Sin. Sin is lawlessness. 1 John 3:4. To think, speak, and act in a way that is inconsistent with God’s Word and the testimony of the Holy Spirit is sin, irrespective of the level of faith you have attained. Sin is that terribly ruinous poison with which Satan came when he deceived the first man by presenting God’s word as being false. The way in which Satan presented it sounded nice, and he has not forgotten this ploy, to this very day. Most of God’s people have been deceived by Satan’s lies, and his manner of interpreting God’s Word has deceived them. Therefore these times are evil times, more than ever before, full of sin and blasphemous statements about God, and a lack of the fear of God among God’s people. Therefore sin is also on the increase among the religious masses. Since the Fall, all carnal people have been sold under sin, which is bad enough; but the spirit of man is also in a wretched state, darkened and buried in all kinds of sin. A soul who wants to believe God’s Word has enough to fight against, all the days of his life, but then God also rewards richly. The essence of sin is actually in not believing what God has said. God said, “For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.” Gen. 2:17. But Satan said, “You will not surely die.” Ch. 3:4. If man had kept to what God said, there is every indication that he would have stood the test. Rom. 14:23. Considering God to be true is the same as believing. Doubting Him is to sin. For example: When Jesus says that we shall not worry about what we shall eat or drink or what we shall wear (Matt. 6:31), it is sin to worry about these things; it is Satan who teaches something else. Trying to change it and twist it is a fruit of Satan’s wily attacks. When it is written that Jesus did not threaten when He suffered (1 Pet. 2:23), we note that it is a sin to make a threatening face when we suffer. When it is written that the husband must not be bitter toward his wife, he has sinned if he was only slightly bitter. And seeing that the husband shall love his wife, it is sin if he doesn’t do that. When it is written that the wife shall be in subjection to her husband and be obedient to him, it is sin if she is not in subjection and obedient. When it is written that nothing shall have power over me, that nothing shall rule over me, is it not so that we should put an end to all such things; for example, old habits from the days when we lived in the flesh? Sin can be put into three categories: 1) Works of the flesh. The natural man is compelled by the flesh to commit all kinds of sin. 2) Falling, transgressing, transgression of the law. The believer, who has the Spirit to guide him, can fall in sin. The usual thing is that he stands, by doing righteousness, but when he is overtaken by sin, faith makes him get up again. 3) Deeds of the body. This is unconscious sin of which the Spirit convicts me after I have done works for God. Rom. 8:13; 1 John 1:7. Not many of God’s people understand God’s will; neither do they believe that God’s Word pertains to them. Jesus came for the sake of sin, and sin was condemned in His flesh. Rom. 8:3. This is what God promised mankind after the Fall: The seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head and so victory over sin was given to man, so that Satan no longer has any power over the one who believes.Andreas Nilsen