Cross. Redemption was the judgment on the Cross. Forgiveness is the result.

(4) Forgiveness occurs at the moment of salvation through the decision of mankind with regard to the salvation work of Christ.

d. All pre-salvation sins are forgiven the moment we believe in Christ.

e. All postsalvation sins are forgiven the moment we obey 1 Jn 1:9 and acknowledge our sins. God is faithful and righteous to forgive us because Christ never lost His perfect righteousness of His human nature while being judged for every sin of the human race. Not only does God the Father forgive us the sins we acknowledge, but He forgives us for all wrongdoing, that is, for all the sins we have committed which we did not know were sins.

f. All the sins of the unbeliever are never forgiven because this person never believes in Christ. These sins are never used in judgment of the unbeliever. They are not even mentioned because they were judged in Christ on the Cross. The unbeliever is judged because he has never believed in Christ and because of his good works, which add up to minus righteousness. The unbeliever has rejected the love of God, but the love of God has never rejected the unbeliever. 5. All sins are not the same, but the solution to all sins is the same—the salvation work of Jesus Christ on the Cross.

a. Pre-salvation sins are forgiven at the point of regeneration.

b. Postsalvation sins of the believer are forgiven at the point of rebound.

6. The sin nature controls the soul and we are carnal until we use the divine solution of rebound. When we rebound, we recover the filling of the Holy Spirit and move on in our spiritual life. Never look back; keep moving in the spiritual life.

7. God the Holy Spirit is grieved until we use the divine solution of rebound.

8. We become stiff-necked, stubborn, hard of heart, and have scar tissue of the soul until we use the divine solution of rebound. We are punished by God when we do not use the divine solution.

9. The old sin nature has an area of strength and an area of weakness. We are tempted in our area of weakness. The sin nature also has two trends: one trend toward self-righteousness and legalism, and another trend toward antinomianism and lasciviousness.

B. General Categories of Sin.

1. Imputed sin. The entire human race was counted guilty when Adam sinned, 1 Cor 15:22; Rom 3:23b, 5:12, “in Adam all die.”

2. Inherent sin, Rom 5:12a.

a. When Adam sinned he acquired an old sin nature. Therefore, the old sin nature was brought into existence by Adam.

b. The human race inherits the old sin nature through physical birth through the chromosomes of the father, Ps 51:5.

c. Every member of the human race retains the old sin nature after salvation.

d. Therefore, Adam is a sinner and saved through grace just as any other member of the human race.

3. Personal sin is a manifestation and result of having an old sin nature, 1 Jn 1:8-10. There are two kinds of personal sin: known sins and unknown sins or sins we commit in ignorance.

C. The Sequence of Sin.

1. Imputed sin results in spiritual death. When Adam sinned, the entire human race sinned. Therefore man is born spiritually dead and needs the new birth.

2. Inherent sin. When Adam sinned he acquired an old sin nature and brought the old sin nature into existence. The human race acquires an old sin nature because of physical birth.

3. Personal sin. The human race sins personally because of the presence of the old sin nature both before and after salvation.

D. The Work on the Cross Regarding Sin.

1. Imputed sin. In Adam we are counted guilty, 1 Cor 15:22, Rom 3:23, while in Christ we are counted not guilty, 1 Cor 15:22b, 2 Cor 5:21, Eph 2:1, 5-6.

2. Inherent Sin. Jesus Christ died with reference to everyone’s old sin nature. He made provision to handle sins from the old sin nature, 1 Jn 1:7. He rejected human good which comes from the old sin nature, Eph 2:8-9; Rom 4:4, 6:10, 8:8; Isa 64:6.

3. Personal sin. Jesus Christ bore the sins of everyone, 1 Jn 1:9, 2:2.

4. The penalty of sin, spiritual death, is replaced by the provision of spiritual life for anyone who believes in Christ, Rom 6:23; Mt 27:46.

E. The Issue of Sin.

1. For the unbeliever, the issue of sin is rejection of Christ as Savior, Jn 3:18, 36. This is the basis of their condemnation at the last judgment. Personal sin never condemns anyone to hell. 2. For the believer, the issue of sin is the utilization of the rebound technique, 1 Jn 1:9. 3. In the New Testament the word “sins” in the plural refers to personal sins as an action. The word “sin” in the singular refers to the old sin nature. (Rom 5:13 is an exception, here it refers to the principle of sin.)

F. The Origin of Sin.

1. God is not the author of sin or temptation, James 1:13-15. All sins come from the volition of the believer’s soul. The old sin nature only motivates the believer to sin. He does it of his own free will.

2. Sin originated with Satan through negative volition.

3. God created Adam and the woman in perfection. Both were free moral agents, just as Satan was. They could only sin by negative volition acting independently of God. When God created Adam and the woman, they were perfect beings and their point of reference with God was personal love. Once they sinned, they came under the impersonal love of God, but their point of reference with God was now God’s eternal, perfect justice.

4. God did not create Adam or the woman with an old sin nature. They acquired an old sin nature through negative volition.

a. They did not need an active conscious in the Garden. There was only one sin they could commit—rejection of the will of God.

b. When the original sin of mankind occurred, the justice of God created an invisible barrier between God and man. Justice creates the barrier because the justice of God is now the point of reference. The man and woman hid themselves from Jesus Christ in the Garden because there was a barrier between God and man.

c. The love that God now had for them was impersonal love.

5. The sovereignty of God and the free will of man are coexistent on the earth and come together at the cross. The ideal situation is when the free will of man meets the sovereignty of God at the cross. The sovereignty of God gave man free will to resolve the angelic conflict. Free will gave man the right to choose for himself even in opposition to the will of God.

6. Adam’s choice was made against God’s will, but God isn’t willing that any should perish, 2 Pet 3:9. Adam knew exactly what he was doing when he sinned; the woman did not have a clue, 1 Tim 2:14. This is why the sin nature is passed down through the male sperm.

7. If Adam had not sinned, would he have lived forever? No! Because eternal life only comes by faith in Christ.

8. False logic: God made all things; sin is a thing; therefore, God made sin. Sin is not a thing. Sin is acting independently of God either mentally or overtly. So God did not create sin, sin is a result of the negative volition of the free will of a creature.

9. At the point of physical birth the justice of God creates soul life and imputes it to biological life creating human life. Only God can create human beings. Simultaneously Adam’s original sin is imputed to the genetically formed sin nature.

a. Rom 5:12, “Therefore, just as through one man sin [the original sin] entered into the world and [spiritual] death, so death spread to all people because all sinned when Adam sinned.”

b. 1 Cor 15:22, “For in Adam all die [spiritual death], so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”

c. Physical birth is the moment of attainment of spiritual death; regeneration is the moment of attainment of eternal life. The gospel is the good news that the barrier between God and man has been removed.

10. The justice of God created a barrier between God and man when Adam and the woman sinned in the Garden.

a. This barrier is based on spiritual death. Every person is born behind the barrier between God and man and the justice of God is the point of reference for all mankind.

b. The virgin pregnancy and virgin birth allowed our Lord to be born without a sin nature or the imputation of Adam’s original sin, so that there was no barrier between the justice of God the Father and the humanity of Christ. Jesus Christ was born as Adam was created, 1 Cor 15:22, “In Adam all die; in Christ shall all be made alive.” Our Lord lived a perfect life, using the two power options and eight problem solving devices to resist all temptation and arrive at the Cross in a state of absolute perfection.

c. The justice of God the Father created this barrier and only the justice of God the Father can remove this barrier, and He does so by the salvation work of Jesus Christ on the Cross through the imputation and judgment of all personal sins in human history. 1 Pet 2:24; Isa 53:5-6.

d. The justice of God the Father called for the imputation of all sins of the human race to the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross. Our Lord removed the barrier of sin by bearing the punishment for our sins, so that sin is not the issue in salvation. This is seen at the last judgment where sin is not the issue in eternal judgment. The issue is not sin but the righteousness of God versus the righteousness of man for salvation. The unbeliever is judged because he has not believed in the uniquely-born son of God. Rom 5:8, “God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died as a substitute for us.”

e. Sin is not the issue in salvation; faith in Christ is the issue. Jesus Christ satisfied the justice of God the Father. God the Father was propitiated by the judgment of Jesus Christ on the Cross. Jn 3:18, “He who believes in the Son is not judged. He who does not believe is judged already because he has not believed in the uniquely-born Son of God.” Jn 3:36, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life. He who does not believe shall not see life but the wrath of God abides on him.”

(1) The reason that personal sins are not an issue is because Jesus Christ on the Cross received the judgment of every sin in human history.

(2) While personal sins are an issue in human life because they attack human freedom and human relationships, personal sin is not an issue in salvation or the last judgment.

(3) The justice of God that erected the barrier between God and man at the point of original sin is the same justice of God that removed the barrier at the Cross by the imputation and judgment of all sins.

(4) The justice of God that condemns is the same justice of God that saves at the moment of faith alone in Christ alone.

(5) The justice of God that saves the believer through faith in Christ is the same justice of God that condemns the unbeliever at the last judgment.

(6) Human volition and the justice of God meet at either salvation or at the last judgment, depending on whether a person believes in Christ or rejects Him.

f. The mechanics of the removal of the barrier:

(1) Spiritual death is removed by regeneration.

(2) Human self-righteousness is removed by the imputation of divine righteousness.

(3) Position in Adam is exchanged for position in Christ.

(4) Sin is removed by unlimited atonement, 2 Cor 5:14-15,19; 1 Tim 2:6, 4:10; Tit 2:11; Heb 2:9; 2 Pet 2:1; 1 Jn 2:2.

g. The removal of the barrier is called reconciliation, Eph 2:15- 16; Col 1:20; 2 Cor 5:18-19,21.

G. New Testament Categories of Sin.

1. Col 3:5-10, “Therefore, begin to put to death the members of your earthly body: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is on account of these things that the wrath of God will come, and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them. But now you also, put these all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him.”

a. Verse 5, “begin to put to death the members of the body,” is a reference to rebound, “the members of the body” being a reference to the old sin nature.

b. PORNEIA means fornication, that is, unnatural sexual vices, or any illicit sexual intercourse.

c. AKATHARSIA means impurity of mind, that is, mental adultery, or unnatural sexual lusts.

d. PATHOS means degenerate passions.

e. EPITHUMIA means evil lust or desires.

f. PLEONEZIA means having the will to have more, that is inordinate lust or desire.

g. ORGE means anger, generally caused by jealousy.

h. THUMOS means emotions in turbulence, tantrums.

i. KAKIA means depravity, evil directed toward someone.

j. BLASPHEMIA means to malign or slander the character of God.

k. AISCHROLOGIA means deformed or ugly speech; talk that hurts others.

2. Prov 6:12-19 teaches two categories of sin.

a. Verses 12-15 address the troublemaker. He is arrogant, jealous, implacable with revenge motivation which is evil. He is a gossip, and guilty of inordinate ambition and inordinate competition. The troublemaker is a disaster in the local church and in any organization. Troublemakers are always uptight. In their own mind, troublemakers are always better than everyone else.

b. Verse 12, “A worthless person, an evil man is one who walks with a false mouth.” This means that trouble making is often generated through the mouth in gossip, maligning, and judging. A false mouth emphasizes the sins of the tongue.

c. Verse 13 teaches that a troublemaker has body language. “He winks with his eye, he signals with his feet, he points with his finger.” Winking means you wink as you run down someone. To signal with the feet means to scape the feet, a custom we don’t have. It is rude to point the finger. All this is the body language of mockery, ridicule, and derision. A troublemaker gets his kicks by putting other people down. He himself is a slob, but he can put down other people.

d. Verse 14, “Perversity in his right lobe devises evil continually [or a better translation, “malice is in his right lobe; he devises evil at all times"]; he spreads strife.” Perversity is deviation from doctrine. The troublemaker does not go by what the Bible says is right and wrong. Some believers evangelize; some believers spread strife.

e. Verse 15, “Therefore, his destruction will come suddenly [divine discipline]; he will be broken instantly and there is no remedy.” First, the troublemaker suffers from self-induced misery under the law of volitional responsibility, but eventually he gets clobbered with divine discipline in three stages: warning discipline, intensive discipline, and eventually dying discipline. So either remain a troublemaker and be broken, or depart from it through the rebound technique.

f. Verses 16-19 list the seven worst sins in God’s eyes. Verse 16, “There are six things which the Lord hates; in fact, seven are an abomination to His soul.” As an anthropopathism, hatred describes the policy of God in terms of human modus operandi so we can understand it.

g. Verse 17, “A proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood,”

(1) A proud look is arrogance, which includes everything, e.g., bitterness, jealousy, vindictiveness, implacability, hatred, self- pity, etc.

(2) A lying tongue refers to malicious gossip and slander.

(3) Hands that shed innocent blood refers to murder.

(4) Note the pattern in verse 17, for it lists the three categories of sin: mental attitude sins, sins of the tongue, and overt sins.

(5) Murder is the only overt sin listed among the seven worst sins (not fornication). Murder deprives an individual of his right to live given to him by God at birth with the imputation of the spark of life to his soul.

h. Verse 18, “A right lobe that devises evil conspiracies, feet that run rapidly to evil,”

(1) There always frustrated people who become conspiratorial. When authority makes them feel uncomfortable, they do everything they can to undermine authority. This sin refers to children who undermine the authority of their parents, and of anyone else who undermines any authority over them.

(2) As a result of conspiracy, there is active civil disobedience. Feet running rapidly to evil refers to criminality, destruction of property and life in the name of some crusade.

i. Verse 19, “A false witness who utters lies, he who sows discord [strife] between the brethren.”

(1) Jews had the greatest system of jurisprudence in history. So a false witness who lies makes it impossible to bring out the facts.

(2) Sowing discord or strife between the brethren refers to playing one person against another.

3. 2 Tim 3:2-7 deals specifically with Christian sins. These are sins that occur in every church.

a. Verse 2, “For mankind will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked,”

(1) To be a lover of money doesn’t mean to appreciate money, but to sin in relationship to money, e.g., stealing money or being dishonest for monetary gain. (2) We live in a time when people are really ungrateful.

b. Verse 3, “unloving, implacable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good of intrinsic value,...” Unloving means you have no normal, natural love.

c. Verse 4, “treacherous, thoughtless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,”

d. Verse 5, “holding to a form of godliness although they have repudiated its power. Avoid such as these.”

(1) Holding to a form of godliness means they talk a good fight, full of pious “amens” and “hallelujahs.”

(2) The power of godliness is in the divine dynasphere. Such people have repudiated that power by being in reversionism and the cosmic system.

e. Verse 6, “For among them are those who creep into households and captivate silly women weighed down with sins led on by various lusts,”

f. Verse 7, “Always learning [gnosis], but never able to come to epignosis knowledge of doctrine.” They never get into life beyond gnosis, which is epignosis.

4. Sexual sins.

a. The Bible forbids fornication which is sex committed by an unmarried person. Fornication is prohibited in 1 Cor 6:18 and 1 Thes 4:3. Corinthians has so much to say about fornication because so many of those Christians were going into heathen temples and fornicating with the temple prostitutes. It was free and was part of the religion as the worship of the gods.

b. Adultery is prohibited, Ex 20:14; Deut 5:18. Adultery is sex committed by married persons.

c. Mental adultery can be committed constantly, as opposed to physical adultery. So in many ways, mental adultery is worse. It is prohibited in Mt 5:27-28. Mental adultery is perpetual adultery, in contrast to physical adultery which is intermittent.

d. Incest is sex committed between family members. It is forbidden in Lev 18:6-17, 20:14; Deut 27:20. Believers commit incest!

e. Homosexuality and lesbianism are sins committed by born-again believers. Homosexuality among men is absolutely a sin, and is forbidden in Lev 18:22, 20:13. Rom 1:26-27 forbids both homosexuality and lesbianism.

f. Bestiality means to have sex with animals, and it is a sin, Lev 18:23, 20:15.

g. Pimping and prostitution are sins, and not a legitimate business. They are forbidden in Lev 19:29; Deut 23:17.

h. Rape is a sin. Rape is defined as superimposing a sexual act on someone who has rejected you. It is generally committed by a male or a group of males. It is forbidden as a sin in Deut 22:25-27.

i. Some sexual acts that are sins are not mentioned as such in the Bible.

(1) Necrophilia which is sexual intercourse with a corpse.

(2) Pederasty is sexual intercourse between an adult and a child.

(3) Voyeurism is sexual gratification by watching others have sexual intercourse.

5. Emotional sins.

a. Fear is an emotional sin.

b. Worry and anxiety are emotional sins.

c. Anger is an emotional sin, and is always irrational.

d. Hatred is an emotional and irrational sin.

e. Violence is an emotional sin.

f. Murder is an emotional sin. Murder is related to sins that are not emotional, such as bitterness, jealousy, frustration, etc.

6. Other sin categories include sins of legalism, sins of revenge, sins of self-righteousness, sins related to rejection of authority, sins related to crime, sins of irrationality, sins of mental illness, and chemical sins (taking drugs).

a. Mentally ill people who murder ought to be executed, for they still had the use of their volition and their emotion by which they committed that sin of murder.

b. Chemical sins include the use of drugs such as opium, heroin, marijuana, cocaine, crack, acid, etc.

H. The Importance of Understanding Sin.

1. In living the Christian life, it is important to know what is a sin, so that:

a. You can avoid the temptation, recognizing it to be a sin.

b. You can rebound if you do sin.

2. So the more you know about sin, the closer the accounts you can keep with God. Understanding what sin is gives you the opportunity of building up resistance against it. You can identify what is sin in the temptation stage, and that helps you to resist it. However, the identification of temptation sometimes results in succumbing to that temptation, and so you sin.

3. Temptation in itself is not the sin, but the volitional act of succumbing to that temptation is sin.

4. The source of sin is human volition related to two categories.

a. Volition related to known sin is a sin of cognizance.

b. Volition related to unknown sin is a sin of ignorance.

5. When the believer commits a sin, identification of that sin makes the function of rebound possible. Remember that one of the problems in identifying sin is that many sins become accepted in a culture through many generations, so that they are no longer considered a sin by society; nevertheless, they are sins.

6. If you do not know a sin is a sin, you cannot rebound until you commit a sin you know is a sin. For the ignorant, that may take some time; and in the meantime they decline in their spiritual life, including going through the stages of reversionism and becoming involved in the cosmic system. So that by the time such a believer gets around to rebounding, he may be so deeply involved in reversionism that, though in the divine dynasphere briefly, he will get out again very quickly.

7. Remember that post-salvation sinning is the issue in rebound, i.e., the issue is not sins you committed before you were saved, but sins you commit after you are saved.

8. Don’t ever get the idea that you have reached sinless perfection, or that you sin infrequently. That very thought is the sin of arrogance.

a. 1 Jn 1:8, “If we say we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth [doctrine] is not in us.” We are not deceiving anyone else, only ourselves. One of the greatest problems in spiritual adolescence is self-deception. You think you’re good or even perfect, not realizing the many sins of self-righteousness of which you are guilty.

b. 1 Jn 1:10, “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.” So don’t kid yourself; as long as you live, you will have the sin nature in the cell structure of your body, and you will sin.

9. The only way to recover the filling of the Spirit and fellowship with God is through the rebound technique.

10. The only way to metabolize Bible doctrine and to advance to the life beyond gnosis is through the filling of the Spirit. The filling of the Spirit is the enabling power for the perception of doctrine, Jn 14:26, 16:12-14; 1 Cor 2:9-16.

11. Until the believer understands what the Bible calls sin, it is impossible for him to understand his experiential status quo. Too many people are committing sins and they are not aware that they are sins. Therefore, although they may rebound, they get out of fellowship instantly. This is an unstable situation, and not conducive to spiritual growth at all.

12. So as a royal priest, you must know what sin is so that you can deal with your own sins before the Lord in the use of the rebound technique.

13. Ignorance of one’s status in the protocol plan of God frustrates the function of the ten problem-solving devices, which hinders your advance to spiritual maturity where you become a winner and invisible hero.

14. In the rebound technique of 1 Jn 1:9, the believer takes the responsibility for his own decisions, including his own sins, and does not blame someone else for the function of his own volition. Too often, a woman blames a man who “gets to her,” as if she had no volition. Men do the same thing; they always like to blame the woman, as if they had no volition of their own. But you must always take the responsibility for your own decisions. You begin to do so when you are consistent in the use of the rebound technique.

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R. B. Thieme, Jr. Bible Ministries 5139 West Alabama, Houston, Texas 77056 (713) 621-3740

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