As Christians, we hear the word “sin” often. We repent of sin. We accept that Jesus died for our sins. We strive to turn away from sin. But what exactly is sin? Is it merely just slipping up and making mistakes?
The Hebrew understanding goes much deeper.
One of the primary Hebrew words for sin is “Chet” and it literally means “to miss the mark.”
Picture being at a shooting range and aiming at a target. The goal is to hit the center point. If you miss, it’s because your aim was off.
1 John 3:4-6, tells us exactly what sin is.
“Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.”
The Hebrew understanding of sin has two prerequisites: the Law and Yeshua.
According to these verses, sin is lawlessness and those that know and abide with Yeshua do not keep acting outside of the law purposefully.
Going back to the shooting range analogy, when we have Yeshua as the front sight and the Law as the rear sight, our gun is sighted in correctly and our aim is perfect. When one of those sights is off, our aim is off.
Biblically, sin is not merely just messing up. Sin is applying law the wrong way and acting outside of those standards. Sin knows no boundaries because it is lawless actions. It’s not knowing the heart of the Father who wrote the instructions in order to clearly walk the path of righteousness. It is not looking at Yeshua’s life and seeing how he applied the boundaries and ordinances of God’s kingdom and doing the same.
The consequence of missing the target is death. We all fail. Yeshua came to restore our aim. Through his front sight, we are able to take the rear sight and apply it the way in which God intended from the start. Without Yeshua, it’s all rules. Without the law, it’s all belief without action. Both pieces are required in order to have perfect aim.
So if sin is missing the mark that’s intended and simultaneously sin is acting outside of God’s laws, then what exactly is the mark in which we’re to aim? Without a standard there can be no missing. Without an established mark, there is nothing in which to aim.
The mark is the righteous walk of life that ends with unity with God aimed through Yeshua and God’s instruction: His ways, His commandments, His statutes, His wisdom, and His design for how His people are meant to live. When we sin, we miss the mark of holiness, sanctification, and the standard God set in place in which his people are to live and operate outside of the lens of Yeshua. Through Yeshua we are made righteous. Not by belief alone, but through the lens, the door and the Way that is Yeshua, the Instructions made flesh.
This changes how we read Scripture and it’s exactly why Yeshua matters.
He didn’t come to eliminate the target. He came to reveal that he IS the aim. He came to hit the target perfectly and show us how to do the same through himself.
Every step He took showed us what walking in obedience looks like: loving the Father, keeping his commandments, walking in holiness, living out the instructions from the heart…ultimately hitting the target every time. Messiah is not freedom from God’s instruction but the perfect example of it.
That’s why grace is so powerful. Grace is not permission to keep missing the mark, but it restores us so we can learn to aim again. Grace was given to those who desire the target, not those who choose another one.
Yeshua’s words to the woman caught in adultery, “Go and sin no more” (John 8:11) are for all of us: correct your aim and try again.
Lavah Ministries 