Sin is the failure to meet God’s standards of holy, virtuous perfection, and its punishment is death. This is a state that the Bible says we are all born into, and cannot escape from on our own. In the Old Testament, sin was paid for symbolically through various sacrifices; In the New Testament through to today, sin is revealed to be paid for through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Paul even refers to sin as a power that was condemned, alongside death, through the flesh of Jesus on the cross. In raising physically from the dead, sin and death lose their dominion and can no longer enslave us.

So, through the cross of Jesus we are justified and made right with God. Yet, salvation is also a process of sanctification before our final glorification in heaven. For now, as we are being sanctified, we become more conformed into the image of Jesus. This means we become less prone to sinful desires, finding a distaste in sin, and satisfaction instead in holiness and righteousness through humility in love.