Topic(s): Sin, Bible Authority

Bob Prichard

Sin is the greatest problem of mankind, because it is sin that separates man from God, and brings His condemnation. The Bible describes sin from several different perspectives, including to transgress God’s law, to break His covenant, to miss the mark, to violate the righteous nature of God, or to be out of fellowship with Him. Man’s tendency is to minimize his own sin, while seeing the worst in the sins of others.

A simple way of categorizing sins is to describe them as either “sins of omission” or “sins of commission.” Sins of commission are sins involving doing things that we should not do, such as committing murder, committing adultery, or stealing, when God has said, “Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal” (Exodus 20:13-15). We may more easily recognize sins of commission, because we often see the consequences of these sins more quickly or more decisively. Because the pain they cause is so evident, we tend to think of these as the worst sins.

Sins of omission, on the other hand, may often go unnoticed, because they are sins of not doing what we should be doing. As Jesus described the great judgment scene in Matthew 25, that which separated the sheep from the goats was not so much what the goats had done wrong, but what they had neglected to do. “Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand [the goats], Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me” (Matthew 25:41-45).
A particular way of sinning is to willfully sin—that is, to choose consciously to sin.

Willful sins are not those sins we are trying to fight to avoid, but are sins we do just because we want to. Some might think that willful sins would always be sins of commission. Some are so hardened and willful that they choose to sin, no matter what God thinks. God condemns that attitude. “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward [willfully proud] mouth, do I hate” (Proverbs 8:13). Willful sin also includes sins of omission, however. God warns: “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins” (Hebrews 10:25-26). Although we cannot easily say one sin is much worse than another in God’s eyes, we can here see the seriousness of willful sin. There is no more sacrifice for such sins.