COMMON UNDERSTANDING OF SIN
Jews and Christians have a common understanding of sin — to a point. Jews have their religious laws and Christians have their religious laws. But,beyond those laws, they agree that sin includes fleshly attitudes and behaviors.
Flesh is more than impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. Indeed these are all forbidden or at least undesirable qualities and behaviors in most cultures, it is reasonable to say that they are common fleshly activities found in human nature. But God’s purpose in this long list of common, worldly sins and taboos is not as obvious as we might think.
Most people do not need to be warned about these attitudes and behaviors because they have been raised by parents and cultures that teach about bad behavior and punish children and adults who exhibit it. In some cases, civil laws and consequences are designed to deter people from breaking these laws and isolate hard core offenders so they can no longer harm others if they do not respond to discipline. And if there are not laws, there are at least cultural norms that tell us what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior and discipline us when we deviate from them. This is how we learn to become good citizens of our respective cultures.
God uses the same kind of disciplinary techniques that parents and cultures use to teach and enforce good behavior, but his standards of behavior are not the same as we find in human culture. For God, the standard of perfection is the New Covenant. That being true, anyone who sets Old/First Covenant religion as their standard will miss the mark which is the definition of sin.
The New Covenant law is THE perfect law by which God tests/evaluates the condition of the heart. God’s exclusive practice of looking at the heart while men look at outward appearances stands in stark contrast with Old/First Covenant religions where everything done is for others to see so they can receive praise and glory for their religious behaviors.
So God’s laundry list of bad behaviors does not just affirm what we already know. Nor is the punishment that he prescribes for these sins meant to duplicate, replace or add to the punishments and disciplines that our parents and cultures use to maintain order and civility.
Instead, God uses these terms to describe how he sees religion where each of these natural behaviors has its spiritual counterpart which is the substance or focus of spiritual sin. God associates these human behaviors with Old/First Covenant religious beliefs, attitudes and behaviors that he summarizes as flesh.
God’s association of these many sinful behaviors with religion is not understood by religious people because their eyes are blind to spiritual truth. They will continue to see these offensive behaviors as a laundry list of human sins to be avoided until God opens their eyes so that they can acquire spiritual wisdom that enables the to understand the spiritual meaning of each of these terms.
In summary, Old/First Covenant religionists do not have spiritual wisdom to understand the New Covenant.