I cannot improve upon the definition of sin found in the Westminster Shorter Catechism 14, “Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God.” We are all those who have missed the mark. In the words of Apostle Paul, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). In our sin, we rebel against God’s glory and Lordship over us. But, as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake [God] made him [Christ] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Danny Olinger is the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He serves as editor of the monthly periodical New Horizons in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and is the author of A Geerhardus Vos Anthology and Geerhardus Vos: Reformed Biblical Theologian, Confessional Presbyterian.
