Miss the goal ? Only ?

Saturday 25 February 2023

"There is no difference : all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Romans 3.23

Miss the goal ? Only ?

We sometimes hear or read that the biblical definition of the word "sin" is "missing the mark." Indeed, the etymology of the Greek word “hamartia”, very often translated as “sin”, is very literally “to miss the target”. But, as sometimes happens, the etymology can give an incomplete or even distorted view of the real, biblical meaning of a word.

Take an archery shooter : he bends his instrument, shoots the arrow... but misses his mark. Never mind ! He takes He takes another arrow, tries to aim better... and hopes to hit it this time. And if he misses again, he still retains the hope that, with time and practice, he will end up hitting the bullseye !

But for sin, it is radically different. The case is totally hopeless : even if we try, at least one day, not to commit a sin, we will not succeed ! To think that, by one's own efforts, one will succeed in improving oneself and reaching the goal set by God is an illusion. Let's reread the beginning of the epistle to the Romans, where Paul, by relentless reasoning, demonstrates all the arguments to conclude that the glory of God is unattainable.

And not only have all of our shots always missed the target, but our shooting ability is itself fundamentally insufficient. Paul demonstrates that we have committed sins, but a little further on, he also demonstrates that we have within us a source of evil, called "the" sin (and no longer "the" sins), which a priori ruins all our efforts. It comes from a long time ago, from the fatal day when Adam, as head of the human race, disobeyed the only prohibition that God had given him.

Adam, and us after him, not only missed the mark ; we deliberately turned our backs on the target ! Sin is above all this revolt against our Creator, this refusal to recognize his lordship, this obstinate desire for autonomy vis-à-vis him.

But if we can increasingly despair of what we ourselves are by nature, we can also rejoice ever more in the great salvation that God has offered us by grace, which delivers us from sin and now allows us to reach glory of God !

Source (Pleasing the Lord)