What the Bible Says About Sin

Bible

North Forest

If a person has heard Jesus' teaching about sin, that person is responsible for that knowledge (John 15:22). This implies that for a person who has not heard, that person is not responsible to the same degree. But this does not mean that it is OK for these people to sin.

Everyone is responsible to obey God's law (Rom 2:14) because everyone knows something about God's law. Everyone must avoid sinning.

God judges those who sin (Heb 13:4). Christians are not exempt from this judgment.

Actions performed without faith are sinful (Rom 14:23). This implies that having faith requires having knowledge about God's law.

Paul discusses concupiscence which is the desire of our senses for pleasant things which are opposed to the divine law (Rom 7:23).

This verse (Rom 5:13) doesn't match Protestant teaching at all. No Protestant would dare say that sin is not imputed because of a person's lack of knowledge. The typical Protestant view is that all sins are equally repulsive to God, that all are guilty whether or not they have knowledge, and that there are no degrees of sin. But this verse states that we are not responsible for our sin if we don't know God's standards and that God's revelation of His standards for our behavior makes us more accountable for our sinful actions. Yet even so, death is still reigning (Rom 5:14) because of original sin.

This verse (Rom 3:23) is used by Protestants who are critical of Catholicism to prove that the Catholic doctrine that Mary was sinless is false. But the context is that Paul is comparing Jews with Gentiles and showing that God treats them both the same (Rom 3:9). The word all clearly does not mean that there cannot be individual exceptions to the rule, people who have not sinned. The Bible mentions one exception (2 Cor 5:21). There could be others that the Bible doesn't mention. Mary is one of these. She had no sin so that Jesus would not take on a sin nature when He took His human nature from her flesh (Heb 2:14) (John 1:14) (1 Tim 3:16). Non-Catholic Christians typically make light of the implications of Jesus taking on the flesh of Mary in her womb, but this has serious implications if she were sinful (1 Cor 15:21).

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John Shepard

email: js16@northforest.org

http://www.northforest.org/bible/Sin.html

Revised: Aug 24, 2005