the essential nature of sin. Since both nouns have the definite article, the terms are interchangeable. Sin by its nature involves an element of lawlessness, and every form of lawlessness is sin. The term “lawlessness” (anomia) “does not mean a state of being without law, but the assertion of the individual will against and in defiance of the law of God, the refusal to live in accordance with the revealed standards of right and wrong.”42 It is thus the very opposite of righteousness, which is conformity