Psalms 1:5 - “Nor Sinners”

The first Psalm has already mentioned the wicked a couple of times and now it turns to the sinner. Is there a difference between “the wicked” and “sinners?”

In a sense, yes, there is. The wicked are those who revel in their ungodliness. If you are like me, you have seen them too. They are those people who don’t just do bad things, they go out of their way to be bad. They take a certain amount of glory in it and they proudly brag about how evil they are. That is what wickedness is.

A sinner is someone who has done wrong. That’s all of us. No one escapes from this life sinless.

Romans 3:23

“…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

The Bible, though, often distinguishes between two types of sinners. There are those who sin but who repent because they are living out the struggle to become better at life. They sin but their sin does not define them.

Then there are sinners who constantly fall back into their net. They are so attached to their sin that they really don’t want to let go of it. They are the sinful. They love their sin. RC Sproul once put it like this: “We sin, ultimately, because we love our sin more than we love pleasing God.”

That is what a sinner is. It is someone who isn’t trying to be holy or godly. A sinner is comfortable with their separation from God.