Bible Students

The results of sin are fourfold. Sin, first, is relational. Sin is not a mere disobedience of an impartial law, but a rejection of the personal Being who is God. This means sin brings consequences, as it connects an individual through relationship to another thing. There are four areas of damage caused by the relational nature of sin. 

First, there is God, who is ultimately the one being rejected through sin. When a man sins, he is directly opposing God, who commanded him not to sin. The most serious consequence of sin is the offense to God. Sin results in a separation of God and man, willfully by the man. Unfortunately, without help from God Himself, man can not close this separation, and so sin bears a terrible consequence in this area. 

Second is others, who are harmed in the rejection of God. Where God is the subject of rejection, humans are most often the object of rejection. People most commonly reject God by rejecting people made in His Image. They were created the same as the individual, and yet the individual chooses to cause offense to the other Image bearer, thus creating a separation between the man and his brother, in addition to the separation between man and God. 

Third, the impersonal creation is damaged through a rejection of God and other humans. The functionality of the world is thrown into chaos when humans are not able to work together for God. When a man rejects his brother, the resulting separation of the two which comes from sin results in an inability for them to work together as intended, resulting in their jobs not going as intended. The responsibility of humanity is to cultivate a new “Garden of Eden,” a place where God and man dwell together. Their job is to work to bring all of creation into order (the epitome of which is the Garden of Eden, before the new creation), as commanded for them to do back when Adam was created. When a separation occurs between a man and his brother, they are not able to work together as intended, and the results of the sin then affect creation, which suffers from the inability of humans to work together properly. 

Lastly, sin affects the self. Through rejecting God, other humans, and the rest of creation, sin attacks the individual, affecting the relationships the individual was made to prosper in. By doing this, sin spits in the face of the very thing mankind was made to do, which was to enjoy God forever and bring Him worship by participating in what He does (on earth this is directly linked to people and creation).