Epitome of Sin

The word hamartia is used twice in the letters to the Thessalonians. The first use has to do with a particular Jewish sin, and the second with a characteristic Gentile sin. “For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they [have] of the Jews: Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost” (1 Thess 2:14-16). Paul describes his countrymen as being “contrary to all men,” with the result that they were filling their cup up to the brim with their own sins. The wrath of God, evidenced in the destruction of their entire religious apparatus in 70 A.D., was going to be upon them shortly. But a characteristic Gentile sin was also part of this catastrophe in the first century: “Let no man deceive you by any means: for [that day shall not come], except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God” (2 Thess. 2:3-4). The Jews wanted to be a dog in the manger, getting in between God and all men. The Gentiles wanted to be God, as evidenced by the hubris of the Roman emperors. And of course, both were the epitome of sin.