Frequently, we think of sin as only a ledger: God’s record of all our evil thoughts, words, and actions versus our good thoughts, words, and actions. Sin is imagined as a substance that builds up in our system, in our account. Perhaps there may be helpful analogies there, but sin is also a directional thing, a geographical reality, a sort of teleology. Literally, the verb in the Hebrew “to sin” means “to miss the mark”; it means you’ve veered off the path. To sin is to be going in the wrong direction, to be in the wrong place.
