How John Defines Sin

Anyone who has heard many sermons on sin has probably heard this illustration. The Greek word for sin is hamartia ἁμαρτία ham-ar-tee'-ah, and it is usually explained with a picture from archery. It means to miss the mark: the arrow flies, falls short or drifts wide, and lands somewhere other than the target.

From there the claim goes a step further. Sin, it says, is failing to live according to the purpose for which God created us. It is falling short of what a human being was made to be, and it is not, as some insist, “being without Torah.”

This claim begins on solid ground. The meaning “missing the mark” is correct, so there is no need to argue with it.

The question is what the mark is.

Who Painted the Target?

Picture an archery field on a summer afternoon. A row of people stand with bows drawn, and at the far end of the field lies a wide stretch of grass with no target, no rings, and no bull’s-eye. They release their arrows, and the arrows land here and there across the grass.

No one can say which of them missed. Missing means something only once a target has been set up; before that, every arrow simply lands where it lands. The moment someone sets up a target at the end of the field, every arrow can be measured. This one landed near the center, that one fell short, and that one went wide.

“Missing the mark” is therefore a true definition, but not yet a complete one. It tells us what kind of thing sin is, a miss, but not what is being missed. If that part is left blank, each of us will quietly paint his own target, usually around wherever his arrows already landed.

The Bible does not leave it blank, and the one who names the mark is the apostle John.

John Names the Mark

1 John 3:4 Everyone who practices sin also practices anomia ἀνομία an-om-ee'-ah(Torah-lessness); sin is anomia(Torah-lessness).

As Book 1 showed, anomia (ἀνομία) is built from the prefix a-, meaning “without,” and nomos νόμος nom'-os, “law,” the Torah. It means Torah-lessness, living as though God’s instruction were not there.

John does not throw away the word hamartia. He keeps it, and he tells us what it is. Sin is the miss, and what it misses is the Torah. That is the target standing at the end of the field.

The Hebrew Scriptures speak in the same way. The ordinary Hebrew word for sin, chata חָטָא khaw-taw', also carries the sense of missing, of missing the way and going wrong. When the prophet Daniel confessed his people’s sin, he set that word right beside “turning aside from your commandments” (Daniel 9:5). The miss and the commandments belong in the same sentence.

How Paul Learned What Sin Was

Paul approaches the same truth from the other side. If the Torah is the target, it is also how a person discovers that he has missed.

Romans 3:20 Because by works of nomos(law) no sarx σάρξ sarx(flesh) will be justified before Him, for through nomos(law) comes epignosis ἐπίγνωσις ep-ig'-no-sis(spiritual, complete knowledge) of sin.

Epignosis is full knowledge, knowing a thing clearly and completely. Without the Torah a person might feel vaguely that something is wrong. With it, he knows exactly what sin is.

Paul then tells how this happened to him:

Romans 7:7 What then shall we say? Is the nomos(law) sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through nomos(law); for I would not have known epithymia ἐπιθυμία ep-ee-thoo-mee'-ah(lust, desire, strong craving) if the nomos(law) had not said, "You shall not have epithymia(lust, desire, strong craving)."

He does not say that he discovered sin by thinking about his potential. He says, “I would not have come to know sin except through nomos(law),” and he names the commandment: “You shall not have epithymia(lust, desire, strong craving).” That is the tenth of the Ten Commandments. Without that commandment, he says, he “would not have known epithymia(lust, desire, strong craving).” The commandment set up the target, and by it he came to know sin.

Paul is just as clear about what he refuses to say: “Is the nomos(law) sin? May it never be!” The target is not the problem. The target is what makes the problem visible.

The Purpose of Creation

The second half of the claim says that sin is failing to live according to the purpose of creation. That sounds like an alternative to the Torah, a broader and deeper definition.

What, then, is the purpose of creation? There is no need to guess, for Scripture states it directly at the close of Ecclesiastes, a book that asks what “is good for the sons of man (adam אָדָם aw-dawm') that they should do under the heavens” (Ecclesiastes 2:3).

Ecclesiastes 12:13 The end of the matter, all having been heard: fear God, and keep His commandments (mitzvah מִצוָה mits-vaw'); for this is the whole of the man (adam).

After everything has been heard and weighed, the Teacher gives his conclusion: fear God and keep His commandments, “for this is the whole of the man (adam).”

The word for keep is shamar שָׁמַר shaw-mar', to guard, to watch over, to keep. The last phrase is striking. Keeping God’s commandments is not one part of being human. It is “the whole of the man (adam),” the thing a human being was made for.

The two halves of the claim, then, are not rivals at all. The claim says that sin is failing to live according to the purpose of creation, and that is true; Scripture says that the purpose of creation is to fear God and keep His commandments. It says that sin is not being without Torah, yet being without His commandments is exactly how a person falls short of that purpose. John and the Teacher of Ecclesiastes point to the same target from the two Testaments.

One Target

The archery picture helps once more. “Missing the mark” can sound gentle. Everyone misses sometimes, and a miss does not sound as harsh as breaking the law.

But a miss sounds gentle only as long as no one says where the target is. Once John tells us, the gentle word becomes a precise one. Our failure is not that we fell short of some private best, but that we did not walk in what God commanded.

That is not only bad news, for a target is also a mercy. Without one, a person could spend his whole life shooting and never know whether he was getting closer. God did not leave His people guessing. He told them what the mark is.

If the Torah is the mark, however, a hard question follows at once: who has ever hit it? Paul himself wrote, “There is no righteous one, not even one,” and many take that line as proof that the Torah is a target no one can reach. The answer lies in that verse and in how that chapter ends.