In the NT I found the word sin with two meaning.

I. sin as a transgression of the law (1 John 3:4).

This sin we committed by breaking God’s law, an act that we did by our own in following the desire of the flesh (James 1:14,15). We are fully responsible for these sins and will be judged by the law. Condemnation by the law means death eternal because death is the wage of sin (Romans 6:14).

All men will be judged according to his deeds (Revelation 20:4, 11-13), and God’s law is the standard for judgment.

II. SIN as our nature that we inherit from Adam (Genesis 5:3).

What SIN did we inherit from Adam? SIN of self-love!
At the time Adam and Eve choose their freedom of choice to serve their self by neglecting God’s demands (eating the fruit of knowledge of good and evil), at that time they lost “the glory of God”, His agape love that was created in them, and got a change of character. Now they are self-loving human and serve their own needs for their own glory.

This character was transferred to their offspring and become their nature (Genesis 5:3). All men now have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). But this SIN in fact is not our fault and we could not be judged and condemned by this and God could not blame us for this. But this SIN separates us from God and closed the gates of heaven for us.

If God didn’t take action to make it straight, He is not a God of love and we might blame Him for being unjust. Thus, by sacrificing His only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, he has shown to the world that He indeed is a God of love, good and just.

Since SIN is our nature, we become sinful men and all our good deeds are “filthy rags”, all our law obedience only exposed SIN and made it more sinful. Why? Because what is good before God and His holy law is the deeds that comes from love that seeks no self, God’s agape love or His glory. The problem is that all men have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and that made no man can fulfill the demands of His holy law. All become guilty before God and by keeping the law, no one will be justified (Romans 3:19,20).

So, why did God give men His law?

In His love

James S.

The law must be given in order men might know their SIN (Romans 3:20; 7:7), otherwise no one know what SIN is. And by knowing this SIN, men might understand why Christ must come and die to redeem them from SIN. This must be done because this SIN is not our fault, and if God let us die, He is not a God of love. Christ came to manifest the love of God, His justice and His grace. That’s why, the law was only until John (Luke 16:16), nailed to the cross at Christ death (Ephesians 2:15). Christ death fulfils the law demands, by dying for us He has shown the love of God that seeks no self to the utmost, ad according to His own word, when the fulfillment took place, the law is over (Matthew 5:16,17).

The law WAS a tool or a means to know SIN and in this law, Christ was introduced. The law was a school master for the Jews to bring them to Christ in order they might be justified by their faith (Galatians 3:24,25). I said for the Jews, because indeed the law was only for them (Romans 3:27-30)

Since Christ has redeemed us and released us from the wages of SIN and the power of SIN, men didn’t need the law any longer. Since the cross, all men will be judge according to their own deeds. Are their “deeds” comes from love to their fellow man, or comes from their love for self. Since Christ has restored and reconciled men with God, what is left for mankind is their obligation to serve God and to live for Him instead for their own. Judgment then was based on their character, are they FIT to live in heaven with God and His angels where love that seeks no self ruled, or are they locked out from heaven because they still live for self. The law of God and its principle is the standard of judgment for mankind from all era, for those who has not the law and for those who were under the law. Those without the law will not be judge by the letter of the law but by it principle (love that seeks no self) and those who were under the law will be judge by the law (Romans 2:12)

So, for Christ believers it is a matter of living by the flesh or living by the Spirit, because only by the Spirit can we have the love of God in our heart as fruit of the Spirit. Only through a life led by the Spirit can we experience a change of character, a new heart, where the law principle was engraved on the tablets of heart.

Keeping the law as an obligation to live, as a standard for living, only empowers SIN to dominate us (Romans 6:14), because it is OUR DESIRE to keep and obey the law and not the Spirit. What the Spirit desire is to change our character by imparting the love of Christ in our heart! And to live by the Spirit we must have FAITH in Christ where He will sealed us with His Spirit (Ephesians 1:13) to do “the willing and the doing of God” within us (Philippians 2:13). Our life then will be in harmony with the law, our deeds is a real “good deeds” that comes out from a heart that love his fellow man.

At the judgment, we were found FIT for heaven and for that we will be justified by our faith, because indeed we have live by faith according to the Spirit. And living by faith means there is NO LAW FOR US TO KEEP AND OBEY, what is left is our obligation to live for Christ, to focus on Him that love us sooo much, and He will lead us in faith and brings our faith to perfection.

In His love

James S.

James wrote:

"This character was transferred to their offspring and become their nature (Genesis 5:3). All men now have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). But this SIN in fact is not our fault and we could not be judged and condemned by this and God could not blame us for this. But this SIN separates us from God and closed the gates of heaven for us."

Character is not inherited. Whereas sinful flesh nature is inherited, but it does not separate us from God. Sinful nature cannot sin. It can only communicate sinful suggestions. The commission of sin is what separates us from God.

The Adventist Home, page 127, paragraph 2
"The lower passions have their seat in the body and work through it. The words "flesh" or "fleshly" or "carnal lusts" embrace the lower, corrupt nature; the flesh of itself cannot act contrary to the will of God."

From what I gather there are 2 categories of sin and 8 types.

Accountable Sin
1. Intentional - wilfull, premeditated and deliberate known sin.
2. Unintentional - spontaneous, unplanned and accidental known sin (i.e., cussing when you hit your finger with a hammer).
3. Omission - purposefully neglecting a known duty.
4. Faithless - doing the right thing for the wrong reason. Self generated good works.
5 Unpardonable - any known sin we refuse to confess and forsake.

Non-accountable Sin
1. Unwitting - sins of ignorance.
2. Pardoned - sins confessed, forsaken and forgiven.
3. Flesh - the sinful clamorings communicated by our fallen flesh nature.

Mike.

Character is not inherited. Whereas sinful flesh nature is inherited, but it does not separate us from God. Sinful nature cannot sin. It can only communicate sinful suggestions. The commission of sin is what separates us from God.
Unquote.

If character is not inherited, from where do all men have the character “love for self?”

What did change in Adam after he ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil in Eden?

If our nature does not separate us from God, why do we need a glorified body at Christ second coming?

In His love

James S.

Mike, since you didn’t reply I will continue.

The propensity to sin is our nature, it was passed along to us through birth. This nature is a sin, because it is against the nature of God. A sin that we didn’t commit, that’s why Christ must come to redeem us from the death as the wages of sin because we don’t deserve that. His death only gives our life back but didn’t automatically released us from the power of sin, it is our nature, remember! So, his work is unfinished when he left this earth, but he gave us his Spirit that when we want to live by the Spirit in faith, he will release us from the power of sin. He will change our sinful nature, which is our love for self with imparting or recreating the love of God in our heart.

Romans 3:23 – “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”

Our love for self comes short to god’s agape love.

Psalm 51:5 – “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.”

Isaiah 48:8 – “…….for I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously, and wast a transgressor from the womb.”

So, the Catholics are right about the “original sin”, a sin that was in us since we were conceived in our mother womb. We were transgressors since in the womb, as we transgressed God’s nature. But are we guilty of that? No! It is not our fault! It was Adam’s fault, but we got the same penalty as him, which we don’t deserve.

Can we change our nature, can we do “good” that fulfils the demands of the law?

Jeremiah 13:23 – “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil?”

Romans 7:15-20 –“For that which I do I allow not; for what I would, that I do not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing; for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.”

The sin that dwells in us, is the sin that we were born with, since we were conceived in the mother womb. It is not a sin in deeds that breaks the law of God, but a sin in nature, our condition, a state of being. This sin killed us because death is the wages of sin.

“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” – Romans 5:12.

God would be unfair, injustice and not loving if he remain silent and didn’t take any action for the sin we didn’t commit or did and for the death we don’t deserve. But thanks God, he is not! Christ death on the cross showed the whole universe that he is just, right and a God of love and mercy. His death gives our life back and through his Spirit we will be released from this sin.

In His love

James S

Since the cross, men was reconciled to God in Christ and those who believe him will have a change of nature that is fit for heaven (through the work of the Spirit) and will live for ever because Christ has redeem him from the first death. But those who lives for the flesh are not in him, will die the second death as the wages from their own sins, there is no more redemption for them.

SIN is our self-love nature, the “original sin” we were born with.
Sin is the deeds that break God’s law, born from our sinful desire.
SIN is the source for the deeds we did which is sin in it self as it breaks the principle of the law. That’s why no man would be justified by the law with his obedience as no one can do “good” things, no one have “good” deeds, no one can fulfil the demands of the law if what is “good” is “love to our fellow man” but all what we have is love for self, which is our nature.

If we could keep the law and fulfils it demands, Christ didn’t need to come for we have the righteousness required by the law and for that we will be rewarded with eternal life (Leviticus 18:4,5; Romans 10:5). But unfortunately no one could, for that reason Christ must come and die to redeem man, because this nature men is hopeless, something they deserve as it is not their fault. God didn’t create man in this nature, he created them with love that seeks no self in their heart, in the likeness of his nature. He could not and will not leave men alone and forever in this state, helpless and without hope.

He create a way of salvation, he will send his only begotten Son to die for men, to redeem them from the wages of sin and gives their life back. But first he must create a way so that people might now this coming Redeemer and Savior of men. He made the law wherein in the law, men would find their Redeemer through their need for a redeemer as in the law they come to know their sin and its wages, the sin they were born with. This law was given only to Israel that was chosen among all tribes and for the Jews only, and just for a specified period of time, “until the Seed come to whom the promise was made” (Galatians 3:19), until the cross in John time (Luke 16:16).

Why is the law designated for a period of time only and not forever? Because the law was only a way to lead men to Christ (Galatians 3:24), a means for God to shows his justice, mercy and love through the Jews as Abraham descendants to whom his promise was made.

Once the sacrifice has done, once the redeeming took place, once the reconciliation was established the law was no longer needed and lost it functions. Since then God wants faith from men to his Son, he wants them to believe and accept his Son and what he has done. The law is no longer needed for those who believe and have faith in Christ (Galatians 3:25). Who needs it anyway, if I believe him and his promise that if I were in him and he in me I will bear much fruit (John 15:1-5), fruit of the Spirit that fulfils the demands of the law.

But the law is not of faith and whaever is not of faith is sin.

In His love

James S.

James, somehow I overlooked this thread. Oops! Sorry about that. As I see it, nature is inherited and character is developed. One is nature the other is nurture. Nature clamors for sin, whereas character is the product of sins committed.

In Heavenly Places, page 164, paragraph 2
"Even the thoughts must be brought into subjection to the will of God, and the feelings under the control of reason and religion. Our imagination was not given us to be allowed to run riot and have its own way, without any effort at restraint and discipline. If the thoughts are wrong, the feelings will be wrong; and the thoughts and feelings combined make up the moral character."

Because we inherit a nature that craves sin, and communicates sinful thoughts and feelings (which are only temptations and not character), we naturally sin before the age of accountability. We are not held responsible for them because Jesus paid the penalty for sins of ignorance.

But as we sin we form unholy character traits, which must be crucified with Christ in order to be free of them. Once free, we must still resist sinful flesh nature and its sinful propensities.