6 Part Entry: My Theology pt. 3 Doctrine of Sin

Hamartiology comes from the Greek word “hamartia” meaning “sin.”  There are three prevalent metaphors used to describe sin.  These are the Legal Metaphor, the Relational/Familial Metaphor, and the Cultic/Worship Metaphor.  The Legal Metaphor describes sin as a breaking of the Law of God.  When one sins, he or she is breaking a code that God has laid down.  When we break the law, we must have justification and forgiveness.  The Relational/Familial Metaphor describes sin as a breaking of the relationship or covenant that we have with God.  This would imply that we need reconciliation and adoption to undo the sin.  The Cultic/Worship Metaphor views sin as that which makes us unclean before God.  This means we would have to be cleansed or washed with blood and sanctified.  All three views share a different perspective on sin and should be balanced.  No one of them is absolutely right or absolutely wrong.  They ought to be balanced.  We can emphasize one but never at the exclusion of another.

      All wrongdoing is considered sin.  According to 1 John 5:17, anything that is harmful or hurtful to others can be considered sin.  But there are certainly different kinds and degrees of sin.  There is sin as a state.  It can be inherited corruption and inherited guilt.  We are born sinful and are responsible for that sin.  There is also sin as an act.  These can be willful sins that deliberately and purposefully done.  There are also sins of surprise where one sins out of shock.  The individual wasn’t intending to sin or thinking about sinning.  Finally, there is sin as infirmity.  These are the sins that we commit without ever knowing we are sinning.  They are unintentional.  These different kinds of sins carry different amounts of weight.

      The Bible explicitly talks about humanity having sin from birth.  This is original sin and is mentioned in Psalm 51:5, Genesis 6:5, and many other passages.  There are a few different definitions for original sin.  One is the phenomenological definition which defines sin as a bent or an orientation towards rebellion and disobedience and selfishness.  I like this perspective on sin.  This carries implications which will be visited later in my discussion of sanctification.  Essentially, I believe that we can become aligned and bent towards love instead of sin.  I believe in a very powerful God who is capable of great things in His creation if they act in correlation and cooperation with Him.  Ontologically, sin can be viewed as an actual substance or as the absence of something.  The former implies that sin is a physical substance that attaches to our souls or to our bodies.  We cannot prevent it.  It simply clings to us physically from birth.  The absence view, though, believes that sin isn’t a substance at all.  Instead, sin is the absence of the reign and the rule of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  I relate to this view and think this is an accurate way to view original sin along with the corruption view.  The corruption view considers original sin the brokenness and corruption of the image of God.  I think this view alongside the absence view accurately depicts original sin.