Hitting The Mark

The word sin in the bible is usually translated from either chata in Hebrew or hamartia in Greek, both of which literally mean "miss the mark." In Alma chapter 11, Amulek and Zeezrom argue about whether Christ will save His people in their sins or from their sins. If you look at the original meaning of the words for sin, to miss the mark, then it actually makes more sense why Christ can save us from our sins but not in our sins. If "saving" means helping us to hit the mark, then saving us from sinning means helping us to improve our aim and saving us from missing. God can help us to adjust our aim so that we are pointed toward salvation, but He will not move the target so that we can hit the mark even when we are pointed in completely the wrong direction. That's what saving us "in our sins" means. When we want God to save us in our sins, we want God to adjust His standards. We want God to change so we don't have to. But God doesn't change. He is willing and able to help us to make some readjustments to the direction we are heading, but He will not and can not compromise His standards. We are not on this earth to hit any old targets just for the sake of it, but rather we are here to hit a specific target and as long as we can admit we missed and have the humility to ask the Lord to show us what we're doing wrong, God can save us from missing the mark. But if we insist on shooting in the wrong direction and then get upset when we never hit our target, God can't save us from missing the mark if we don't admit that maybe we are pointed in the wrong direction.