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. The impulse of every sinner, which only Divine power
can overcome, is to flee from God. Hence arises the necessity for
reconciliation, and for the intervention of God to effect it. That the
unity thus broken may be restored, expiation must be made by one
possessing the nature of the being that had sinned, and yet, by His
possession of the Divine nature, investing that expiation with
illimitable worth, so that all sin may be covered, and every sinner find
a way of escape from the power and the penal consequences of
transgression. These conditions meet in the Lord Jesus Christ and in Him
alone. That God might, without compromising His attributes, be enabled
to bring man back into fellowship with Himself, He spared not His own
Son, and the Son freely gave Himself to suffering and death for the
world's redemption.
In the felt necessity of atonement, which has associated sacrifice with
every religion devised by man, we have evidence of the universality of
sin. All feel its crushing pressure, and fear the punishment which,
conscience assures them, is deserved and inevitable. The heathen
confesses it as he prostrates himself before the image of his god, or
immolates himself or his fellow-man upon his altar; and the Christian
feels and confesses it as, fleeing for refuge, he finds pardon and
cleansing in the blood of Jesus Christ.
Sin is original or actual, the former inherited from our parents, the
latter, personal transgression of the Divine law. Every man descending
from Adam by ordinary generation is born with the taint of original sin.
As the representative head of humanity, Adam transmitted to all his
descendants the nature that his sin had polluted. The fountain of life
was poisoned at its source, and when Adam begat children they were born
in his likeness. "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by
sin; and so death passed upon all men." "Death reigned ... even over
them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression."
"By one man's disobedience many were made sinners."[198]
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;
sins of pride, covetousness, lust, gluttony, anger, envy, sloth. In many
things we sin, and "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,
and the truth is not in us."[199]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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