If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9

Sins – John doesn’t write, “Confess your sin.” He writes, “Confess your sins.” It’s plural. He is not writing about the big block of willful rebellion against the source of light and life. This is not Sin with a capital S. John is concerned about our tiny little peccadilloes, those details that we love to lump under “He forgives my Sin.” Oswald Chambers makes the point clear. “Never discard a conviction. If it is important enough for the Spirit of God to have brought it to your mind, it is that thing He is detecting. You were looking for a great thing to give up. God is telling you of some tiny thing;”

In Greek, hamartias comes from a verb that means “to miss the mark.” That seems pretty straightforward, until we look at the Hebrew background behind this Greek word. Then we find things get complicated in a hurry.

Quell writes: The concept of sin is linguistically expressed in many ways in the OT. Indeed, justice is hardly done to this variety either in the LXX . . , nor by our modern translations, which neither express the richness of the original nor even catch the decisive point in some cases.”

In other words, sin in Hebrew shows a much wider, more diverse range of meanings than what is captured in either Greek or English. Furthermore, many of the theological words for sin are indistinguishable from their secular equivalents in Hebrew. There is apparently little difference between the religious meaning of sin and the common, ordinary daily living implications of the same behaviors. One additional layer of complexity is added when we discover that some concepts of sin in Hebrew are unique to Hebrew alone. There are about 30 different words for sin in Hebrew. Obviously, it is quite an important part of Hebrew life.

Does this discourage you? How in the world are we supposed to understand sin and avoid it if our very language disguises or distorts what God had in mind when He spoke in Hebrew? Once again, we are prisoners of linguistic ghettos. But don’t give up. There is hope (without being reborn as a native Hebrew speaker). Chambers got it right. God presses on the details. Without the language, the Spirit still speaks. Sure, it might be in our own linguistic-cultural framework, but that has never prevented God from reaching the heart of Man before. The issue is not Hebrew as a second language. It is Spirit sensitivity. If we let God speak, we will find that He can communicate without any problems where He wants us to focus on sin-sensitivity. Sin might be a much bigger category than we realized, but when it comes to this tiny little sin that God has His finger on right now, nothing else really matters, does it?

Topical Index: sin, hamartias, 1 John 1:9