Law of sin

“ One in accordance with the good which is implanted in us, which clearly he calls the law of the mind. One the law which arises from the assault of evil, and which often draws on the soul to lustful fancies, which, he says,” wars against the law of the mind.” [23] And the third, which is in accordance with sin, settled in the flesh from lust, which he calls the “law of sin which dwells in our members;” [24] which the Evil One, urging on, often stirs up against us, driving us to unrighteousness and evil deeds. ”

“ It is perfectly plain, then, that "whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin," whether we have regard to the feeling of obligation to be perfectly holy which is in the human conscience; or to the ineffectual aspirations which sometimes arise in the human spirit; or to the dreadful fears which often fall upon it. Sin must have brought the human will into a real and absolute bondage, if the deep and solemn sense of indebtedness to moral law; if the "thoughts that wander through eternity;" ”

“ Section III.—Universality Of Sin. We have shown that sin is a state, a state of the will, a selfish state of the will. We now proceed to show that this selfish state of the will is universal. We divide our proof into two parts. In the first, we regard sin in its aspect as conscious violation of law; in the second, in its aspect as a bias of the nature to evil, prior to or underlying consciousness.
I. Every human being who has arrived at moral consciousness has committed acts, or cherished dispositions, contrary to the divine law. ”

“ The taint of original sin, extending to man's whole nature, inclines him to act in opposition to the law of God, and every concession to his corrupt desire, in thought, word, or deed, is actual sin. Because of it he is not subject to the law of God, neither, indeed, can be. ”

“ In the most common use of the term, “sin is the transgression of law.” At the same time men recognize the distinction between sins of ignorance and willful sin.
Sin and Holiness. The preceding, then, warrants the definition of sin as “the transgression of law,” whether known or unknown. The question of the rectitude of penalties added to the natural consequences of violated laws, is confined to those sins which are attended by a knowledge of law and ability to understand and obey. ”

“ Sin as a fact changes with time and place. Sin as an idea is disobedience to the law of God; that is, to the doctrines of religion; that is, to the teaching of priests. Crime is quite another thing. It is far less heinous, and far more easily forgiven. Of course crime and sin may overlap; they may often be the same thing practically; but this is an accident, for there are crimes that are no sins, and sins that are no crimes. It is a crime, but not a sin, to torture a heretic; it is a sin, but not a crime, to eat meat on a Friday. ”

“ Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's.
The sin here prohibited is an inordinate desire for, or an unlawful lusting after, what is another man's. Thus the law of God not only condemns sinful actions, it also condemns sinful desires and thoughts. Sin has its origin in the heart. "From within, out of the heart, proceed evil thoughts," etc. Hence the law of God takes cognizance of the state of the heart, as well as of the outward conduct. ”

“ The apostle had said (ch. vi. 14) , Sin shall not have dominion, because you are not under the law, but under grace, for the proof of which he here shows that a man under the law, and not under grace, may be, and is, under the dominion of sin. The law may discover sin, and convince of sin, but it cannot conquer and subdue sin, witness the predominancy of sin in many that are under very strong legal convictions. It discovers the defilement, but will not wash it off. It makes a man weary and heavy laden (Matt. xi. 28) , burdens him with his sin ”

“ The language of the apostle confirms this view: ‘What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh’—that is, the law, although it had power to show to the mind the evil and the guilt of sin, had no power to produce in the heart an aversion to it; but Christ coming in the body, and dying for sin, in that way reaches man’s moral feelings, and creates a sentiment of condemnation of, or aversion to, sin in the heart of every believer. ”

“ And how is it an argument why sin should not reign over us, and why we should walk in newness of life? 1. We are delivered from the power of the law which curses and condemns us for the sin committed by us. The sentence of the law against us is vacated and reversed, by the death of Christ, to all true believers. The law saith, The soul that sins shall die; but we are delivered from the law. The Lord has taken away thy sin, thou shalt not die. We are redeemed from the curse of the law, Gal. ”

“ Sin, though still in the flesh, should no more reign in his mortal body, nor have dominion over him.
If it were not for the law, or truth, of God, we should not know what sin is; for, says the apostle, "I had not known sin, but by the law"; "for without the law, sin is dead". If a man committed theft, or adultery, or any other thing, he would not know whether he did right or wrong in God's esteem, if God had not said they shall not be done. The lower animals steal, kill, and obey their propensities uncontrolled ”

“ It rests upon false fundamental principles,—as, that law is identical with the natural order of the universe, and as such, is an exhaustive expression of the will and nature of God; that sin is merely a power of moral evil within the soul, instead of also involving an objective guilt and desert of [pg 746] punishment; that penalty is the mere reaction of law against the transgressor, instead of being also the revelation of a personal wrath against sin; that the evil taint of human nature can be extirpated by suffering its natural consequences,—penalty in this way reforming the transgressor. ”

“ First, it is said that sin is infinite and deserves an infinite penalty because it is an outrage against an infinite being.17 A more absurd perversion of logic than this, a more glaring violation of common sense, was never perpetrated. It directly reverses the facts and subverts the legitimate inference. Is the sin measured by the dignity of the lawgiver, or by the responsibility of the law breaker? Does justice heed the wrath of the offended, or the guilt of the offender? ”

“ Looking at it from the standpoint of the true end of human life, sin is a “missing of the mark.” The chief end of man is to glorify God. The sinner fails in 120that. He misses the mark. Sin from this point of view means failure, defeat, disaster. The Bible looks at sin from the standpoint of Law, the Divine Law written in the nature and on the conscience of man, and brands sin as lawlessness. ”

“ Then it becomes a Sin—the wilful violation of a known law of God. There are many errors which are not crimes; and the best men often commit them innocently, but not without harm, violating laws of the body or the soul, which they have not grown up to understand. There have been many crimes; yes, conscious violations of man's law which were not sins, but rather a keeping of God's law. There are still a great many sins not forbidden by any human statute, not considered as crimes. It is no crime to go and fight in a wicked war; nay, it is thought a virtue. ”

“ Sin is formless, vague, impalpable. But our own individual transgressions can be fixed and defined; bringing ourselves to the test of the Law, we can say particularly, "This practice of mine is condemned, this habit of mine is sinful, this point of my character is evil, this reticence, this indolence, this reluctance, in confessing Christ and in serving His cause, is all wrong;" ”

“ Everywhere Paul teaches that it was sin which brought death upon man; that man would have broken through the law of death which reigns in the physical world had he not by sin brought himself under the power of things physical. And this poisonous fang was pressed in by the Law. The strength of sin is the Law. It is positive disobedience, the preference of known evil to known good, the violation of law whether written in the conscience or in spoken commandments, which gives sin its moral character. The choice of the evil in presence of the good—it is that which constitutes sin. ”

“ Actual sin consists in breaking any law of God made known to us by Scripture, conscience, or reason. It assumes many forms. There are sins of thought, of word, of deed; sins of commission, or doing what God forbids; of omission, or leaving undone what God commands; sins to which we are tempted by the world, the flesh, or the devil; sins directly against God; sins that wrong our neighbours, and that ruin ourselves ”

“ Again, men are often sorry for their conduct without thinking of it as sin against God. Crime means the transgression of man's law, wrong means the transgression of conscience's law, sin is the transgression of God's law. ”

“ But as the material of the paper remains undiminished in the mundane system, so the guilt which it recorded abides, held in solution, as it were, by the moral atmosphere which encircles the judgment-seat of God. Uniting with all of kindred essence that has been generated in your soul, it will be precipitated by a law, and when it falls, it will not miss the mark. Thou alone shalt bear it. Those who have not found refuge in the Sin-bearer must bear their own sin. Sins, like water, are not annihilated, although they go out of our sight. ”

“ To whom should sins be confessed, and why?
“Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight.” Ps. 51:4. See Gen. 39:9.
4. What instruction is given concerning confession of faults?
“Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed.” James 5:16.
Notes.—The Bible makes a distinction between a sin and a fault. We sin against God; for sin is the transgression of His law. 1 John 3:4. ”

“ Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. To define sin as selfishness or to restrict sin to known sins is inadequate. Sin is defined in terms of the law of God. And no mere man since the fall is able perfectly in this life to keep God's commandments—even for a day. ”

“ Where men accept a God, it is opposition to His law and government.7 If no personal God be believed in, then sin is willful opposition to the course of nature and to law, as proved by experience. So, in every case, it is unworthy, injurious, and guilty, and must be repented of and atoned for. The doctrine of sin will never be essentially disturbed. ”

“ With freedom of will he received the gift of conscience, which, enabling him to distinguish between right and wrong, invested him with responsibility, and made disobedience sin. That he can sin is his patent of nobility, that he does sin is his ruin and disgrace.
The effect of sin is separation from God, who can have no fellowship with evil, for sin is the abominable thing which He hates, and on which He cannot even look. A breach, altogether irreparable on man's part, was made between man and his Creator when the first transgression of the law of God took place. ”

“ Only to the first man, then, was the law proposed as a method of salvation. With the first sin, all hope of obtaining the divine favor by perfect obedience is lost. To sinners the law remains as a means of discovering and developing sin in its true nature, and of compelling a recourse to the mercy provided in Jesus Christ. ”

“ The penalty of past sin will pursue you until the end, not only in the pain caused by a discontented habit of mind, but also in the consciousness of its exceeding sinfulness.
Every thought that rebels against the law of God involves its own punishment in itself, by contributing to the establishment of habits that increase tenfold the difficulties to which a sinful nature exposes us. ”

“ To be dead to the Law means to be free of the Law. What right, then, has the Law to accuse me, or to hold anything against me? When you see a person squirming in the clutches of the Law, say to him: "Brother, get things straight. You let the Law talk to your conscience. Make it talk to your flesh. Wake up, and believe in Jesus Christ, the Conqueror of Law and sin. Faith in Christ will lift you high above the Law into the heaven of grace. Though Law and sin remain, they no longer concern you, because you are dead to the Law and dead to sin." ”

“ The wits or wills of men, their inventions or their injunctions, cannot make that to be sin which the law of God has not made to be so. ”

“ Now ministers meet their people in order to enlighten and awaken the consciences of sinners: setting before them the great [Pg 125] evil and danger of sin, the strictness of God’s law, their own wickedness of heart and practice, the great guilt they are under, the wrath that abides upon them, and their impotence, blindness, poverty, and helpless and undone condition: but all is often in vain; ”

“ Such sins are idolatry, superstition, perjury, the sins of those who had Christ crucified, simony, sacrilege, unworthy reception of the Eucharist or other Sacrament, violation of vows, etc.
228. Sins committed against creatures, other things being equal, rank in gravity as follows: (a) Sins against personality are greater than sins against possessions. Example: The sin of murder, which is against personality, is worse than the sin of theft, which is against possessions. ”