What's the Difference between Sin, Transgression, and Iniquity?

What's the difference between sin, transgression, and iniquity? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of Core Christianity. Hi, it's Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day.

Our phone lines will be open for the next 25 minutes or so, so now is the time to call. By the way, we also have a YouTube channel. You can watch Adriel Live on YouTube every day at 1130 a.m. Pacific time, and you can send him your question through YouTube. And you're always welcome to email us anytime at questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up today, here's an email from one of our listeners.

This is from David in Kansas. He says, thank you for what you're doing. I suffer from anxiety anytime I have to speak to someone. I think it's because I had an aggressive dad who would yell and scream at me, and sometimes even worse, if I didn't do something right or speak clearly. I'm 53 now, and I'm still struggling with this issue. How can I find healing in the Bible? David, I'm so sorry to hear about that anxiety that you struggle with, and the first thing I want to do is offer a prayer on your behalf to the Lord and ask him to grant you his grace and help. Father, we lift our brother up to you, and we ask, Lord God, that you would indeed give him healing, Lord, healing through your word, healing through the wisdom of others, Lord, the care and concern of others, Lord, maybe a good counselor, healing through the power of your Holy Spirit. God, that you would enable him as he's having conversations with others, Lord, not to be filled with fear and anxiety, but to trust in you and to rest in you, Lord, and that this would not continue to be an issue that affects his relationships. Would you be with our brother, Lord, and help him in Jesus' name?

Amen. So there's a couple of things here. One, you know, the Bible isn't necessarily, you know, it's not like, you know, there's a one verse or, you know, some easy fix with something like this. I mean, it sounds like this anxiety stems from maybe years of abuse, and so that's not to say that the word of God doesn't help here, because I think it really can, and I'll explain how. But it's more than just, you know, well, here's one verse that you can go to. I think what the Scriptures do is they build our faith.

They help us understand who God is and who we are, and so as you study the Bible, as you come before God every single day, and you open up the Scriptures and you're reading them and praying, Lord, help me to understand by the power of the Holy Spirit, I believe what that does is it builds up your faith, it builds you up. And I think with that comes confidence, not in yourself, but in God and what he said. And you may find, and I believe that this is one of the ways, again, that the Scriptures can help, is that that confidence does enable you to speak with others without fear. But it's one of those things that, you know, we can even pray, the disciples in Acts 4, they prayed that the Lord would give them boldness, that they might speak the word of God without fear.

Now, in that context, they were being persecuted as Christians for what they believed. But I think prayer is so important here, too, coming before God and saying, Lord, help me, help me by the power of your Spirit, not to be anxious, but to trust in you. And then, of course, you mentioned maybe some of the historical background here that's led into this. Working through those things, maybe with a good counselor, wouldn't you say, Bill, could be helpful as well?

I think that's really great advice. You know, the Bible talks about the renewing of our mind and putting on the mind of Christ. And that, of course, has spiritual implications, but it also has, I believe, implications for our mental health and for our emotions.

And that could be tremendously helpful for David to go to a Christian counselor, someone who maybe specializes in that type of early abuse, because it was verbal abuse and perhaps physical abuse, too. He alludes to that. And that needs to be really explored. And it can be hard. It can take time. But there are some treatment methods that have proven very effective when it comes to early childhood hurt like that. So I would suggest, as you said, find a good Christian counselor, someone, again, who specializes in that particular area. And sometimes you have to go to a couple different people and sort of check them out and find someone that's a good fit for you. And then pursue that healing, along with, as you said, finding his identity in Christ.

Yeah, it doesn't have to be an either-or, right? Like we're saying, dig into the Word. Know the Word. Study the Word. And I do think that peace and the comfort of the Holy Spirit does come through the Scriptures, and so you can't neglect that. But there are other resources, too, that can be helpful.

And so I would say, you know, pursue all of the above. And I hope also, David, that you are in a good church that is able to encourage you and where you're growing in your understanding of the Word of God, not just by yourself, but with other believers, too. You know, one of the things that strikes me about David's situation, I know there are so many other listeners who perhaps have a real difficult time seeing God as a loving Heavenly Father because of what they experienced from their own biological father in childhood.

Yeah, I mean, this is where sometimes we have to do some disentangling, right? And this is why the Word of God is so important, because it exposes us to the good Father, the Father who isn't cruel, who isn't harsh, who isn't distant. If we, being evil, know how to give good gifts to our children, Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mountain, how much more will your Father give good things to those who ask Him?

And so we can. Unfortunately, those negative experiences that we have do color and can color our relationship with God. And so being aware of that and then going to the Scriptures and believing them and saying, OK, I'm not going to allow my history.

I mean, it's not as easy as just saying I'm not going to do it, but pursuing this and saying I'm not going to allow that to dictate to me who God is. I was thinking about, as we've been talking about this, Bill, in 1 John 4, what John says about God's perfect love. He says, By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment. And whoever fears has not been perfected in love, we love because He first loved us. That fear that comes because of punishment.

I'm going to say the wrong thing. Oh no, is God going to crush me now? And many people live with that kind of sense of God. And here John is saying, no, no, the perfect love of God should cast out that fear, the fear of punishment, the fear of judgment.

Not because God isn't a righteous judge, but because He's the God who loved us and sent His Son into the world so that we might be redeemed. We love because He first loved us. Amen. That's what the gospel is all about. Thank you so much for that reassuring word, Adriel. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez.

Our phone lines are open. If you have a question about the Bible, maybe there's a passage of scripture that's always kind of confounded you and you'd like some clarification on it. Hey, Adriel, love to dig into that with you. Or maybe there's a theological doctrinal issue that you're like, I'm not sure what I believe, or I've heard something different about the Christian faith and I'd like to explore that.

Or maybe there's something that's happening in your church, your church life that you are concerned about or confused about. Hey, call us right now. Here's the number 833-THE-CORE. That's 833-843-2673. You can also leave a voicemail at that number anytime. And here's a voicemail that came in from one of our listeners.

This is Jose in Stockton, California. Hello, hey, peace of Christ be with you. Brother, I have a question. Is it bad to invest in cryptocurrency like Bitcoin?

I heard it's bad too, because supposedly it's going to be like a coin or money that's going to be all worldwide, like one world order kind of thing. So I wanted to know if that's okay or if that's not okay. Thank you. God bless you.

Jose, the peace of Christ be with you as well, brother. I wish I would have invested in Bitcoin a long time ago, man. I think a lot of people do.

I'm teasing. But the question is, is it bad? Is it a sin to invest in this?

I don't think I would say that. There's a separate question about whether or not it's wise. And frankly, I don't know all the ins and outs of investment or cryptocurrency to be able to tell you that. But I don't think that the argument that investing in this Bitcoin or cryptocurrency is going to lead to the end of the world and this one world order government. I don't think that that's a really strong argument or should be seen as a reason for why an individual couldn't invest in something like that. And so I think that's taking a number of passages, maybe in the apocalyptic literature and the idea of one world currency and trying to say, well, maybe this is that. And I would just say, no, I don't think that that's a proper way of reading the scriptures.

And so is it sinful? No, I don't think we should say that. Is it wise? I think that's where you're going to have to talk to probably a financial advisor and they can let you know. Bill, do you have any Bitcoin?

Pork bellies. That's what you should invest in. I know.

Swampland in Florida. No, I cannot give any advice on crypto. I'm sorry. I will not go there. Yeah, I know you do.

You'd like to get as many as you can. Bacon was going up in price for a while. I'd go to Costco and I don't know what the deal was.

Then it seemed like it went back down. So the bacon stock market, I don't know what's going on there, but maybe that's another good thing to invest in. People love bacon. It's true.

Very true. Don't get your financial advice from me and Bill. No, not us.

Please go to somewhere else. This is Core Christianity and our phone lines are open. If you have a question about the Bible, the Christian life, we're not investing. Here's the number.

It's 833-THECORE, 1-833-843-2673. Love to hear from you. And by the way, if you haven't heard, Adriel has a brand new book out.

It's so cool. It's on the Lord's Prayer. Yeah, the book is called Praying with Jesus, Getting to the Heart of the Lord's Prayer. And if you struggle in your prayer life, you feel like, man, I just don't pray consistently, or I don't know how to pray, or I don't understand really what the Lord's Prayer is all about, get this book.

This is, I think, a resource that will encourage you and help you. I wrote it, you know, for people like me who struggle to pray. And the hope is that as we understand the depth of the Lord's Prayer, and in particular each of the petitions of the Lord's Prayer, we'll be encouraged to pray more. This would be a great resource for you individually or maybe to read as a family with your spouse or your kids, or if you're involved in a small group, maybe you're in a small group Bible study or you teach a Sunday school class, get this book because it would really be wonderful to help your group explore the Lord's Prayer together. We can send it to you for a donation of $25 or more by going to corechristianity.com forward slash offers.

Again, that's corechristianity.com forward slash offers. Hey Bill, I just wanted to say too, you know, we're joking about investments, but you think about what Jesus said about investing in heaven, you know, your treasure, where your treasure is, that's where your heart will be also. And so I think we actually do have some good things to say about investment, maybe not with regard to Bitcoin and whatnot, but our Lord Jesus was so clear about investing in the kingdom of God and the special reward that comes with that. And, you know, many people, financial, you know, advisors or whatnot might not necessarily agree with that kind of investment, but I think we as Christians, right, we view things differently and we have different priorities. And so thinking about the words of the Lord Jesus, especially in the Sermon on the Mount with regard to money and possessions and investment, I think is so important for us as Christians. Really well said and so critical because we can get caught up in the worldly pursuits of just amassing money in our 401ks, our IRAs and thinking all about that on a daily basis and forgetting about investing in God's kingdom, which is what we're called to do. So thank you for that. This is Core Christianity. Wanted to tell you, we have a voicemail that came in from one of our listeners.

This is Patricia in Watertown, New York. My question for the pastor is, can he explain the differences between sin, transgressions, and iniquity? I'm not quite understanding that and thank you for your time.

Yeah, thank you for that question. And it's a great question because those are words that we use all the time in churches, in the Christian life. They're words that we find in the Bible, but we don't often understand the nuance behind each of them. All of these have to do with breaking God's law. And so there are these synonyms for sin throughout the Bible and they're emphasizing different things.

And so there is overlap. And, you know, I was thinking about in Exodus, chapter 34, verse 7, you have actually these three words all brought together. Keeping steadfast love, this is God talking, keeping steadfast love for thousands forgiving, iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. This is in the context of the Mosaic covenant. But there you have those three words, sin, transgression, iniquity, all brought together.

Now, what's being emphasized with these different words? Well, sin, oftentimes we say, is the idea of missing the mark. You know, you think of trying to shoot a bull's eye and you don't get the bull's eye, you know, you shoot it off, you know, in left field or something like that. Well, that's the idea of sin.

It's not measuring up, missing the mark. Iniquity is another word that's kind of a synonym for sin. Oftentimes it's used in the context of having incurred guilt or what's being emphasized is that guilt has been incurred, which leads to what? Leads to the judgment of God, leads to God's punishment. Some people have suggested that, you know, iniquity is sort of like next level sinning, you know, more intentional, more conscientious. But really, I would say in Scripture, in the Old Testament, the focus is on that relationship between sin and guilt.

Sin brings about punishment because we're guilty. And then transgression, there's the other word. Oftentimes in the Old Testament, the focus there is on breaking trust or a breach of trust.

It's also used in the context of criminal behavior or criminal actions. And so a transgression against the law and how that affects our relationship with others, with our brothers and sisters in Christ, with the people around us. And by the way, those aren't the only words that the Bible uses for sinful behavior. You think also in the New Testament, you know, when Jesus is talking about prayer, trespasses, and debts, those words emphasize other aspects of sin.

A trespass, you know, sort of crossing the line, or debt, something that grows and grows and grows and crushes you. Well, that's what sin is, and that's what sin does. Or the word blasphemy, sinning against something holy or someone holy. And so you have all of these words that are used in Scripture that have these different nuances, but all related to the breaking of God's law.

And here's the good news. God forgives sin, iniquity, transgression, trespasses, debts, and even blasphemy through the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. If we but turn to Him and lay hold of His grace, if we turn from our sins and turn to Christ believing those sins, those iniquities, the guilt that we have incurred, God grants forgiveness. And so I appreciate the question and the opportunity to get into some of those different nuances there.

Just a follow-up question for you, Adriel. You've often mentioned on the program that in our culture, we have a very high view of self and a very low view of God's holiness. And I think unfortunately that permeates the church, but certainly in the general culture, very few people that are not believers, not Christians, really believe that they've committed any sin. In fact, they're almost hostile to the idea of you suggesting that they're sinners. How do you think we should approach friends, relatives, work associates with the whole issue of sin and transgression? Yeah, this is sort of an apologetics question. I know what some people have done, and I like this, is they've emphasized the fact of sin, and this goes all the way back to St. Augustine being this disordered affection. So oftentimes, you know, we sin by loving certain things more than we should, and a lot of people understand this. Like if I love food too much, more than I should, let's say I loved food so much that I just neglected my children because all I did was eat all day long. Well, boy, you have a really unhealthy relationship with food or with work.

How many people today, right? Like they're just so focused or fixated on their jobs that they neglect everything else around them. And so there's this order of affection, of love that we should have.

God is at the top of the list, our families, the body of Christ, the people around us. And so when we disorder those things, you know, that's when you get into some real problems. And so that's one of the ways I think I've heard people talk about this. But the fact of the matter is, is, yeah, it's going to be offensive. I mean, people are gonna have a hard time with the idea of sin because they're being told you've broken something. You need to be forgiven. You're not perfect. You're not righteous. You're a sinner. And so we have to embrace that reality if we're ever going to understand the grace of God and ever going to walk with Christ, because the holy God confronts our sins and doesn't allow us to continue in them. We can't cling to our sins while we attempt to walk with Jesus.

It doesn't work. So well said. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Let's go to Katie calling in from Oklahoma. Katie, what's your question for Adriel? Hey, guys.

Hey, Katie. My question was about disciplining the children and, you know, whether spanking was, you know, right or wrong or what Bible passages, you know, you could lead me to that would refer to that because I have 18 months old and a three year old and they're very young. So age appropriateness, of course, I know is important, but it's definitely been a topic in our household as far as what to do moving forward as they grow up and how to train them right, you know, in God's way. Well, Katie, I love the passion and the desire to train up your children in the ways of the Lord, in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. This is something that moms and dads are called to do. And discipline, right, is never really a pleasant thing.

It's certainly not a pleasant conversation. Hebrews, you know, when Hebrews talks about God's discipline, it says, look, no discipline is pleasant in the moment, but it's good because through it God is training us and guarding our hearts, really, guarding us from those things which will destroy us if we continue down a particular path. And so even God disciplines his children. Now I found, and you have a couple of kids, I have five kids, I found that, you know, every child is a little bit different. And so there are some kinds of discipline that work better for some children and others that work better for even in the same family. And so I think as you get to know your children and their behavior and so forth and what they respond, what works well, then I think that can give some more clarity. I don't think it has to look one way for every family or child, but I think the Bible is very clear that we are called to discipline our children and raise them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

The Bible throughout the book of Proverbs, for example, does talk about corporal discipline or spanking. And so, I mean, this is where I think there are all sorts of questions and people have all sorts of concerns as well. But here's a fundamental thing that we need to understand. So we're called to discipline our children, but it's always to be done in love, not in anger, not in a cruel manner. And so that's another thing you have to ask yourself as a parent. Okay, it's like, am I just flying off the handles here?

There's a real problem. Am I sinning here? Or am I disciplining my children in love for their good and directing them back to Jesus and to the family? And so those are a few of the things I would want to say. I mean, obviously, like I mentioned, there are a number of passages in the book of Proverbs.

And throughout the New Testament also talks about the discipline of the Lord. Bill, I don't know if you want to add anything. I know that your kids are a little bit older than mine. My oldest is 12 and my youngest is two and we have five children.

But, Bill, would you add anything? I think what you said is so true. Each child is going to respond differently. I think in your own family you've said that there's one of your kids, you just look crossways at them and they straighten up.

I've got a very scary face, Bill. Where others are going to need consequences. And whether you use spanking again in love or whether you use a timeout or taking away privileges, there are a variety of different methods. But I think we can all see the result in our culture right now for kids who now are teenagers or young adults who've never been disciplined.

And you look at just the out of control crime we're seeing and you know those kids did not get disciplined. Yeah, I mean we definitely need to recover a sense of our role as parents in the Christian nurture of our children. And discipline is a part of that but so is Bible reading and prayer and going to church every Sunday. I mean this is what we need desperately today as Christians and in particular as Christian families. And so God be with you, Katie, grant you wisdom and bless you as you seek to raise your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Thanks for giving us a call. You're welcome.