SIN IS A NOUN, GRACE IS A VERB

Jesus did not die for your sins, He died for sin. Sin not sins!  With that statement, you are either rejoicing, shocked, or confused.  In the KJV of the Bible, the word sin is mentioned forty-five times in the book of Romans and forty-four of those times it is a noun, only once is it a verb.  The way sin is used in sermons and in conversations, most people have come to perceive the word “sin” only as an action, something we do.  Thus, when we read it in our Bibles we commonly perceive it as a verb.  Why is this important?  Because if one interprets the word “sin” in Romans as a verb we will never understand what this book says about sin, which is so vital to us walking in victory.

The first-time sin appears in scripture in Genesis 4:7, it is not a verb, but a noun.  God says to Cain: If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

God personifies sin, He uses sin as a noun, not a verb.  Our theology can be characterized by our definition and our conception of sin. Paul said in Rom. 6:14, “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under the law, but under grace.”  The word that Paul used here as sin is a noun. (People, place, or thing) A verb, on the other hand, is a word that describes action.  How many of us when we think of sin, think of it as a verb?  Doing something wrong!  Before Jesus died on the cross, all people were under the bondage and captivity of sin (noun), whether they personally sinned (verb) or not.  Sin held all mankind under its captivity because of what Adam did.  We were born in a prison called sin and could not get out.  In this prison of sin, it didn’t matter how many good deeds that a person did, he couldn’t get out.  Adam’s sin made all men sinners (Rom. 5:19).  These people were not sinners because they sinned. They sinned because they were sinners.

It is so important for us to understand complete and total forgiveness of sin.  When John the Baptist saw Jesus, he said, “Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the SIN (not sins) of the world” (John 1:29).  Did He take away sin or not?  Did He take away just the sin of Christians or did He take away the sin of the world like John said?  When forgiveness is taught the way the bible explains it, people have objections.  They question and say, “don’t sin matter”?

It’s not about your sin

I know this is hard for some to process and most to accept.  We have been raised to beware of sin, to resist sin, to run from sin, to focus on sin and to try to overcome sin.  We have an un-healthy obsession with sin.  It is no wonder so many of us are more sin-conscious than we are Christ-conscious.  When I didn’t understand that Jesus took away SIN, I never really had confidence in my relationship with God.  When I felt unworthy because of my failures, instead of turning to God for strength, I would distance myself from Him out of shame, guilt, and fear.  My wrong perception was that God was disappointed with me because my sin.  I didn’t know that my “sin account” had a ZERO balance.  That there was no sin in my account! 2 Corinthians 5:19 (NKJV) that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.     

Most of the church gets our core problem wrong, it’s not sin, it was not that we were doing bad things, stealing, lying, cheating, committing sexual sins, it was not our bad behavior.  Jesus did not die to just improve our behavior.  We sin because of the death, sin came from the death, of course in the garden death came from the sin, but now sin comes from the death.  We sinned because we were born spiritually dead to God.  I don’t mean that we have no spirit, we have a spirit, our spirit is just dead to the things of God, when we are born-again, our spirit is now made alive to God and dead to sin. God works in our individual lives to bring us into intimate fellowship with Himself, but when it comes to sin, it is not on an individual basis.

Through ONE MAN sin entered the world and death through sin, and it spread to all men (Romans 5:12).  WHY?  Because according to (Genesis 5:3), we were born as sons of Adam, born in his likeness, after his image.  We were born “in Adam”, we are his seed.  The Bible says that every seed after its kind.  But thank God when we are born-again, we are “In Christ” and no longer in Adam.  We are now born of incorruptible seed (1Peter 1:23).  The seed of Adam is not stronger than the seed of Jesus, the sin of Adam is not stronger than the righteousness of Christ!  That’s why (1 John 3:9) tells us,  Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.  Most Christians do not understand what this verse means.  Even though some translations say it means we don’t “practice” sin, that is a miss-translation of the original Greek.  The word “practice” does not appear in the original language.  The verse means exactly what it says, whoever has been born of God does not sin, WHY?  Because God’s seed remains in him; and he cannot sin. 

One of the biggest problems that Christians have in understanding how we cannot sin and how we are completely righteous, is the principle of spirit, soul, and body.  I don’t have the space in this blog to deal with this, but let me say that the moment we are born-again, our spirit is created just as righteous as Jesus (1 John 4:17), in true holiness, righteousness, glorious and has the very nature of Jesus Christ Himself (Eph 4:27).  The Father made Jesus to be sin in our place so we could receive His righteousness as a free gift (2 Corinth. 5:21).

When you see sin primarily as a noun instead of something you do, it will profoundly change your view of what Jesus did on the cross. You will see that grace is an active verb because grace is action.  It is the action of Jesus on your behalf.  You now see that Jesus Christ took SIN (the noun, the complete thing, the thing itself) unto Himself, rather than just taking one or two or many confessed sins (the verbs, the thing we did).  The difference is enormous.  Meditate deeply on this revelation, let it sink in and renew your mind.  Jesus Christ has performed a complete work, a finished work, a fundamental change to this world.  He took away the sin barrier between you and God.  Grace is always an active verb, because the grace of God is always present and active to reach us and transform us.