Let us look at the meaning and origin of sin, and specifically sexual sin.
What does the word “to sin” mean? Where does it come from? The biggest shock to me was when I found that sin is not jut doing wrong, but sin is “missing the mark”. So whenever I do not attain to what the Lord has for me I sin.
The general idea in many people’s minds is that we must keep the ten commandments. But as we see above it is much more than that.
God gives us tools to keep away from sin. He gives us hedges to keep us from sin.
Gen 2:7, “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” The word “breath” used here also refer to wind in other contexts. In Hebrew one finds that a word is built on a more basic word, which is again built on an even more fundamental root etc., until one gets to the root word.
So the root of this word “breath” refers to “perception”. So when Adam received the breath of life he could perceive things around him.
The perception that Adam received from the Breath of Life was to look at everything the way God looks at things – Adam perceived things as God perceive things. The Holy Spirit dwelt in Adam perfectly.
If we read further we find that no suitable helper could be found for Adam and the Lord made Eve from Adam’s rib as his helper. Something incredible happened here. God made man and woman and united them in one even physically, from which we can deduce He was also referring to sexuality.
What is also amazing is that they were naked, but they were not ashamed, for they were still innocent. The whole creation was good and holy.
Now let us see how sin came into being and what it caused in man. Let’s look at Gen 3.
It’s amazing, the first thing Adam and Eve did when they missed the mark by eating of the forbidden fruit was to hide their nakedness, for they were ashamed.
In Gen 2:9 we see that God created all the trees, including the tree of life and the forbidden tree of knowledge of good and evil. God never forbade them to eat from the tree of life.
In Rev 22:1, 2 we again read of the tree of life. If you eat the fruit of the tree of life you will never die.
Where is the tree of life today? It is the Word of God. Jesus said in John 6:51, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”, and in verses 53 & 54, “Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
54 Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” Jesus is the Word (See John 1:1).
If a person is truly a believer he will listen to the Holy Spirit and do what is right. He will be upright, deal honestly with money, do honest work, not be hypocritical etc.
Love in the Biblical context has a different meaning to what we commonly think of it. The Bible says we must love our enemies, but we cannot trust our enemies the way we trust our friends. We also cannot trust our friends the way we trust our most intimate relationship in marriage.
God has set very clear limitations to relationships. If we adhere to this Book, the tree of life, it will be the end of the AIDS epidemic.