Sin is social: although it is first and foremost defiance of God, there is no sin that does not touch the lives of others. Even secret sins of the heart and mind adversely affect others, since by subtly changing me, they change my relations with others. Secretly nurtured lust, for instance, soon affects a man’s or a woman’s relations with the spouse and with other human beings. That is one reason why God’s judgment is poured out on people to the third and fourth generations of those who hate God (Exodus 20.5): sin is social. Judgment comes not only in the death of every generation, but in the sweeping condemnation of the flood (Genesis 7-8), in the repeated cycles of war, pestilence, and famine (e.g. Judges, the exile), and ultimately in hell itself, about which Jesus says so much. Sin is so warping that it corrodes every facet of our being, our wills and affections, our view of others and thus our relationships, our bodies and minds. Sinners incur guilt, yet they need more forgiveness and reconciliation to God (though never less), since the results of sin are so pervasive: they also need regeneration and transformation.

D. A. Carson, Christ and Culture Revisited (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2008), 48.