I was baptized in a Baptist church at age ten. What I learned about sin as a boy attending church is the same as what I’ve heard in countless sermons through adulthood. I came to understand sin as a human, individual dynamic: Sin is when you rebel against God’s laws, when you fail to do what is right. I can still hear Billy Graham preaching—when unsaved individuals face God as their Judge after death, they hear God pronounce loudly, “Guilty!”

A popular Systematic Theology describes sin as follows:

We may define sin as follows: sin is any failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude, or nature. Sin is here defined in relation to God and his moral law. Sin includes not only individual acts, such as stealing, lying, and committing murder, but also attitudes that are contrary to the attitudes God requires of us.

Wayne Grudem. Systematic Theology, Second Edition (pp. 965). Zondervan Academic. Kindle Edition.

I agree: sin is any failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude, or nature. The underlying assumption in this definition seems to be that the locus of sin is the individual. Individuals fail to conform to the moral law of God. Individual persons steal. Individual humans commit murder. Individuals have selfish attitudes. We all can attest to this truth.

However, in the Bible’s narrative, we also observe this: The failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude, or nature goes beyond the individualistic human realm of human life. In fact, the Bible reveals that sin is also observable and judged at the familial, civic, corporate, national, civilizational, and cosmic arenas.

In his brilliant book, Missing the Mark: Sin and Its Consequences in Biblical Theology, Mark Biddle writes:

“In the West, the dominant model of sin and salvation—developed especially in the thoughts of Tertullian, Augustine, Anselm, and Abelard—has long relied on a courtroom analogy. Human beings in willful rebellion against God’s authority violate God’s law. Their crime incurs the penalty of death. … This ‘sin as crime’ metaphor, with its emphasis on the juridical, the individual, and willful rebellion, and its interests in assignment of guilt and exaction of punishment, addresses certain aspects of the problem of human existence. Yet, although dominant in the Western popular mind, it does not fully reflect the biblical witness …”¹

Biddle goes on to say that in the biblical narrative, many aspects of sin and evil cannot be reduced to the problem of individual humans. Human existence is just too complex to reduce sin to an exclusively individual dynamic.

Sin is cosmic—prior to human existence, from nonhuman personages who are involved in human affairs today

In the Bible, evil exists prior to human existence: Sin begins with a deceptive serpent (Gen 3:1–7), opposed to God’s will. The serpent is nonhuman, created by God, highly intelligent (Gen 3:1). The serpent speaks in a way understood by humans. The serpent is crafty, suggestive, indirect.

The serpent’s existence and communication with man and woman indicate that something has already gone horribly wrong in the cosmic realm, prior to the creation of man and woman. What happened? We do not know for sure. Genesis offers no direct information about the origin of the “crafty” serpent. There is a mystery here.

Some theologians believe that Isaiah 14:12–15 offers a clue. They interpret the passage as a description of an angel who is expelled from heaven prior to the creation of Adam and Eve; and “brought down to Sheol” (Is 14:15) because of rebellion against God. The angel’s rebellion is sometimes called the five “I wills”:

• “I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God”
• “I will set my throne on high;
• “I will sit on the mount of assembly …” (Is 14:13)
• “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds”
• “I will make myself like the Most High” (Is 14:14)

Perhaps the serpent of Genesis 3:1 represents this fallen angel and its allied evil forces.

There are profound mysteries about the nature and origin of evil. But biblically speaking, this is plain: According to Genesis 3, evil and sin originate with a highly intelligent personage who is able to deceptively communicate with humans, and this personage is nonhuman and superhuman—beyond human limitations.

Thus, the narrative in Genesis 3 asks readers, ancient and modern, to grapple with the truth that the origin of evil is outside of human life. Sin and evil begin external to humanity.

Other passages of Scripture confirm the reality of nonhuman sin or supernatural evil. Here is a sampling:

• Book of Job. “And the LORD said to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?’” (Job 1:8). The book of Job reveals a cosmic, nonhuman evil personage—Satan. And Satan is given permission by God to attack the man Job, “the greatest of all the people of the east” (Job 1:3). Job is completely unaware of the evil Satan. And yet it is Satan who destroys Job’s family, property, and health. The most honorable man becomes the epitome of shame. The book of Job explores the reality and mystery of supernatural evil, and that humans can be victims of such evil.
• Daniel. Daniel is mourning, fasting, waiting on the Lord for three weeks (Dan 10:1–2). Daniel is finally told by one who looks and sounds like an angel (Dan 10:5-6): “The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me out …” (Dan 10:13). There is a conflict in the angelic realm between the forces of Almighty God and the forces of evil which have affected Daniel. Apparently, superhuman evil “princes” are attached to Persia and Greece (Dan 10:20).
• Gospels. Jesus is “tempted by the devil” in the wilderness and for forty days and forty nights (Mat 4:1–2). Jesus engages with a superhuman personage, “the devil,” who powerfully tempts him. We also observe in the Gospels that Jesus encounters demons on various occasions. Perhaps the most dramatic account is when Jesus heals the demonaic (Mat 8:28–34; Mark 5:1–19; Luke 8:26–39). The man is horribly defiled, defaced, out of control, out of his mind. Jesus is setting people free from demonic, evil, sinful enslavement. The Apostle John plainly states, “The reason the Son of God appeared is to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).
• Paul and Peter. “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood,” Paul writes in Ephesians 6:12, “but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Paul refers to these evil “rulers” in three other places (Eph 1:21; 3:10; Col 2:15). Peter writes, “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Pet 5:8).
• Revelation. John mentions “the devil” five times (Rev 2:10; 12:9; 12:12; 20:2; 20:10). John writes of “the beast” more than 30 times in his Revelation. He says that Satan will deceive the nations (Rev 20:7). John prophesies that all cosmic evil will one day be judged and destroyed: “the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Rev 20:10).

Sin is human—individual, social, collective

Below is a diagram I created which attempts to describe the range of human groupings in the Bible, along with examples of these groups being judged or critiqued by God for their sin.

At the left end of the continuum is the individual person. Here the emphasis is on the individual judged by God (or forgiven) for their sin. At the far right of the continuum is all humanity.

In my opinion, much theology aptly addresses the problem of human sin at the individual “persons” level at the far left, and at the “all humanity” level at the far right. What about the various kinds of collective identity sin in between?

Could it be that much theology—despite biblical evidence to the contrary—tends to avoid addressing the more systemic sin problems that exist at the family, corporate, national, or “collective-identity” level? I contend that there is an imbalance in Western theology’s relentless focus on the individual. I agree with Mark Biddle, quoted near the beginning of this post. A truncated view of sin results in a truncated gospel.

The Bible reveals sin to be a mixture that is cosmic/corporate/familial/civic/national/cultural. The synergy of sin seems greater than the sum of the parts. In Exodus, the nation/civilization called Egypt is judged for its idolatry and oppression. Indeed, nations are judged corporately for their sin all over the Old Testament. What about cities? Yes. Whole cities are judged for their idolatry and sin, for example, Jericho (Jos 6:1–21)² and Niniveh (Jon 1:1–2).

In the book of Revelation, we also see an emphasis on the corporate. Seven different communities of believers—not individuals—are judged and critiqued (Rev 2:1–3:22). The cities are Ephesus (Rev 2:1–7), Smyrna (Rev 2:8–11), Pergamum (Rev 2:12–17), Thyatira (Rev 2:18–29), Sardis (Rev 3:1–6), Philadelphia (Rev 3:7–13), and Laodicea (Rev 3:14–22). There’s a different message for each church based on degrees of love and loyalty—and degrees of idolatry or immorality. The message to the church at Laodicea concerns their evil self-recognition about wealth and independence that makes for a despicable lukewarmness (Rev 3:16–17). The message is directed to the church as a whole.

In these letters to the seven churches, the Lord addresses the corporate whole while also addressing the individual. For example, the phrase “the one who conquers” is used four times (Rev 2:17; 2:26; 3:5; 3:21), encouraging individuals within these communities to be courageous in their loyalty to Christ. The “both-and principle” is clear: God speaks simultaneously to the community and the individual. It corresponds to the often complex, non-formulaic nature of Scripture.

Closing questions

1. Could it be that because we tend to understand that the gospel speaks exclusively to individuals (Jesus died for the sins of individual persons), we ignore the Bible’s critique of human groups? How does the gospel address cosmic evil? What about structural, collective, or cultural evil—does the gospel speak to these realities?
2. Could it be that evangelical tradition has overemphasized the significance of Christ’s atonement for individual sins, and has underemphasized the significance of the atonement in addressing cosmic evil (Col 2:14–15), collective identity sin, and group-on-group hostility (Eph 2:13–18)? See this post.
3. Could it be that in framing sin as an exclusively individual human dynamic, Christians are given theological cover to ignore structural and social sin dynamics such as tribalism, racism, and nationalism?
4. Are the myriad divisions in the church—divisions according to social status, race, or ethnicity—massive obstacles to scores of persons and peoples wanting to become followers of Jesus Christ? Are these divisions (divisions with which Christians are quite comfortable) examples of the complexity of sin?
5. Could it be that Christians often blame unbelievers for being rebellious against God—that’s why they don’t want to come to church; they are rebellious toward God—when we Christians should rather lament our own disobedience in displaying the reconciled new humanity (Eph 2:15) for which Christ died?

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NOTES

1. Mark Biddle, Missing the Mark: Sin and Its Consequences in Biblical Theology (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005), viii.
2. The Bible is not explicit in saying the city of Jericho is sinful according to the record Joshua 6. The Bible assumes that its readers will understand that Jericho is a pagan city permeated by sin. This is unlike the book of Jonah, where the Bible explicitly acknowledges the collective evil of the city of Nineveh; God tells Jonah “their evil has come up before me” (Jon 1:2).