Concept

Sin

Intro

Sin is one of the most misunderstood words in Christianity. People hear it and picture an angry church lady wagging a finger. The biblical idea is darker and also more honest than that.

The Hebrew and Greek words for sin do not mean naughty behavior. The main Hebrew word, chattat, means missing the mark, like an arrow falling short of the target. Another word, pesha, means willful rebellion, the deliberate choice to cross a line. A third, avon, means bentness or twistedness, a shape that has gone wrong. The Greek word hamartia also means missing the mark. The Bible uses several words because sin has several layers.

The Christian claim is not that humans are cartoon villains. It is that every one of us, by nature and by what we do, stands in a real rupture with the God who made us. Some of that rupture is visible: lies we tell, people we hurt, vows we break. Some of it is invisible: pride, envy, self-deception, the inner orientation that puts ourselves at the center.

This matters because if you do not understand the diagnosis, you cannot understand the cure. The cross of Christ only makes sense as a response to something serious. If sin is small, then the cross is overkill. If sin is what the Bible says it is, then the cross is exactly what was needed.

The codex page covers the biblical vocabulary, the three aspects of sin (the inherited condition called original sin, the things we ourselves do called actual or personal sin, and the way evil settles into structures called social sin), and the major traditions' positions: Catholic, Reformed, Wesleyan, Eastern Orthodox.

In full

Sin is the universal Christian doctrine that human beings, every one of us, by nature and by deed, stand in moral and relational rupture with the holy God who created us. This is the diagnosis the gospel addresses: without an accurate doctrine of sin, the cross becomes incomprehensible. Christianity does not say humans are bad (cartoonishly evil); it says humans are broken (image-bearing creatures alienated from our source), and the brokenness runs deeper than behaviour into the structure of the human heart and condition.

The codex treats sin as a multi-aspect doctrine, biblical vocabulary, position spread across traditions, and three aspects (original, personal, social).

Biblical vocabulary, what "sin" actually means

The biblical languages use several distinct words, each highlighting a different facet:

Term	Language	Sense
ḥaṭṭāʾt	Hebrew	Missing the mark; failure to hit a target
ʿāwōn	Hebrew	Iniquity, perverted bentness, twistedness
pešaʿ	Hebrew	Transgression, willful rebellion
hamartia (G266)	Greek	Missing the mark; the standard NT noun for sin
adikia	Greek	Unrighteousness, injustice, wrongdoing
parabasis	Greek	Transgression, crossing a known line
anomia	Greek	Lawlessness, the disposition behind transgression ([[1 John 3.4
paraptōma	Greek	A falling beside / a trespass / lapse

The terms cluster around three pictures: missing (hamartia / ḥaṭṭāʾt), twisting (ʿāwōn / adikia), and rebelling (pešaʿ / parabasis / anomia). Sin is all three, failure, distortion, and rebellion, never reducible to one. See G0266 - hamartia for the lexicon entry.

Three aspects of sin

Sin operates at three levels, all biblically grounded:

1. Original / inherited sin

The condition into which every human is born, fallen, alienated from God, with a will bent away from God prior to any individual choice. Adam's fall affects the entire race (Romans 5.12, "through one man sin entered into the world", NASB95). All humans inherit some combination of corruption + guilt + alienation from Adam.

See Original Sin and Federal Headship for the mechanism debate.

2. Personal / actual sin

The sins one commits, thoughts, words, actions, and omissions that violate God's character and command (Romans 3.23, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God", NASB95; 1 John 1.8, "if we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves"). Personal sin is the expression of the inherited condition; not just outward acts but the inward dispositions of heart (Matt 5:21-30, NASB95).

3. Social / structural sin

Sin embedded in systems, institutions, and cultures, slavery, injustice, oppression. Recognized in OT prophets (Amos 5:11-12; Isa 1:17, NASB95) and NT (James 5:1-6, NASB95). Roman Catholic social teaching gives this aspect the most explicit theological development; Protestants increasingly engage it through "structural sin" / "principalities and powers" language (Eph 6:12, NASB95).

The three aspects interlock: personal sin emerges from inherited corruption, and personal sins aggregate into social structures, which in turn corrupt persons.

Position spread on original sin

Position	Mechanism	Tradition
Augustinian / Reformed, full original sin	Adam's guilt + corruption imputed/transmitted to all descendants; "in Adam all die."	Augustine; Anselm; Calvin; Reformed orthodoxy; Westminster Confession; most evangelical Reformed
Roman Catholic (post-Trent)	Loss of original righteousness + concupiscence; guilt removed at baptism; concupiscence remains as tinder for sin (not itself sin)	Trent; Aquinas (refined); CCC §§402-409, see Concupiscence
Eastern Orthodox	"Ancestral sin", Adam's death + corruption transmitted; guilt is not transmitted (each is responsible for one's own sins)	Eastern Fathers; Athanasius; Maximus; modern Orthodox theologians
Wesleyan / Arminian	Inherited corruption + prevenient grace counteracting; original guilt covered by Christ universally	John Wesley; Arminius; classical Methodism
Semi-Pelagian	Wounded but not dead in sin; humans can take the first step toward God	Cassian; condemned at Orange 529 (formally), persists in popular religion
Pelagian	No original sin; humans born morally neutral; sin is only imitation of Adam	Pelagius; condemned at Carthage 418, Ephesus 431, universally rejected as heresy

All historic-orthodox positions affirm some form of inherited human brokenness; only Pelagianism denies it outright. The contested terrain is whether what is inherited is guilt, corruption, both, or merely consequences (mortality + temptation).

Effects of sin

Alienation from God, broken relationship, hidden face (Isa 59:2, NASB95)
Alienation from self, the Rom 7:15-25 dynamic ("the good that I want, I do not do… the evil that I do not want, this I practice", NASB95)
Alienation from others, the relational fallout (Gen 3:12, Adam blames Eve; Gen 4:8, Cain kills Abel, NASB95)
Alienation from creation, thorns, sweat, dominion-disordering (Gen 3:17-19, NASB95)
Death, physical (Gen 2:17, NASB95; Romans 6.23) and spiritual (Eph 2:1-3, NASB95)

Key passages

Genesis 3, the fall narrative
Romans 3.10-18, the universal indictment ("none righteous, not even one")
Romans 3.23, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"
Romans 5.12, sin entered through one man
Romans 5.12-15, Adam-Christ structure
Romans 5.18-19, Adam's disobedience, Christ's obedience
Romans 6.23, the wages of sin
Romans 7.14-25, the divided self
Romans 7, the chapter hub
Eph 2:1-3, dead in trespasses (NASB95)
Ephesians 2.3, children of wrath by nature
1 John 1.8, denial of sin is self-deception
1 John 3:4, sin is lawlessness (NASB95)
James 4:17, sin of omission (NASB95)

Original Sin, the inherited-condition doctrine in depth
Concupiscence, Catholic-Protestant terminological distinction
Federal Headship, Adam-Christ representational structure
Repentance, the response sin requires
Sanctification, progressive overcoming of remaining sin
Soteriology (Salvation), the broader frame
Penal Substitutionary Atonement, sin's solution at the cross
Calvinism vs Arminianism vs Molinism vs Open Theism, different views on how grace and inherited sin interact