We've all grown with the wrong understanding of one of the most fundamental aspects of our lives as believers: sin. This study demystefies this false belief with the aid of a few verses of Scripture and divine revelation.
John 16:8-11: "When He comes, He will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment; about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer." - Here, Jesus was speaking about the coming of the Holy Spirit; the Advocate who would lead us into all truth.
Here, Jesus Christ clearly confirms the entire world to be misguided concerning the understanding of sin. He then says that sin is infact a state of unbelief. On the other hand, you, just like me, have probably grown up under the common understanding that sin is all about the actions that we do which condemn us. In the Lord's sight, our understanding of the matter is at best futile; having no capacity to give us good standing with God.
Scripture mentions the terms "sin" and "sins" without necessarily conveying one meaning. In this case, sin is a state of unbelief in the heart which at the end of the day usually results in the manifest action of sins, which constitutes a chain of rebellious acts [the "works of the flesh"].
To contextualize this, let us take an instance using the ultimate command in Scripture and see how sin and sins play out. Take the commandment "You shall worship no other God but me" It might seem like a straight forward commandment but the question is; how do sin and sins come about when this command is broken?
In this case, worship is all about acknowledging God as the ultimate source of all existence which narrows down into us acknowledging Him as being our source; our Father. In this case, we will then be called to be grateful to Him and praise His Name whenever we experience any level fulfillment in life; be it love, peace, joy, etc, which are indeed the virtues that finally attract material abundance toward us; the fruit of the Spirit. In this case, God first works on our inward capacity [to attract outward abundance] before He can bring about outward transformation and it is only Him who can do so since He alone has the perfect inward nature [of love, joy, peace, faithfulness, meekness, etc] which brings about outward abundance.
Thus, when we believe in this truth about God's nature, we are in a good position to worship Him as nothing else will be able to distract us in life no matter how flashy it may appear. It all starts with an inward state of belief in who God is. On the other hand, sin steps in when we fail to genuinely acknowledge in our hearts this fundamental belief: that God's command is actually true.
In this case, sin might simply display itself as us putting more trust in our circumstances [whether favorable or unfavorable] more than we trust in the one who allows us to get into such circumstances according to His perfect understanding. We should all understand deep down that it's all meant to work out for His glory. I guess you now have a little clue on how this state of inward unbelief [sin] will result in the chain of outward acts [sins].
In this case, idolatry [failure to worship God faithfully] will be manifested in a lot different ways which are now termed as sins; everything we might do aside from worshiping God with the end-goal of achieving inward fulfillment. These include overeating, binging on movies or series, engaging in fornication, adultery or polygamy, gossip, the love of money [rather than He who empowers one to get wealth] and so on and so forth. All these are sins which result from the single sin of unbelief in God's first commandment.
On the other hand, it would be good to also understand what iniquity means now that were still in discussion. Iniquity is simply the inward imagination [of the heart] that comes just before the act itself. For instance, just as Jesus Christ says, one has to first lust [imagine a perverse sexual interaction] inside his or her heart before committing the physical act of adultery [or fornication]. In this case, both the doer [the worker of sin] and the one who only imagines the act [the worker of iniquity] will be convicted with the charge of adultery according to God's perfect scale of justice. Surely, the Lord even says that "as a man thinks, so he is" - Prov . Thus, iniquity is the inward imagination that results from the inward state of sin or unbelief which then results in outward sins.
This should then help you understand the following verse by James the Apostle:
James 4:17: "If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn't do it, it is sin for them."
You do not have to do anything in order for it to be adjudged as sin. Rather, it's all about one thing: knowing what the Word of God actually says and failing to believe which in turn results in inaction.
This discussion is meant to help us check ourselves, to focus not just on outward sins but on the inward attitude of unbelief in God's way as being the only way to attend to our affairs as men. Surely, man shall live by every word that comes from the mouth of God and failure to do so only means one thing: death. There's surely no more grace for the willful sinner who in fact does the opposite of what the Spirit of God in them desires while ignorance altogether isn't by any means a safer alternative as it equally culminates in death. Choose life rather than death today, choose to believe!
