Accidentally

There has been some discussion on the idea of "willful sin". The idea has been "You can't sin by accident." In other words, you are only sinning when you know it's sin, and if you don't know it's sin, it's not sinning.

This is a "warm" perspective to take ... but the Bible seems to disagree. In the Old Testament (this may come as a surprise to many Christians) most of the Mosaic sacrifices were for sins done in ignorance. Sins done on purpose were supposed to be dealt with in repentance (primarily), but you can't repent of sins you don't know, so the majority of the sacrificial system was for sins they did not know they committed. Describing it in Hebrews 9, we read, "The high priest enters once a year, not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the sins of the people committed in ignorance" (Heb 9:7). As a prime example of "sins committed in ignorance", Peter tells the people "You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, but put to death the Prince of life, the one whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses. ... And now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your rulers did also. But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord" (Acts 3:14-15, 17-19). Peter accuses both the people and their rulers of acting in ignorance when they put to death "the Holy and Righteous One". Nonetheless, it is not an "excused" error due to ignorance. No! He calls on them to "repent and return".

What we have here is a failure to comprehend "sin". Most people view sin as "bad things we do". Some also understand it to include the failure to do good things -- you know, sins of commission and omission. The Bible uses words like chatta'th in Hebrew which means "an offense, and its penalty, occasion, sacrifice, or expiation" and hamartia in Greek which means "to miss the mark". There are more. One in Greek is anomia -- literally "lawlessness". Interestingly, one of the places this definition is used (translated in the King James as "transgression of the Law" and as "lawlessness" in the NASB) is in John's definition of what sin is: "sin is lawlessness" (1 John 3:4). John's definition, then, is not simply what we do (or don't do). It is a lack of law.

Compare that concept to this statement: "For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" (Gal 5:14). Be careful, now. Paul here does not say that the whole Law is fulfilled in one statement. He says it is in "one word". What is that word? "Love." Why do I say that? Because Jesus did. "On these two commandments (Love God and love your neighbor) depend the whole Law and the Prophets" (Matt 22:40).

Okay, now, what have we built? Sin is the absence of law. The Law, in its basic form, consists of 1) loving God with all we have and are, and 2) loving our neighbor. That's the basic structure.

So, back to the original question. Is it possible to sin by accident? If we define "sin" as "a failure to love God with all we have and are and to love our neighbor as we ought", then I would assert that it is a certainty that we will sin accidentally. We will sin by failing to do what we ought for God and our neighbor, even when we're not aware of it. We will sin when we do what we ought not even when we're not aware of it. And age makes no difference, since righteousness begins with "love God with all your heart" and any failure to do so is sin. On that single point we all stand condemned.