Q. W. G. H., Perth, Out. You ask for something of the difference between the expressions Sin, Sins, Transgression, Iniquity, Evil, etc. Also a “practical word concerning Infirmities in contrast with Sins.”
A. As to the two first words, generally speaking “sin” is used for the evil nature from which “sins” — the actions — the fruit of that nature, spring, coming forth independently of any provocation by or resistance to the law. The latter may be divided into two classes, namely devil sins and brute sins, if I may so say.
“Transgressions” are sins which become such because of the positive infringement of a known command or prohibition — a stepping over the line laid down.
There are two words in the Greek language which are frequently both translated “iniquity” in the English Bible (ἀδιία and ἅνομος) the one correctly so, and simply meaning injustice — a departure from what is righteous, the other “lawlessness,” of which more again.
“Evil” is used for what is malignant, mischievous, wicked. It comes from the same word as that “Evil One,” the author of all that is malignant and wicked — he whose temptation caused man at first to fall, and become the heir of labor and sorrow, pain and misery.
In 1 John 3:4, we read, “Sin is the transgression of the law,” which is a totally false translation, and wrong doctrine. It should be, “Sin is lawlessness,” that is, the casting off the authority of God. It is the more remarkable when we kind that Adam’s failure is not termed “sin,” but “transgression.” See Romans 5:14: “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression,” etc. Here the apostle is speaking of those who lived between Adam and Moses, and died — death proving that sin was there, of which it was its wages even in this world. He speaks of such as having “sinned,” that is, come short of the mark, while God had not as yet given the law. Yet, when he speaks of Adam’s fall, he does not name it “sin” but “transgression” — because Adam broke through a known prohibition which God had given, forbidding the eating of the fruit of the tree — and thus going beyond the mark which God had laid down.
“Infirmity,” or its plural, is frequently used with reference to the sickness of the body, but, when used in a moral and not a physical sense, it might more correctly be translated “weakness.” See such passages as Romans 8:26, “The Spirit also helpeth our weakness,” 1 Corinthians 2:3, “I was with you in weakness,” 2 Corinthians 11:3. “These things which concern my weaknesses”; 2 Corinthians 12:5-9, which read, “For my power is perfected in weakness; most gladly, therefore, will I rather boast in my weaknesses,” etc., “that the power of Christ may dwell upon me.” See also 5:10, 13:4; Gal. 4:13; Hebrews 4:15, 11:34.
It (“infirmity”) is something of which we can glory, as you may readily perceive. Sometimes persons use the word with respect to the failings of the Christian, and I think that this, coupled with the way it is translated frequently in the English version, leads to the making excuses for these things. Scripture uses it with regard to the weakness of the Christian as a man, and, as 2 Corinthians 12 shows, that in this felt weakness (which God makes us feel consciously) He works, and thus the thing done is His work, through the weakness of the vessel. If the vessel works, it only hinders and ceases to be a vessel. If I have a tumbler on my table to hold water, that is its work; if it moves (supposing this possible), it ceases to be of use as a vessel, for the time. So with the Christian; he is “not sufficient to think of himself,” or to act of himself. Then comes in a power, which is not the life he possesses in Christ; nor is it the vessel which contains the treasure, but God, holding the vessel in weakness by and through the sorrows of the way, and manifesting the life of Jesus in our mortal flesh.
It is the same word as applied to the Lord, as “crucified in weakness” (2 Cor. 13:4).
Now, as to “sins,” we know that these are forgiven us, thank God, through the precious blood of Christ, who died for them, and by faith in Him. God says He will remember them no more. A person learns this through a free gospel, and is happy in the truth of it. Another thing comes, he finds, perhaps through some trip that he has the same tendencies and the same nature as ever in him albeit having learned forgiveness for what he had done. Then comes another thing; he must know not only that Christ died for his sins but that he has died with Christ, and has thus been delivered from sin — the nature, or state of the nature, for which there is no forgiveness. This becomes a question of experience, as that had been a question of faith, and hence more difficult to learn deliverance. I say to a person, “Christ died for your sins and put them away,” and he is happy at having learned this I continue — “And you’ve died with Christ — you’re dead.” “Not, no,” he says; “I foolishly lost my temper this morning over such a trifle — that proves I am not dead.” Thus you find the soul struggles and struggles to get free from the bondage of an evil nature, and really never gets deliverance till it ceases to struggle, and submits to be delivered by another — even Christ — and “reckons itself dead to sin.” Then all is free. Yet the nature is unchanged, but it is no more “I.” There is an old “I” and a new “I” discovered, and no confidence in the old.
It has often been pointed out how that Romans 3-5:1-11 deals with the question of “sins,” and Romans 5:12 — chapter 8, with “sin.” The first is met by Christ dying for me, the second, by my dying with Him. Adam brought in the state of sin, in which Cain was born, but Cain murdered his brother, which was the fruit of an evil nature in this state. The one was sin — the nature; the other the sinful deed produced by it. We must have deliverance from the former, and forgiveness for the latter, before we can stand in God’s presence in the light and at peace.
A sinner is not chargeable before God as a matter of judgment for what he is, but for what he has done. The son of an exile for high treason was not held guilty of what his father had done against the king. He was born in exile; but he might have returned as a loyal subject. But he sins against the king too in the state in which his parent involved him, and becomes expatriated himself for his own sin as high treason as well.
So we, born in sin, have also sinned against God, and thus our practice and our state are both a state of ruin. Take a common case to illustrate sin, sins, and transgressions. My child has had very evil habits; he throws stones and breaks the windows. His conscience tells him that it is wrong. Where did he get the mischievous nature that liked to do wrong? This is sin. But the actions are sins, known, too, by his natural conscience. I send him a message, forbidding this evil practice. Again he does it. This is transgression or trespass. This was like the law given to sinners. It added the authority of God to what the natural conscience knows of good and evil, in forbidding the evil. But the law always assumed sin in the nature, though it did not reveal the fact of its existence. You could not forbid a person to do a thing that he had no intention or nature capable of doing. Hence, “by the law is the knowledge of sin,” that is, the nature, which it has discovered. If you tell the children when you go out, that there is something in that drawer but that they are not to know what is there, every child in the house is at once, as the common expression goes, “dying to know.” The command provoked the nature which is opposed to it. This is what the law did. “Therefore,” says Paul, “it was added for the sake of (37’_+) transgression”; and “sin by the commandment became exceedingly sinful,” that is, it became transgression. Hence, too, in Romans 5:13, “Sin is not imputed when there is no law.”