What is sin? What is iniquity? What is transgression (trespass)? These are all questions many of us have asked. Generally, the response to any of these three questions is a list of bad/evil actions such as adultery, covetousness, greed, pride, envy, etc. For many years I gave this very definition to many people. One day as I was reading a passage of scripture it came alive to me in a new way, leading me on a pursuit that ultimately changed not only my definition of sin but my entire understanding of the cross.
To accurately define sin, iniquity or transgression we must make a distinction between the three. I have heard many a sermon and read many an article about the difference between sin, trespass and iniquity. Most of which conclude that, in essence, the three are the same. The difference lying in the severity, intention, situation, source, outcome, etc.
It is easy to come to such conclusions because of how intertwined the three are. It is difficult to explain one without having to explain the others and in doing so you find the interconnectedness of them all. It’s similar to distinguishing a difference between reason, reasoning and logic. Reason is the formation of judgement by a process of logic, logic is conducting reason, and reasoning is the act of using reason in a logical way. Insert scratchy head emoji.
Based upon all my research and studying, I am on the fringe, in a minority not calculable. Others who have come to a similar conclusion may be out there, maybe I haven’t read the right books or watched the right sermons. So, before you jump to criticism (however I am certainly open to discussion) or throw this thought process out the door next to the baby and its bath water, I ask that you keep an open mind and consider its possibility.
Exodus 34 (6-9) is the portion of scripture that began this journey.
“Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.” So, Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. Then he said, “If now I have found grace in Your sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray, go among us, even though we are a stiff-necked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as Your inheritance.”
The Lord Himself made this proclamation about Himself. Doing so, He made a distinction between iniquity, transgression (trespass) and sin. My first thoughts on this were as follows. If they are all similar, in essence, why clearly make a distinction between them? Why didn’t He just say forgiving sin? Why does God only visit the iniquity of the fathers upon their children? And why did Moses, in response, only ask for the pardoning of iniquity and sin?
Here is what I have concluded.
- Trespass (transgression) is our willful disobedience to the laws of God
- Iniquity is our perverse, twisted nature that resulted from Adam and Eves original sin
- Sin is a spiritual condition that influences our mind, will and emotions (soul)
I think, perhaps, that one of the reasons the bible doesn’t explicitly tell us the difference between these three things is because, at the time, this was common, cultural knowledge. The Israelites were the bearers of God’s word. They were the subjects of His affection. The audience to His theology. Certain truths were ingrained in their culture that didn’t necessitate a definition. They knew their spiritual reality because they were the origin of true spirituality. And just like many other spoken, hand-me-down truths they got lost in the pages of written history.
An additional note before we dive in. Understanding sin and how it differs between iniquity and trespass can be difficult because the three seem to be used almost interchangeably in scripture. On top of that, the word sin is used as and in reference to a noun and a verb, a condition, an action and a judgment. However, when you dive into not just the definition of the words but the contextual pool they are used, you begin to notice the differences.
It all started in the garden. We all know the story. The serpent (satan) tempts Eve, tricks her into eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. After eating from the tree, both Adam and Eve hid from God. God finds and curses them, the serpent and the world, kicking them out of the garden and denying them any future access to it.
Sin entered the world through Adam and Eve’s trespass of the one law they were given, do not eat from this tree (Romans 5:12). The first mention of sin is found in the very next chapter of Genesis (4:7), “if you do what is right won’t you be accepted? But if you do what is wrong, sin is crouching at the door. It desires to master you, but you must rule over it.”
Both verses personify sin. We are told sin entered in and that it is crouching at the door. Paul also personifies sin when he states that we are slaves to sin (Romans 6:20). Why would both God and Paul personify sin if sin was just a list of bad/evil things? Sin here is used as nouns, as something tangible that has an identity.
At this point we know three things:
- Adam and Eve have eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
- They have been separated from God
- Sin has entered the world
Having the knowledge of good and evil can be a good thing if, and only if, we are in connection, relation, or learning from something good. If we are separated from the source of good, from goodness itself, then we are learning and growing in the knowledge of evil and evil only. The only good we know would be that which we have learned up until the time of the separation. This is why it was said in the time of Noah that all their thoughts were evil, all the time (Genesis 6:5).
This is how the eternal sized, spiritual hole (more on this here) was created within humanity. God removed access to Himself, His presence, and His spirit. He could no longer dwell amongst them. Because the eternal spirit of God was removed from the throne of our heart within us, we were left with an eternal hole within us. This hole is spiritual in nature and enthroned upon our heart- giving it mastery, rule, and great influence over our life.
If God is life, death is left in His absence. If a garden represents life and the presence of God, then thistles, thorns and weeds (as in the curse spoken by God upon the earth) represent death and the absence of His presence. The curse of God upon creation gave “life”, personification, autonomy to this hole. Again, because of the absence of God in it, the absence of good from it, it continually grows- hungrier and hungrier as a bottomless pit within us, desiring our destruction. It is, to say, the hole left from an arrow that missed the mark.
Thus, we now have what has been termed sin.
After God created Adam, He saw that it (he) was good. Adam had been formed in the image of God, in the presence of God, perfectly in line with God and it was good. When Adam “created” his sons (with Eve) he did so in the absence of good, in his, now, sinful (full of sin) image, absent from the presence of God. This resulted in a “creation” that was not physically in line with God, a child born perversely in the image of God, a son that was crooked and twisted because of sinfulness that had been passed down to him. As King David put it, a child born in iniquity (Psalm 51:5).
Iniquity, therefore, is our fleshly nature; our sinful nature; our perverse and twisted state of being that is influenced by sin. The iniquities of the father are passed down through the generations. The fleshly struggles of a father are passed down to his descendants, making the next generation more susceptible to these struggles and short comings, more easily influenced by sin in any direction other than toward God.
Take Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for example. Abraham lied to pharaoh. Isaac then lied to pharaoh. Jacob whose name means supplanter- one who tricks to get his way, tricked his brother out of his birthright and lied to his dad to get his blessing.
King David is another example. David had, at least, eight wives. One of those wives he got only after sending her husband off to war to be killed. King Solomon had over 700 wives which lead him astray to worship other gods. King Rehoboam (Solomon’s son) lead Judah into more evil than those who were before him, setting up high places, sacred stones, Asherah poles and initiating male shrine prostitutes.
Iniquity can be seen passed down time and again throughout the Old Testament. Paul uses the term “flesh” instead of iniquity. The flesh is described as having sinful desires, desiring things contrary to the Spirit and that whoever sows into the flesh will reap destruction. Paul urges us that to walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh- walk in our new birth, not our original birth.
In the case of Adam and Eve, transgression happened first, ushering in sin, resulting in iniquity. In the case of everyone else (minus Jesus) we are born into iniquity, separated from God by sin, resulting in us living the lives of a trespasser- walking the broad highway to hell.
There is no trespass apart from the law (Romans 4:15). If there are no boundaries, there is no line to cross meaning there’s no wrong being committed. But when boundaries are set, and laws are made then there are lines to cross and rules to break. And because sin is contrary to God and desires our destruction when it becomes aware of these laws, these boundaries, it (sin) uses our bodies (our flesh) as instruments of wickedness (Romans 6)- doing things we don’t want to do.
In conclusion, here is my simplest summary possible:
- Because of the fall every person is born twisted, perverse, bent, presupposed, hardwired to, with a tendency towards certain “temptations” or “evils”- iniquity
- Because we are bent toward evil and born separated from God, sin rules our heart tempting and persuading every twist and bend of iniquity to be in opposition to God
- Everything we say or do apart from God is a transgression to the law of God, resulting in our continuous “sin” of missing the mark
I am curious of any feedback about this train of thought, and I am open to genuine conversation about it as well. Please leave a comment if you have any questions or comments.
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