Memorize:
1Jn 3:4 Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness, for sin is lawlessness.
Eph 2:1 And He has made you alive, who were once dead in trespasses and sins,
Eph 2:2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience;
Eph 2:3 among whom we also had our way of life in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
Jer 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?
Questions for Revision and Research.
Try to answer these before reading below.
- What is the Biblical View of the origin of Sin.
- How would you prove that Satan was the real tempter?
- What were the Consequences of that first sin?
- Do the word sin and evil mean the same thing?
- Can you give some other Scriptural names for sin? Job 15:5; Ps 32:1-2; 55:15; Romans 1:18;5:15; 1 John 3:4
- Does the Bible Explicitly teach that man is a sinner from birth? Ps 51:5; Isa 48: 8
2. The Essential Nature of Sin.Notes from Louis Berkhof p. 74
At present many substitute the word “evil” for “SIN”; but this is a poor substitute, for the word “sin” is much more specific.
Sin denotes a different kind of evil, namely, a moral evil for which man is responsible and which brings him under a sentence of condemnation.
The modern tendency is to regard it merely as a wrong done to one’s fellow human beings. This misses the point entirely, for such a wrong can be called sin in so far as it is contrary to the Will of God. SIN IS CORRECTLY DEFINED BY SCRIPTURE AS “LAWLESSNESS”.
1Jn 3:4 Every one who is guilty of sin is also guilty of violating Law; for sin is the violation of Law. WNT
So sin is a lack of Conformity to the Law of God, and as such the opposite of that love which is required by Divine Law. The Bible always contemplates sin in relation to Divine Law.
Rom 1:32 In short, though knowing full well the sentence which God pronounces against actions such as theirs, as things which deserve death, they not only practise them, but even encourage and applaud others who do them.
Notes from William Newell on v.32
Here we are confronted with three terrible Realities:
- They have complete inner knowledge from God (Gr. epinontes)that their ways deserve and must have Divine Condemnation and judgment;
- they persist in their practices despite the witness of their conscience;
- they are in a fellowship of evil with other evil-doers!
but even encourage and applaud others who do them. “They not only commit sin, but delight and approve of those who do such things.
What a description of this world of sinners, this race alienated from the life of God, - at enmity with Him, and at strife with one another. But all this in a hellish unity of Evil.
Rom 2:12 For all who have sinned apart from the Law will also perish apart from the Law, and all who have sinned whilst living under the Law, will be judged by the Law.
Rom 2:13 It is not those that merely hear the Law read who are righteous in the sight of God, but it is those that obey the Law who will be pronounced righteous.
Rom 2:14 For when Gentiles who have no Law obey by natural instinct the commands of the Law, they, without having a Law, are a Law to themselves;
Rom 4:15 For the Law inflicts punishment; but where no Law exists, there can be no violation of Law.
Rom 5:13 For prior to the Law sin was already in the world; only it is not entered in the account against us when no Law exists.
Rom 5:14 Yet Death reigned as king from Adam to Moses even over those who had not sinned, as Adam did, against Law. And in Adam we have a type of Him whose coming was still future.
It is first of all GUILT making men liable to punishment.
Rom 5:18 It follows then that just as the result of a single transgression is a condemnation which extends to the whole race, so also the result of a single decree of righteousness is a life-giving acquittal which extends to the whole race.
Rom 3:19 Now we know that as many things as the law says, it speaks to those under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
That every mouth may be stopped - This is perhaps, a proverbial expression, Job_5:15; Psa_107:42. It denotes that they would be thoroughly convinced; that the argument would be so conclusive as that they would have nothing to reply; that all objections would be silenced. Here it denotes that the argument for the depravity of the Jews from the Old Testament was so clear and satisfactory, that nothing could be alleged in reply. This may be regarded as the conclusion of his whole argument, and the expressions may refer not to the Jews only, but to all the world. Its meaning may, perhaps, be thus expressed, “The Gentiles are proved guilty by their own deeds, and by a violation of the laws of nature. They sin against their own conscience; and have thus been shown to be guilty before God Rom. 1. The Jews have also been shown to be guilty; all their objections have been silenced by an independent train of remark; by appeals to their own Law; by arguments drawn from the authority which they admit. Thus, the mouths of both are stopped. Thus, the whole world becomes guilty before God.” I regard, therefore, the word “that” here ἵνα hina as referring, not particularly to the argument from the Law of the Jews, but to the whole previous train of argument, embracing both Jews and Gentiles. His conclusion is thus general or universal, drawn from arguments adapted to the two great divisions of mankind.
And all the world - Both Jews and Gentiles, for so the strain of the argument shows. That is, all by nature; all who are out of Christ; all who are not pardoned. All are guilty where there is not some scheme contemplating forgiveness, and which is not applied to purify them. The apostle in all this argument speaks of what man is, and ever would be, without some plan of justification appointed by God.
May become - May “be.” They are not made guilty by the Law; but the argument from the Law, and from fact, proves that they are guilty.
Guilty before God - ὑπόδικος τῷ Θεῷ hupodikos tō Theō. Margin, “subject to the judgment of God.” The phrase is taken from courts of justice. It is applied to a man who has not vindicated or defended himself; against whom therefore the charge or the indictment is found true; and who is in consequence subject to punishment. The idea is that of subjection to punishment; but always because the man personally deserves it, and because being unable to vindicate himself, he ought to be punished. It is never used to denote simply an obligation to punishment, but with reference to the fact that the punishment is personally deserved.” This word, rendered “guilty,” is not used elsewhere in the New Testament, nor is it found in the Septuagint. The argument of the apostle here shows,
(1)That in order to guilt, there must be a law, either that of nature or by revelation Rom. 1; 2; 3; and,
(2)That in order to guilt, there must be a violation of that law which may be charged on them as individuals, and for which they are to be held personally responsible.
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| Moral Pollution is more destructive than Environmental Pollution |
It is secondly, Inherent Corruption or Moral Pollution.
All men are GUILTY in Adam, and are therefore born with a corrupt human nature.
Job 14:4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one!
Jer 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?
Jer 17:10 I Jehovah search the heart, I try the reins, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.
Isa 6:5 Then I said, Woe is me! For I am undone; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of Hosts.
Rom 8:5 For if men are controlled by their earthly natures, they give their minds to earthly things. If they are controlled by their spiritual natures, they give their minds to spiritual things.
Rom 8:6 Because for the mind to be given up to earthly things means death; but for it to be given up to spiritual things means Life and peace.
Rom 8:7 Abandonment to earthly things is a state of enmity to God. Such a mind does not submit to God's Law, and indeed cannot do so.
Rom 8:8 And those whose hearts are absorbed in earthly things cannot please God.
Eph 2:3 Among them all of us also formerly passed our lives, governed by the inclinations of our lower natures, indulging the cravings of those natures and of our own thoughts, and were in our original state deserving of anger like all others.
Sin has its seat in the heart of man, and from this centre influences the intellect, the will, and the affections, in fact the whole man, and finds its expression through the body.
Proverbs 4 :23; Jeremiah 17: 9 Matthew 15:19 and 20; Luke 6:45 Hebrews 3:12. in Distinction from the Roman Catholics we maintain that it does not consist in just outward acts, but that it includes evil thoughts, affections, and the intents of the heart Matthew 5:22 and 28 Roman 77 and Galatians 5:17;24.
