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 [The following is excerpted from the book, Gather: Getting to the Heart of Going to Church, Copyright © 2021 by M. Hopson Boutot. Click here to download the entire book for free.]  

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One of the problems we have understanding a concept like “the sin of non-attendance” is that today’s evangelical tends to have a very thin view of sin. Sin is the word we use for the really bad stuff. Things like murder, abortion, racism, adultery, abuse, and others. You know, the big stuff. To remedy that problem, we need a healthy hamartiology.

Okay, now you really want to put this book down. What in the world is hamartiology? It comes from the word hamartia, a word commonly used in the Greek New Testament. It means to transgress a law. It’s a common word for sin. Hamartiology, then, is the study of the biblical doctrine of sin.

We must begin our study of sin by agreeing on a definition. What is sin anyways? If “the really bad stuff” of Sin Lite isn’t a robust enough definition, what is? It’s hard to do better than the definition put forth in the Westminster Shorter Catechism nearly 400 years ago. The catechism defines sin as “any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.”[1]

Once you get past the somewhat archaic language, you’ll notice two important aspects to this definition. First, it requires a standard: the law of God. By law of God, we must not merely consider the first five books of the Old Testament, or even the Old Testament in its entirety. By law of God, the catechism authors clearly intended all of God’s commands in Scripture.[2] In other words, to violate God’s law is to violate anything He has commanded in His Word. This definition agrees with Scripture’s own definition of sin in 1 John 3:4, “Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.” The standard by which we measure sin is the perfect law of God.

A second important aspect of this definition is the two well-worn paths we travel whenever we sin. First, we sin by any want of conformity unto . . . the law of God. In other words, we sin whenever we fail to do everything that God’s law requires. These are sometimes called sins of omission, since they occur whenever we omit something God requires.[3] It’s a sin that leaves undone what God requires to be done. In the words of James 4:17, “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”

The second path we travel whenever we sin is transgression of the law of God. In other words, we sin whenever we do anything outside the bounds of what God has required in his law. These are sometimes called sins of commission since they occur when we commit an act of disobedience to God’s Word. Think of one of the New Testament vice lists, like Galatians 5:19-21. “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” A sin of commission occurs when we commit one of these or other actions he prohibits.

In short, a biblical doctrine of sin requires a clear standard (everything God has commanded in His Word) and a recognition that we sin by not doing what we should (sins of omission) and by doing what we shouldn’t (sins of commission). Think about a coloring book. A sin of commission is like coloring outside the lines. A sin of omission is like not coloring at all. But what does any of this have to do with the sin of non-attendance?

Stay tuned to find out.

 

[1] Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question 14.

[2] In his commentary on the Westminster Shorter Catechism, Puritan preacher Thomas Vincent wrote this: “By the law of God is meant the commandments which God the Creator, and Supreme King, and Law-giver, hath laid upon all the children of men, his creatures and subjects, as the rule of their obedience.” Thomas Vincent, An Explicatory Catechism: Or An Explanation of the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism (New York: Printed by Lewis Deare, 1806), 55.

[3] See Vincent, 55.