What Is Sin?

15 minutes ago

3 min read

A friend asked me an honest question: What is sin? I had a “church answer,” but I took that same question to God in prayer because I wanted Him to show me what Scripture really says.

Typographic poster reading What Is Sin? with Bible verses, black serif text, gold accents, on a cream background, solemn tone.

Has someone ever asked you a question you knew the answer to — but couldn't quite put into words? Maybe that's never happened to you. But it happened to me. Lol.

A friend asked me: "What is sin?"

I gave them my answer. But afterward, I took that same question back to the Lord in prayer. I asked Him to give me His thoughts. I already knew the surface-level answer — sin involved disobedience — but I wanted revelation, not just definition.

I can't say I got the answer right away.

There It Was Again “SIN”

Later that week, I was reading through my Bible plan and landed on 1 John 3:4. I'd read this verse before. But this time, the word "sin" looked different. The Lord highlighted it in my spirit, and I went down the rabbit hole. Here's what I found — and what was revealed to me.

1 John 3:4 — "Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness."

So I dug into that word: lawlessness.

Anomia: Without Law

The Greek word is anomia, and it means:

Without law
Disregard for law
Violation of law

Strip it down, and it's simple: rejecting God's instructions = disobedience.

Here's where it got interesting. The word "evildoers" in the New Testament comes from that same Greek root — anomia. It refers to people who practice lawlessness.

Matthew 7:23 — "Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'"

Read it again with the translation in view: "Away from me, you who practice lawlessness."

And when you read the verses before it, these were people saying they had prophesied, driven out demons, and performed miracles in Jesus' name.

Yet Jesus had already said:

Matthew 7:21 — "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven."

Someone can do amazing work for the Kingdom — preach, serve, prophesy, build — and still be walking in disobedience. And the Lord calls that person an evildoer.

Jesus said that. Not me.

There It Was Again

I found the same word again in a different context:

Matthew 24:12 — "Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold."

"Wickedness" here is also anomia. Read it plainly: because of the increase of disobedience, the love of most will grow cold.

Go Back To The Garden

Think about what Adam did — disobedience. That was the first sin.

The fruit itself wasn’t sin. His disobedience led to sin.

That's worth sitting with. Sin didn't start with an object or an action in isolation — it started with a choice to step outside what God said.

What Do We Do When We See Someone in Sin?

Here's something else I noticed in Scripture:

1 John 5:16-17 — If we see a fellow believer habitually sinning in a way that doesn't lead to death, we're told to keep interceding in prayer that God will give that person life.

This matters. We've been instructed to pray — to intercede on behalf of those who are sinning. Declare the Word. I'm not saying sin is okay. I'm saying we have a strategy for what to do when we see someone living outside the way of the Father.

We can pray God opens their eyes. We can partner with heaven and pray that God’s truth brings light into those dark places and for them to come back into alignment with Him.

There's so much more in that verse we could dig into, but let's stay focused on sin for now.

The Takeaway

Sin = Disobedience. That's the key.

Being submitted to the Lord matters to Him — not just what we do for Him.

Samuel said it plainly:

1 Samuel 15:22 — "To obey is better than sacrifice."

Whew! You can sacrifice and still not obey. You can serve and still not obey.

You can be busy doing things for God while ignoring the thing God actually told you to do.

Obedience matters.

Questions to Ponder

Are you living in sin? Let me ask it a different way — are you living in disobedience?

What is the Lord instructing you to do?

Here's the thing: your instructions might not be the same as mine.

But the question for both of us is the same:

Will we obey?

We have an advantage — the Holy Spirit. Ask Him for guidance. I know from experience: He will help.

Maybe the question we walk away with is this one:

"Lord, is there anywhere in my life where I'm living in disobedience to You?"

Your battle-buddy in the Kingdom of God,

Zee