Don't you realize that whatever you choose to obey becomes your master? You can choose sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God and receive his approval. Rom 6: 16

So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God's wonderful kindness rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Rom 5: 21
Charles B. Fleming

At its deepest level, sin is a refusal to be in communion. Sin is more than just violating a moral code. Our first parents rejected the relationship God offered them. He invited them to commune with him, living in trusting dependence on him and being his agents to enjoy, rule and serve the earth (Gen 1- 3). Instead, they chose to rely on themselves. Their decision was a refusal to live in the image of the relational God in whose image they had been made!

But that decision was no solitary – “one-of” – affair. It had enormous consequences:

• Sin has a life of its own. In one of the earliest recorded explanations on the nature of sin, God told Cain that sin is like a living creature, which crouches and “desires” to “have” him (Gen 4: 7).

• Sin reproduces itself. Another word picture the Bible uses is that sin is like leaven in that it spreads and contaminates (Luke 12: 1; I Cor 5: 6-7). This means even our family, institutional and national life have all become sinful. There is such a thing as corporate sin. Sin is not just something individuals do. We create and find ourselves living in and controlled by “sin systems”.

• Sin seeks to dominate all it is in relationship with. Paul, draws a word picture from his own time, and explains that sin is like a ruler who takes over our lives once we “yield” ourselves to “obey” him (Rom 6: 16-18). The two Greek verbs used in verse 16 are highly relational. The one translated as “yield” (KJV) or “offer” (NIV) has the sense of stand before, by and with. Exactly what God invited Adam to do – stand with me, be for me! Even after their rejection, God consistently does exactly that throughout the Bible – He takes the initiative and comes before us, reveals himself as the God-who-is-with-and-for-us. The other verb, translated as obey, is also relational, it means to “attentively hearken” and to “submit, to be in “compliance.” It describes the kind of posture of heart and spirit that Jesus so beautifully lived: attentively considering what the Father does (John 5: 19), submitting to his will (Mt 26: 39) and complying with the Father’s will that he live for the good of others (Phil 2: 3-5), in the power of the Spirit (Luke 4: 14).

The point being made by both Genesis and Paul is that we sin, and then sin turns around and changes us! For the worse! Paul emphasizes that our choice is between two “systems” of communion: one that spirals upwards in a positive embrace and leads to life; and one – a death grip – that spirals downwards through a lifetime of misery to death (Rom 6: 16-18; 5: 20-21).

Communion with sin made us – individually and collectively – unable and unwilling to commune with God. Paul said we are alienated (Col 1: 21; Rom 3: 17). Briefly, that looks like this:

• Unable Adam and Eve lost their clear conscience, became ashamed and riddled with fear (Gen 2: 25; 3: 10). Their attitudes and behavior changed (and here is where moral considerations fit in). They hid and covered up and expected the worst from a kind, generous God. Their default drive became one of blaming others (Gen 3: 12-13). Cain became depressed and lost his ability to properly evaluate life and his own conduct (Gen 4: 13-14). An inability that spread to us all!

• Unwilling Paul says we have created a humanity-wide hostility to God (Rom 8: 7; 3: 11-12).

As you read the NT, look at how Jesus – by becoming human and living in the power of the Spirit – dealt with both the inability and unwillingness of people to be in communion with God.