What Is Sin?

Not the Same Word as 'Crime'

Here's the problem with the word 罪. In everyday Japanese, it sits right next to 犯罪 (crime), and 罪人 (tsumibito) reads naturally as 'criminal.' So when someone hears 'you are a sinner,' the honest, reasonable reaction is: 'I've never broken the law. I pay my taxes, I've never hurt anyone on purpose — I'm not a sinner.' That reaction isn't stubborn or defensive. It's correct, given what the word sounds like. The trouble is that the Bible isn't using a courtroom word at all.

You already have a category that fits much better, even if you've never thought of it as religious. When something has gone wrong — an accident, a death in the family, a run of bad luck — many people in Japan visit a shrine for お祓い (oharai), a purification. Nobody assumes the person receiving it committed a crime. The idea is that something has come between them and what's whole, or clean, or right — and it needs to be addressed, not punished.

That instinct is much closer to what the Bible means by 罪 than a courtroom is. It isn't first a verdict that needs a legal defense. It's closer to a state — 神から離れている状態, a condition of being separated from God — the way a relationship can crack, or dust can settle over something meant to be clear. So let's say this plainly, because the mistranslation runs deep: 罪 does not mean 犯罪. Being told you carry 罪 is not being called a criminal. It's being told that something has come between you and the God who made you — and that this can be addressed.

Missing the Mark

The original New Testament word translated 'sin' is the Greek hamartia. It's an archery term. An archer draws, aims for the center of the target, and releases — and the arrow lands wide. Hamartia is that: missing the mark. Not because the archer is a monster or a fraud, but because the arrow didn't land where it was aimed. That's the picture underneath the English word 'sin' and the Japanese word 罪: a shortfall from what we were aiming for — from what we were made for — rather than proof that a person is unusually wicked.

Think of the patience you meant to have with your parents this morning, the promise you meant to keep, the apology you meant to make and didn't get around to. None of that makes you a criminal. It does mean something isn't working quite the way it's supposed to — in you, and, the Bible would say, between you and God.

You don't need religion to recognize this gap, but the apostle Paul described it about as honestly as anyone ever has, writing to a young church in Rome — not as an accusation aimed at somebody else, but as a confession of his own daily experience:

Everyone, Not Especially You

It would be easy to hear all this as a personal accusation — as if the Bible had singled you out for special criticism. It hasn't.

This gap doesn't stay a private, invisible problem between you and God, either. A break at the center tends to show up sideways, in the relationships around it: family conflict that never quite resolves, the urge to compare yourself to others and come up short, the quiet self-criticism running underneath everything, telling you that you're not quite enough.

And it isn't only about guilt — the sense of having done something wrong. It's often just as much about shame — the sense of being something wrong, of not measuring up, of not quite belonging. Both are real. Both matter. Nothing in this lesson is meant to pile more shame onto what you may already be carrying; the goal is to name something honestly enough that it can finally be dealt with, instead of endlessly managed alone.

One of the most quoted lines in the whole New Testament makes the scope of all this explicit — not some people, not the obviously bad ones, but:

A Wound That Isn't the End of the Story

The prophet Isaiah, writing roughly seven hundred years before Jesus, pictured this condition with an image almost anyone can recognize, whether or not they've ever kept sheep: wandering, each one drifting its own direction — not out of malice, but simply because that's what happens when nothing is holding you to the center. That's a gentler picture of 罪 than 'criminal' — and, most people would admit once they think about it, a truer one.

But Isaiah doesn't stop at the diagnosis. In the very same breath, he says something that stops readers short: the weight of all that wandering was laid on someone else. He doesn't fully explain who; people have puzzled over exactly who 'he' is for more than two thousand years. What matters for now is the shape of the claim — that whatever needed to be carried, someone else agreed to carry it.

This is where this lesson has to stop short of the whole answer, on purpose. Naming 罪 honestly — not as crime, but as a real separation that shows up in both guilt and shame — is only half the story. The other half is what, if anything, could be done about a gap this size. Next lesson looks directly at the strangest part of the Christian claim: that God did not leave that question for us to solve alone. Isaiah's own words point straight at it:

Key Words

Sin (罪, tsumi)

Not 'crime' — a state of separation from God; 'missing the mark' of what we were made for, not proof of unusual wickedness.

Hamartia

The Greek New Testament word for 'sin' — literally an archery term for missing the target.

Kegare (穢れ)

A Japanese sense of ritual impurity needing purification — closer to the Bible's picture of sin than 'crime' is, though not a perfect match.

Key Points

• 'Sin' doesn't mean 'crime.' The Bible is describing something relational, not a legal record.
• 'Missing the mark' pictures a gap between what we were aiming for and where we actually land — not proof that you're unusually bad.
• This gap is universal. 'All,' not you specifically.
• It shows up as both guilt (what I did) and shame (who I feel I am) — the Bible speaks to both.
• Naming it honestly isn't the end of the story. Next lesson: what God did about it.

For Reflection

1. When do you feel that gap most — a moment you didn't live up to your own standards?
2. Does thinking of 'sin' as a gap or a separation, rather than a crime, feel different? How?
3. Is there a difference, for you, between feeling guilty for something you did and feeling ashamed of who you are?

A Prayer, If You Want One

God, if you're really there — I don't fully understand this word 'sin' yet. But I recognize the gap it's pointing to: the space between the person I mean to be and the person I actually am. If you already know about that gap and haven't written me off because of it, I'd like to find out what you did about it. Amen.