Sin

 •  4 min. read  •  grade level: 9
“Sin is lawlessness”— ἀνομία—1 John 3:44Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law. (1 John 3:4); “The conception of lust”—James 1:1515Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. (James 1:15); the motion of a will opposed to God. It first shows itself in disobedience—Genesis 3-whether the result of being deceived by Satan or otherwise (1 Timothy 2:13,1413For Adam was first formed, then Eve. 14And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. (1 Timothy 2:13‑14)); it goes on in refusing to acknowledge the evil of this (Genesis 4); and in this rank soil is developed all wickedness till overtaken at length by the judgment of God. Genesis 6, 7.
Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. Abel owned that there was need of propitiation; his offering was an appeasement for sin and an acknowledgment of the rights of God; Cain’s offering was complimentary. Abel’s was in acknowledgment of the breach that sin had made, and in faith of the sacrifice and virtue of Christ as the ground of approach to God; Cain’s was in the denial both of the sin and of the sacrifice. Abel’s was the judgment of the first man by whom sin had entered, and death by sin. Cain’s was in the denial of this, and in consequence the development of the first man, now fallen, in all the forms of wickedness in which the world has been founded and built up until he reaches a semi-angelic state in wickedness, gigantic and renowned (Genesis 6), but without and against God, in which state, after much forbearance on God’s part, he is overtaken by judgment—(Genesis 7).
Abel’s offering was “in faith,” and was the witness of his righteousness (Hebrews 11:44By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh. (Hebrews 11:4)); Cain’s was in the rejection of the testimony of God; he was a hater of righteousness, and his deeds were John
In a world of sin, truth and righteousness is to own the sin and the need of propitiation, and to own my part in this. It is purely evil to ignore it, and when the foundation is bad to go on as though it were good and God were not offended. I must judge myself as connected with the fall, and as I cannot repair the breach, or meet the offended majesty of God, I must submit myself to His righteousness—and this is established through His grace for us in the blood of Jesus—who also Himself becomes our righteousness before God. So that while it makes nothing of me in the flesh, but a sinner and helpless, it makes everything of Christ and the grace that gave Him, and more of me in Him than what before I had lost through sin—thus giving me a full judgment of man in the flesh, and also a perfect assurance and boldness of access into the presence of God through Christ; it is also the foundation of all practical righteousness in daily life, as it is, too, the only righteous and truthful manner of approach to God, or, of our relationship in blessing with Him.
But this is the very thing that provokes the enmity and wrath of the unrighteous man, who denies the true nature of sin and his fallen state, and of the offense rendered by his sin against the majesty and sovereignty of God. The deeds of such a one are only and always evil. Whatever his actions may be in themselves, the state in which he lives is that of sin, and his every act carries in the motive of it the nature of the sin in which he lives, the state in which he is; it is the act of an unsubjected will; and it is the solemn testimony of Scripture that “the whole world lieth in the wicked one.” (1 John 5:1919And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. (1 John 5:19).)
Three things constitute the world morally, as established by fallen man driven out from the presence of God, in Genesis 4, viz., riches, pleasure, and science; “the desires of the flesh and of the mind.” Subtract these three things from a man of the world, and nothing remains for him but conscious misery, without God. It is the rich man’s hell of Luke 16, reached morally in this world before he actually gets there in the next. The world is already founded on sin-judgment will be the consequence of this from the hand of God—a judgment already announced by Jesus (John 12:3131Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. (John 12:31)), and from which He alone can save us. E. C.