by Samuel W. Connelly

Created on: January 12, 2007   Last Updated: May 11, 2007

Sin is a highly misunderstood issue. It is amazing at how many misunderstand this very essencial subject. A few questions I have been asked:

Does sin offend God?
That is a silly question. Of course it offends God. Does it offend you when someone lies, steals, rapes, molests, or murders your family? Does it offend you when someone misuses, damages, and even destroys your personal propery? Of courseit does. How much more would it offend a Righteous and Holy God who intricatly and perfectly created the plant and all life, only to have humans bring harm and distory it?

More than that, for Chirstians, the Bibles says many places that sin offends Him: He killed a quarter of a million Isrealites in the dessert because of it, He killed Aaron's (the first high preist) two boys because of it, and most of all He sent His son Jesus to be horribly torchered and murdered on the cross because of it. To beleive that sin does not offend God is...well, offensive.

But let's get down to what sin is.

Sin is a measurment. It is a term that comes from the sport of archery. When an archer shoots his arrow at a bullseye and misses, SIN is the distance between the bullseye and where the aroow actually hit. If the archer hits above the bullseye but four inches his sin is four inches; if he misses by a foot, his sin is one foot. The greater the distance from the bullseye, the great the sin. Sin is just a term used to discribe a measurement that allows the archer to know how off he is.

This is the same with sin as we know it. God created a moral code, a Law Called the Ten Commandments, which most ancient religions claim as the foundation of their faith - Including Christians, Jews, and Musilums. We know it as the 10 Commandments, Muslims know it as the Law of Moses.

This moral code, that the Bible says God has written in our hearts, we call it a conscience, is the bullseye of God's requirment for man. The Law is set to protect the perfection of creation, and the perfect union of our relationship between God and man, and man towards man. Jesus summed it all up when He said,"Love the Lord your God with all your Mind, Heart, and Strength, and Love your nieghboor as yourself." All of the other 'Thou shalt nots' are there to protect those two.

When we do something that dishonors God, disrespects man, or brings harm to our bodies (God's temple), we are tresspassing from God's country , into the land of lawlessness. Each step that we take outside of God's moral code is measured, this is sin. The greatness of our sin, is determined by how far we walk away from God's Law.

The Bible says that the wages of sin is death, so as we live in that sin, we are building for ourselves or earning a wage of death.
This is why Jesus had to come. Because the Law is so finite with even our thoughts being judged (As Jesus said, If you look upon a women to lust, it is adultery...come on that one there makes every man guilty of sin) all humanity was living in sin, withno way back to God's country. So Jesus had to come, live perfectly holy, never sinning, and then die and pay the fine, or take our wages of sin, so that we could find our way back.

How could this happen? Jesus didn't die for himself, he was perfect, His payment couldn't be for Him, it had to pay for someone else. Because He is God and eteranl, his payment is there for eternity, so that all of us who come to him can have Him pay our debt to.

Sin measures the distance between us and God, but through Jesus' payment we can find our way back to the center of the bullseye of God's great love; God country where His law is in our hearts.

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