Distinction Between “Sin” (Singular) and “Sins” (Plural)–Part 4–The Epistles of James and Peter

The Scriptures generally draw a qualitative distinction between "sin," in the singular, and "sins," in the plural. "Sin" is our inward attitude of rebellion against God. "Sins" are bad actions. This post gives a series of examples from James and First and Second Peter.

This post is the fourth in a series demonstrating the important qualitative distinction the Scriptures frequently draw between “sin” in the singular and “sins” in the plural. To review, “sin” in the singular, if not used in a context in which it obviously refers to a single discrete and countable act, usually refers to our rotten heart with its attitude and fixed dynamic of disbelief of and rebellion toward God. On the other hand, “sins” in the plural refers to an aggregation of discrete bad acts. The first post in this series discussed examples from Romans, First and Second Corinthians in which “sin” in the singular clearly refers to an inner dynamic rather than bad acts. The second post discussed similar examples from the Gospel of John and the remaining Pauline Epistles. The third post discussed similar examples from the anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews. This post will discuss examples from the epistles of James and Peter.

Examples of “Sin” (Singular) from James

James 1:15

No one is to say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it has run its course, brings forth death.

James 1:13-15 (NASB).

Verse 15 is one of the clearest examples in the New Testament of the use of the word “sin” (hamartia) in the singular to refer to a motivating force rather than to a discrete prohibited act. Indeed, the whole progression of events in verses 13 through 15 is a progression of motivating conditions or frames of mind rather than discrete actions.

The passage focuses on explaining why, even though God tests our faith to give us endurance and make us complete (verses 2 through 4 of the chapter) and rewards those who endure testing (verse 12) using the wisdom he is ready to give us (verses 5 through 7) , we cannot say that destructive temptation–temptation toward sin–comes from God. The reason we cannot say this is NOT, as might at first be supposed, that the “trials” sent by God and the “temptations” which indirectly induce sin are different outward experiences or divergent sets of objective facts. They are not. In fact, the words normally translated as “trial,” “test,” “testing,” “temptation” and the verbs “to try or test” and “to tempt” throughout this passage are all forms of, or derived from, the same Greek verb, peirázō, which Helps Word Studies online (at Bible Hub) helpfully notes “‘means either test or tempt‘. Context alone determines which sense is intended, or if both apply simultaneously.”

God tests us, not with the purpose of causing us to sin, but with the purpose of forcing us to rely on him to pass the test, and grow stronger because of that reliance. However, exactly the same outward conditions that constitute a test may also become a temptation, depending entirely on our response to them. If, in facing a test, I seek and then follow God’s wisdom for the situation, I will avoid the consequences of being drawn away into temptation. On the other hand, if I seek God only half-heartedly, thinking I will merely see if I think his way is better and then do what I decide to do, God will leave me to my own devices (verses 6 and 7). And if I do what I think is right, or what I want, without seeking God at all, God will also leave me to my own devices.

When I face a test on my own, without seeking or heeding God, verses 15 through 17 are the consequences. First, the test becomes a temptation, when my own “lust” entices me and draws me away from what I know is right. The word translated “lust” is epithymía, and refers to any passionate longing or desire, and is a very broad word. Again, Helps Word Studies online has a useful note: “properly, passion built on strong feelings (urges). These can be positive or negative, depending on whether the desire is inspired by faith (God’s inbirthed persuasion).” Jesus even on one occasion described himself as having a godly epithymía, which his Father had honored. See, Luke 22:15. But, in the present context in James, it refers to any innate passionate desire which opposes God. These desires, taking the occasion offered by the test to which we have responded incorrectly, first participate with us in drawing us away (exelkomenos, middle or passive voice, from exelkó) into our own emotional reactions, which, in turn, set a baited trap for us (deleazomenos, also middle or passive voice, from deleázō). At that point, our ungodly desire has “conceived,” and gives birth (tiktei) to sin, accusative singular (hamartian).

The singular is used because the thing to which our incorrect response to a trial, when joined with our innate desires, gives birth is rebellion against God–sin itself–rather than any specific sinful act. This is clarified by the next clause: when our rebellion in the face of a trial first leads to the birth of “sin,” that sin in us is only a baby, not yet mature. As “sin” within us subsequently matures, becomes fully mature (apotelestheisa, aorist passive from apoteléō), this full-grown state of sin produces death.

James 4:17

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. For you are just a vapor that appears for a little while, and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. So for one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, for him it is sin.

James 4:13-17 (NASB)

In verse 17, sin, in the singular (hamartia), without an article, is used as a predicate nominative. Most English translations correctly, in my view, translate it as a generic singular without adding the indefinite article–that is, they translate it as “sin” rather than as “a sin.” The verse is often preached as if it claimed merely that each separate instance in which people fail to do something they know is right constituted “a sin,” that is, a separate, enumerable sinful omission. But, for reasons which go back to the explanation of James 1:15-17, above, that is not what this passage is saying. What it is saying is that, when we proudly make plans for our lives that take no account of God and that fail to seek his wisdom, we sin. God has told us to seek and follow his counsel for the things we do. When we instead arrogantly make our own plans and boastfully announce our intentions to carry them out in our own strength, our failure to ask God first–which is “the right thing to do”–is, in itself and by definition, “sin.”

Examples of “Sin,” Singular, from First and Second Peter

1 Peter 4:1

Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind; for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that you no longer should live the rest of your time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. For we have spent enough of our past time doing the desire of the Gentiles, and having walked in lewdness, lusts, drunken binges, orgies, carousings, and abominable idolatries. They think it is strange that you don’t run with them into the same excess of riot, blaspheming. They will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For to this end the Good News was preached even to the dead, that they might be judged indeed as men in the flesh, but live as to God in the spirit.

1 Peter 4:1-6 (WEB)

What Christ has put an end to through his sufferings, and what he calls on us to put an end to in our own lives is “sin,” singular–our rebellion against God. In our past lives in the world, this sin led to a lifestyle characterized by doing “the desire of the Gentiles,” which includes the discrete “sins” named in verses 2 through 6. But we are called upon to put an end to the root of these behaviors, which is the attitude “sin.”

2 Peter 2:14

having eyes full of adultery, and who can’t cease from sin; enticing unsettled souls; having a heart trained in greed; children of cursing;

2 Peter 2:14 (WEB)

The appropriate context of this verse is the entire chapter, describing false prophets and false teachers, from which the portions most relevant to the use of the word “sin” (hamartias, genitive singular, no article) in verse 14 are:

But false prophets also arose among the people, as false teachers will also be among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master who bought them, bringing on themselves swift destruction. Many will follow their immoral ways, and as a result, the way of the truth will be maligned. In covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words: whose sentence now from of old doesn’t linger, and their destruction will not slumber. For if God didn’t spare… turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, having made them an example to those who would live in an ungodly way; and delivered righteous Lot, who was very distressed by the lustful life of the wicked…

the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment,  but chiefly those who walk after the flesh in the lust of defilement and despise authority. Daring, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries; whereas angels, though greater in might and power, don’t bring a railing judgment against them before the Lord. But these, as unreasoning creatures, born natural animals to be taken and destroyed, speaking evil in matters about which they are ignorant, will in their destroying surely be destroyed,  receiving the wages of unrighteousness; people who count it pleasure to revel in the daytime, spots and defects, reveling in their deceit while they feast with you; having eyes full of adultery, and who can’t cease from sin; enticing unsettled souls; having a heart trained in greed; children of cursing; forsaking the right way, they went astray, having followed the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of wrongdoing…

For, uttering great swelling words of emptiness, they entice in the lusts of the flesh, by licentiousness, those who are indeed escaping from those who live in error; promising them liberty, while they themselves are bondservants of corruption; for a man is brought into bondage by whoever overcomes him.

For if, after they have escaped the defilement of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in it and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.

2 Peter 2:1-4a, 6-7, 9-15, 18-19 (WEB)

The focus of this passage is not on the individual sinful acts of false teachers or on the individual righteous acts of the people God calls righteous and delivers from the destruction of the wicked. Instead, the focus is on the inward motivation of the false teachers, who for a profit promise freedom but sell bondage to the same sin to which they themselves are bound. I have previously discussed this at length in my posts False Teachers and “Damnable Heresies” in 2 Peter 2 and The Real Issue with False Teachers is their Hidden Motivations, and I have also previously discussed some of the examples given by Peter: see, The Bad Example of Balaam and The Problem with Sodom.

However, for the purpose of understanding what the singular “sin” in verse 16 means, it is sufficient to note that it refers to the false teachers’ habitual use of their eyes. Their eyes are “full of” adultery and “never cease from” sin (singular). They are motivated by greed and pride, a combination of which “adultery”–both physical adultery and the spiritual adultery of idolizing themselves–is only one component. Their eyes cannot cease from sin, from self-seeking, both sexually and in the matter of looking for unstable souls to entice for their own profit. “Sin” in this verse refers to this inward motivation instead of, or at least much more than, it refers to any individual instance of lustful looking.

NEXT: Distinction Between “Sin” (Singular) and “Sins” (Plural)–Part 5–First John