CHAPTER

PAU L'S TESTIM 0NY TO THE DO,CTRINE OF SIN

1

BY PROFESSOR
L ~

UTHWESTERN

BAPTIST

F. AS. B. WILLIAMSJ

B. D., PH. D.,

'

FORT WORT.H,

TH EOLOGI CAL SEMINARY,

TEXAS

Theodore Parker once sai,d : ''I seldom use the word

. in. The Christian doctrine of sin is the devil's own. I hate
His view of sin shaped his views as to the
it utterly''.
person of Christ, atonement, and salvation . . In fact, the sin
question is back of one's theology, soteriology, sociology,
evange lism, and ethics. One cannot hold a Scriptural view
of God and the plan of salvation without having a Scriptural
idea of sin. One cannot proc laim a true theory of society
unless he, se,es the h.einousn ,es ,of sin and its relation to all
ocial ills and disorders. No man can be a su,coessful New
Testament evangeJ.i,st publi shing the Go,spel as ''the powei
of God unto salvation to every one that .believeth'', unless he
has a:n adequate conception Of the e11ormityof sin. Nor can a
. rnan ho'ld a consistent theory of ethic s or liv,e up to the highest
tandard ,of morality, unle ss h is gripped with a keen sense
of sin' s seductive nature.

'

SIN

A FACT I :r fIUMAN

HI

'fORY

Paul has an exten sive vocabulary of tertn denoting sin

or sins., In the Epistle to the Roman s, wl1e1e he elaborate ..
his doctrine of sin, he use ten general terms for si11:
1. Apo.p-rla. (l1amartia), 58 times in all, 43 in Ro1nans,
t11is'ing of the tnark, in as, a principle . 2. ,.ApGprq,o,
(hamarteema), twice, sin as an act. 3. llo.pJ./3an1.~(11arabasis), five times, tra11sgression, literally walking along by
the line but not exactly according to it. 4. llgp,/.1"'~

49

50

-(paraptoma), 15 times, literally a falling, lapse, deviation from

truth and uprightne ss (Thayer), translated ''trespass'' in
R.V. 5,. ~8iKla ( adikia), 12 times, unrighteousne ss. 6.
JAat{3eut, ( asebeia), four times, ungodlines s, lacl<:of reverence
for God. 7. 'Avola (anomia), lawles,snes s, six time s.
8. 1Ax.o.8cipala.
( akatharsia), nine time s, uncleanness, ]ack of
purity. 9. IlapaKo:, (parakoee), twice, disobedience.
10.
IIAdV11(planee), fo ur times, \'1andering, error.
Besides these general term s f or sin Paul uses, many specific
terms for various sins,, 21 of the_gebei11gfoun ,d in the cate.gory
of Ro ,m. 1 :29-31. Twenty -one equals thr ee times seven ,and
seems to express the idea of completeness i11 sin reached by
the, Gentil,es. It is literally true tha t Paut u,se:s Scores of
terms denoting and describing variOus personal sins, sensual,
social, ethical, and religious. Is this not an unmistakable lexical eviden.ce that the Apostle to the Gentiles believed in sin
as a fact in ht1man history ?
Again, in all Paul's leading epistles he deals with sin in
the abstract or with sins i11 the concrete. In Romans 1 :183 :20, he diScusses the f ailre of botl1 Jews and Gentiles to
attain righteou sne ss. These cl1apters con stitute the most
graphic and comprehensive descripti9n of sin found in Biblical, Greek, Roman, or any, literatur e. It is so true to the
facts in l1eathen life toda,y tl1at modern heathen often accuse Christian miss,ionar ies of w1iting it a,fter they have 'ha1d
per sona l knowledge of their life and conduct .
In 1 Corintl1ians, gross sins are dealt witl1 envy, strife,
divisions, incest, litigation, adultery, fornication, drunkenne ss,
covetousn ,ess, ido'latry, etc. In 2 Corinthi ,ans, some of the
same sins are condemned. In Galatians, he implies the failu1e
of man to attain righteousnes ,s in mai11taining the thesis that
no man is ,ju,s,t.ified by the deeds of the law, bu-t any man
may be j'ustified by simple faith in Cl11istJesus (2 :14ff), a11d
mentions the works of the flesh, ''forni cation, uncleanness,
la sci,,iousnes ,s, idolatry," etc. (5 :19) . In Ephesian s he
1

.,

Paul's Testimony to the Doctrine of Sin

51

recognizes that his readers were ' once dead in trespasses

and sins" ( 2 :1), and exhorts them to lay aside certain sins
( 4 :25:ff). In Colossians, he does the same. In Philippians,
he says less about sin, or sins, but in 3 :3-9 he tells his experience of failure to attain righteou sness with all his advantages of birth, training, culture, and circumstances. In
the pastoral epistle s, he rebukes certain sins with no uncertain
voice.
PAUL'S

EXPERIENCE

THE

PSYCHOLOGICAL

HIS DOCTRINE

PROOF

TO . HIM

OF

OF SIN

Paul was a Pharisee. Righteousne .ss, or right relation

with God, was his religious goal. As a Phar isee he felt that
he could and must , in himself, achieve righteousness by keeping the whole written and oral law. This kind of (supposable) righteousne ss he afterward
describes and repudiates. "For we are the circumcision, who worship by the
Spirit of God, and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh : though I n1yself might have confidence_
even in the flesh : circumci sed the eighth day, of the stock
of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews;
as touching zeal, persecuting the church; as touching the
.righteou sness which is in the law, blameless. Howbeit, what
thing s were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ.
Yea, verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency
of the knowledgt of Christ Je sus my Lord; for whom I
suffered the loss of all things and do count them but refuse,
that I may gain Chri st and be found in Him, not having a
righteou sness of mine own, even that which is of the law,
but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness
Which is from God by faith" (Phil. 3 :3-9, Am. Rev.).
His experience as a Pharisee in trying to work out a
righteousness of his own showed him to be a moral and
religious failure. This experience he reflected in Rom. 7 :7-25
(So Origen, Tertullian , Chrysostom, Theodoret, and most

52

T lie F unda11ietitals

modern New Testament scholars, though Augustine and a

few modern N e,w T 'esta.ment .scholars think th e p a.ssag e ref errs
to the experience of a Christian).
'' Sin, finding occa sion
thr ough the conunand1n ent, 'beguiled me and through it slew
me . . that through the conunandment sin might become'' (be shown to be) ''exceeding sinful.. For we know
!that , the la,w is S,piritttal : but I am carnal, 1S 10l1d under sin~
For that which I do I kn 6w not; for not what I wlould, that
do I practise; but wl1at I hat e, that I do . . . Wretched
man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this
death r I thank God through Je sus Christ our Lord''. So
we see, tl1at P'aul by his experience with the l:aw wa.s led to
. ee that . '"in him , that is, i11 l1is flesl1, dwelt no , good th ing; ''
that in bi~ mep-ibers is the sin principle enslaving him so
that he ''is sold und er .sin'', that is, under the sway of this
sin prin ,ciple. He tl1ought ihe law could help him to be
righteou .s. All it could ,do wra,s to S1how him his helpless iness
as a sinner and drive hi1n in l1is d espair to Christ as his
only Rescuer ''out of th e body 0 this death''.
All the
righteousness he could achieve was in sufficient. Orily God's
o\vn righteousness, given through faith in Christ Jesus, could
sati sfy the co,nscience o,f the awakened sinner or be ac~eptable
to Go d.
THE ORIGIN OF SIN
1

The apostle does not discuss the larger problem, th.e origin .
of sin in God's rnoral universe. Whence and how did sin
originally enter the n1oral universe ? Paul does not undertake to solve this problem. Only the r'elative and temporal
origin of sin, it s entrance into the human race on earth, not
its absolute a11d ultimate ource , engages the thought of Paul~
But what is his testimony asl to how and wh en sin entered
. the human rac e? T he classic pass age 0n the sourrce o,f
human sin is Rom. 5 :12-21. Let us C0 nsider it. Pau .1 testifies
that sin entered our ra ce in and through the disobedience of
:Adam~ ''As thr ough one man sin [dpaprla, hamar.tia,, the ,
1

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P aitl's Testim on,y to the D octrine of S in

53

in prin ciple] entered into the world, and death by sin;

and so death pa ssed unto all men, for that all sinned .
as throu gh one tr espa ss the jud gment came unto all men to
conden1nation
for as through the one man's disobedience 1nan y were made sinners " ( Rom. S :12, 18, 19).
In thi s parall elism between Ada1n and Christ, Pau l is seeking to show, by contrast, the excellence of grace and the
tran scendent blessednes s of the j ustified man in Christ H e
is not prim'arily discu ssing the origin of hum an sin. But
that does not depreciate his te stimony. The fact that it is
an incidental and not a studied testin1ony makes it all the
more trustworthy and convincing.
Nor is Paul here simply voicing the thought of his unin spired fellow-countrymen as to the entrance of sin into our
race. Dr. Ed ersheim says : "So fa r as their opinions can
be gathered from their writ ings, the great doctrines of original sin and the sinulness of our whole nature were not
held by the ancient Rabbis". * Weber thu s summarized the
Jewish view . as expre ssed in the Talmud:
"By the Fall
man came under a curse, is guilty of death, and his right
relation to God is rendered difficult. More than this cannot
he said. Sin., to which the bent and leaning had alre ady
been planted by creation, had become a fact, 'the evil impulse' ( cor malignum, 4 E s. 3 :21) gained the mastery over
mankind, who can only resist it by the greate st effort s ; before the Fall it had power over him, but no such ascendency ". t
The reader is referred to Wi sd. 2 :23ff, Eccl us. 25 :24 ( 33) ,
4 E s. 3 :7, 21ff, Apoc. Baruch 17:3, 54 :15, 19, as expression s
of the Jewi sh view of the entrance of sin into the world and
the relation of Adam to the race in the transmission of guilt.
One of these passages, Ecclu s. 25 :24 ( 33) the sin of the race
is traced back to Eve: "from a woman was the beginn ing
of sin".

* "Life and Ti mes of Je su s th e

t Alts yn . T heo]., p . 216.

1\1:
ess iah ," l. 165.

54

The, Fundamentals

..

Observe tliat Paul goes beyond th,a statement of any uninspired Jewisli writers

1. In assertitig tliat A ,dam and not Eve is the one througli

whom sin e1itered into tltte race.

2 . That, in some sense, when A 'dam ,sinned, ''all sinned',,

and in /itS Sinii,ing "'a[l fi.Je,re 1fftadeJJ(1<'a1"CTT(t'7aciv, S1t:oo,d
down or constituted) ''sinners:,~
(Rom. 5 :19
The ap,o,stle
here means 1 doubtless, ..tl1,at all tl1e race was seminally in
.L
~dam as its progenitor, and that Adam by the process of
heredity l1anded down to his descendants a de,p,raved nature.
If e can scarcely mean that each . individual was actually in
pe1son in A,dam. If A dam had 11ot!sinned and thus dep ,raved
and cor t~pted the fountain head of the race, the race itself
wottld not h,ave been the heir of sin and the reaper of its
fruits, , sorrow, pain, and deatl1.
3. That in the int1 oduction of sin into thle race by ,its
p,rogenitor the race itself was rendered lielpless to extricail'e
itaelf from sin a11dde'a,th. T 'l1is th,e a,p ost1e asserts ! over anid
,over again and has a'lrea dy demonstrated be ore he r,eaches,
the paralle lism betw een Adam and Chri ,st.
''That every
mouth may be stopped and all the world brought under tl1e
judginent of God''; ''because by the works of the law shall
no flesh be justifi ,ed in I-Iis sight'' ( 3 :19, 20).

).

T'I-IE 'ESSEN CE AND NATURE OF SIN

1

T11is brings us to ask, What constituted the essence or

core 0 sin, as Paul saw it? Modern evolutionists emphasize
tl1e ttpward tendency of al1 things, and so sin 1s regarded by
them as merely a step in the upwa1d progr ess of tl1e.ra ce ;
that is, sin is ''good in: ~he making''. Christian Scientists go
still farther a,nd regard a'll pain and evil as merely imaginarJ
creatio ns O'f abnonnai 1ninds. ~= There is no actual evil, no
real pain, say they. Does either of these views find endorse1nent in Paul? It mt1st be noted that Patti nowhere gives
1

Paul's Testitttony to the Doctrine of Sin

.

55

a fonnal definition of sin~ But by studying the terms mostly

011 l1is pen we can detern1ine his idea of si11. He uses! mostly
tl1e noun d,apTla. (hamartia),
58 times, from the verb
O.apTC:.vtu
(hamartano), to miss the mark, to sin. To miss
what mark? In ,classicat Greek it means ''to mi,ss an aim'',
''to err ' .in judgment or op,inion''. Witli Paul to sin is to
miss the ,ma,rk ETHICALLY an.d RELIGIOUSLY. Two , other
wo,rds use,d by Pa .ul s,h,ow u"s wh,at the ma,rk missed is :
d,8:1elB
, ( adikia )1, unr ,ighteousness,
lack of conformity tq
the will of God; 1avola (an ,om.ia.), ,lawless ,nes ,s, failure to
act or live a ccording to the sta11dard. of God's Jaw. So the
tnark missed is the Divine law . Ilap0;{3aot,; (parabasis),
transgression, emphasizes the same idea, failure to measure ,
up to the line of rigl1teousness laid down in th e law.
On th-e otlter hand, si11, is not mere.Zya negation. 1t is a.
Positive qitality. It is a '~fall'' (ITap&1rTwa, 15 times).
This is graphica 11y illustrated 'by P au'l in h :is desc ,ription Of
- _the Gentile world's id olatry, sensuality, an d imm ,orality (Rom.
1 :18-32)
First, they knew Go1
d, fo r I-le taugl1t them about
Himself in nature ,at1d in c ons,ci ence ( 1 :1,9, 20). Second1y,t11ey ref used to wors,hip H im as Go1
d,, or to giv,e thanks to
Iiim as tl1e Giv er of lall good things ( 1 :21) ,. Thirdly, they
bega.n to worship the creature ratl1,er than the Creator, then
gave themselves up to idolatry in a descending scale, worshipping first human images, then those of birds, then those
of beasts and repti1es (1 :22-25). Fourthly, this wrong idea
of God and false relation to Hi111degraded tl1em into the
grossest sensuality and blackest immorality ( 1 :26-32). Is
tl1is progress of the ra 1ce? If SO, it is pr1ogress in th le unf,olding , 0 f sin's cumulative po,w er, and that wl1ere l1t1man
philosophy and culture were doing their utmost to stem the
ti,de of vice an d ,cont,1,ibute to the advance .me,nt of human
government, thought, art, and ethics in the Roman Empire
- where flourished Heilenistic c,ultt11Ne. But Pau ,1 was convinced
from his own experience and his observation
of
society,

56
'

illumined and led as he was by the Divine Spirit, that the

sin principl ,e in men was not an upward . but a downwa1d
tend ,ency,. and tl1at in spite of all the, philo,sophies, and aJ.l,
culture and ethics, tO train men in the upward way, i11telJect.ually, aesthetically, sociall,y, and 1norally, ,s,till tl1ey were
carri ,ed on dow.n deeper and deeper in vice a.s, the,y forgot .
God and followed out the trend of their own thoughts and
desires . That is, if sin is a link in the chain of man's evolu- .
tion~ Pau 1 would say it was a d.ow11ward and not an. upw,a rd
step i11 tl1e long road of man's , development.
Let 11slook at ano th,er term ltsed by Paul to express God's
atti tude towa;rd sin. 'This is the, t er 111 ''w~ath'' ( /J.PY.~),,
occurring 20 times in Paul,s epistles~:. Thayer defines, this,
term thus : ''That in God which stands oppose,d to man' s
disobedienc e, obduracy, and sin, and ma.nifests itself in pu.nishing the same.''t That is, sin is diametri.cally opposite to the
eletne,it of holin.ess and righteoU-Snessitt God's character,
and so God''.s righteous character revolts at sin in man and.
manifests this revulsion by punishing sin. This manifestation of the Divine displeasure ,at s,in is n,ot spasmodic or ar-
bitrary. It is the natura .l expressio n 0 a character that loves
right and goodness. Because he does approve and love rigllt
and goodnes.s., He .must disapprove and hat e unrigh teo.us11ess
and evil. Tl1e spo,ntaaeous expression of this attitude , of
God's chafacter toward sin is '',vrath''.
How l1einous and
eno1mous sin must be, if the loving an,d gra,cions God., in
whon1 Patti believe :s, thu .s hates and punis,hes it! .Its nature
must be the opposite of those highe st attributes of
, holiness, righteousness, , love.
.

Ta .ke another term used by Pau1, v1r&8,1eo~

(hupodikos),
guilty (R ,01n. 3 :19). Thayer thus defines this term: ''Unde1
judgm ,ent, one who ha.s, lost his suit; with la dative of p1e1

*This count follows Mot11to11 and Geden, Concordance

Greek Testament) and excltt des I-Ieb. fr,om Paul's epistles.
t Gre:,ek English Lexicon to New T ,estament .
1

'

57

on, debtor to one, owing atisfaction" '.* 111this passage it

is used with the dative of God ( Oe.~) and so ''all the
world'' is declared by Patti to be ''uncler ;udgment of God,
having lost its suit with God, owing satisfaction to God''
(and, it being in1plied, not able to render satisfaction to
l='J:i1n). This passage in1plies that tlze essence .of sin is
''guilt''. Man by sin is ''under iudg1nent'', ''under sentence''.
He has come i,ito coi.irt with God, is found ta have broken
God's lazv, a,id so , is guilty a11d liable t 0 punishme11t. A secondary element in sin is implied in thi s term, the helplessnes
of man in in, ''owing satisfaction to God'', but not able to
render it.

It must be noted that Pa itl thinks of this guilt as havit1,g

l)lFFERENT DEGREES accordi11,g
to the light against which the
s-inner sins (Rom. 2 :12-14). The Gentile sins without the
law, that is, without knowing the requiremen .ts of the written
law, and so he perishes without the law, that is, without tl1e
. severity specially provided for the transgressor in the written
law. But tl1e Jew, who sin aaainst the superior light of
Written 1evelation, hall recei ve tl1e more severe penalty
Prescribed in the written law.
111ne11 are guilty of breaking
God's law, b11t the di,ffe,rent 1eal1ns of law affot'"d different
?egrees of tight, and so the various transgressors are guilty
in varying degree s, just a. there are different degrees of mur der and 1nanslaughter, accordino, to the circumstance:- and
m.otives of tho se guilty.
.
.
Paitl uses the term .sin to express three phases of sin:
F1asT_.the sin principle, or sin in the abstr.oct. He .11ses
the. term more of ten in this sense than in any other,. He
~ften personifies the sin principle, doubtless because l1e be\
lieves in the per sonal Satan. SECONDLY, by i1nplicatioti he
teaches that man is in a state of sin. (Rom. S :18, 19.) ''All
lllen unto ,condem11a,tion '' n1eans that me11 are, in a state af
condemnation guilty of l)real<:inr.T
God's law, and therefore
1

* bid.

'

The Funda1nen,tals

58

ii

worthy of punishment.
''Made sinners' ' signifies that man's
nature is essentially .sinfu l, and so man may be said to be
1
u11der the sin principle, or in the state of sin ( though this
phrase, "in the state of sin," does not occur in Paul, bttt
first in theologians of a later age). THIRDLY, Paul uses
.several terms for sin which signify acts of sin. I-Iere he views
it in the con crete ,.. Men forget God, hate God, lie, stea l,
l,.:ill,coinmit adultery, hate parents, love self, etc., etc. In thi
sense he .sees the strean1 of hun1an conduct which is only the
.
expression of the sin principle.
1

RELATION OF THE LAW TO SIN

Does the law produce sin? Is the law sinful in that it

causes men to sin? Not at all, asserts Paul. ''What shall
we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Howbeit, I had
not known sin, except through the law: for I had not known
oveting, excep ,t the law had said, Thou shalt not covet ; but
sin, finding occasion, wrought in me through the command
ment all manner of coveting; for apart from the law sin is
dead'', etc., etc. (Rom. 7 :7- 14, R. V.) Tl1e following point
see1n clearly expressed in this passage:
I.
The law is not the real caus'e of man's sin. Not even
its severest demands can be charged with causing man's sin.
2.
This is true, because th.e law is essentially ''holy,
righteous, good''; holy in the double sense of being a separate
order o,f being and conduct ordained by God and also requiring holiness, o,r the following of this separate order of being
and conduct ; righteous in the sense of being the expression
of God's will and the standard of man's thoughts and ac~
. tions; good in the sense that it is ordained for benevolent
ends. It is also called ''spiritual'' in the sense that it was
given through God's Spirit and conduces to spirit11ality if
obeyed from the right n1otive.

3. B'Ut this holy and righteous, good and spi1it1.tal,

law
becanie ' ' THE OCCASION'' of si1ining. Tl1is P,at1l illustr,ates

59

. Paul~s Testfmon.y to the Doct~ine of Sin

with the tenth commandment. He would not have coveted

if tl1e law l1ad not s,aid,1 Thou shalt no 1t covet. T'he Greek
'ford for ''0 ccasion'' ( df/,op~) means literally ''a base
of operatio .ns'' (Thayer).
The sin principle makes the com1nand of God its headquarter ,s for a life-long can1paign of
struggle .in man, urgin ,g 11im to evil actions and deterring
him from good ones. There is something in man which revolts f ron1 doi11g the thing demanded and incline s him to
do the thing forbidden. . Hence, the sin principle, using this
tendency in man, and so, malcing the la W the ba se of its
opera tions, becomes the ''occasion', to sinning.
4. The law sho,ws the sinfulness of sin-shows it to be
l1einous in its nature and deadly in its consequences. l'!his
is what Paul intim.ated in Rom. 5,:20, when he said, ''the
law ca1ne in besides that the trespass might abound''. ~he
lc1wsho,ws men that they are failures in the matter of achievi11grighteousness ,

5. Tlie law thus NEGATIVELY pr 1epare~ the way for lead.,,

i~g men to Christ as tlieir only Rescuer. ''Wretched man
tl1at I am I Who shall deliver me out of the body of this
death? I thank God throtlgh Jesus Christ our Lord'' (Rom.
7 :24, 25). The apostle was driven to despair as he plunged
headlong into persecution and its enormous sins, but when he
1eached the 1
en.id of his own s,tre11gt.h he looke.d up and ac.cepted delivera11ce fr 01n th e risen Christ.

REI ..ATION OF THE FLESH TO S,IN

Pau l often uses tl1e term ''flesh'' 1(.u&p~) in contr ,ast

With the tern1 spirit . In this sense flesh, according to Thayer,
111eans''mere I1un1annatu1e, the earthly natt1re of n1an apart
from Divine influence; and tl1erefore prone to sin and opJ)osed to God' ' . He rega1ds the flesh ( occurring 84 times) as
the seat of the sin prinCiple. ''In me, that is, in my flesh,
dwelleth no good thing'' (Rom. 7 :18). He d.oes not mean
to deny that sin as a gu.ilty act rests on tl1e human will. f-Ie

TJie Fitndamentals

60

always takes for granted hutnan freedom to choose. Yet

he regards the lower nature of man (his sarx) as the element
of weakne ss and c,orruption i.n man, which furnishes a fie.Id
1
for the oPeration of the sin principle. The law is the ' BASE
of operations'' (occasion), but the flesh is the open FIELD
where the sin principle operates. This sin principle drags
the higher man ( called ''the inner man'', Rom. 7 :22, ''the
mind, or reason 1," voii~, 7 :25, or more usually, the spirit)
down in,to the realm of the flesh and through the pass .ions,
appetites, etc. ( Gal. 5 : 16, Eph. 2 :3), Iea.ds tl1e whole man
into thoughts, acts, and Courses of si11. .
.
But we must hasten to say tliat ,Paul does not adopt the
Platonic 'lliew that matte'r is, evil per se. Paul does no.t think
of man's physical structure as being in itself sinful and his
spirit; or soul, in itself as holy. He merely emphasizes the
serfdom of man under the sway of the sin principle on acc,onnt of the weakness ) of l1ur,1an flesh. Nor d,oes Pai,l claiin
1

that human reaso1n is fr 1ee from sin because it app,-o,ves tJie

l'aw of God. His expre ssion (Ro1n. 7 :25) ''I of myself witl1
the mind [reason] indeed serve [am slave to] tl1e law of
God ; but with the flesh the law of sin'', only emphasizes the
act of struggle in man ; that the higher nature does approve the requirements of God's law, though it cannot meet
those demands because of the slaver ,y of his lower nature
1(flesh) to tl1e sin principle.
.

THE CONSEQ UENCES OF SIN

1

a:'his point needs no prolonged discussion.

Paul thinks of

death, with its train of antecedents, sorrow, pain

and
all
kinds
.
of suffering, as the co,nsequence of sin. This means physical
as well as spiritual death, and the . latter ( separation of man
from fellowship with God) is of prime import to Paul. We
need not bring Paul into conflict with the claims of modern
natural scientists, that man would have suffered phy sical
death had Adam never sinned. The only man that scientists
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Paul's Testi11io11yto the Doctri1ie of Sin

61

..

is the mortal man descended from Adam who sinned.

The ref ore they cannot logically assert that man would have
di,ed had Adam not sinned. Nor need we saj' that Baul's
cosmic view of sin, namely, that the entrance of the sin
principle into human life by Adam vitiated the wl1ole cosmos,
that because of sin ''the whole creation groaneth and travailetl1
together in pain until now'' (Rom. 7 :22), is unscientific.
He here merely asserted the great fact that all cosmic life,
plant, animal, and human, has been made to suffer because
of the presence of sin in man. Who can doubt it? See
Rom. S :12-14, 21; 6 :21; 7 :1,Q; 8 :19-25; Eph. 2 :1, etc .
k110 w
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THE UNIVERSALITY

OF SIN

Paul regards every man as a guilty sinner, however great

may be his natural or cultural advantages. He felt that he
had the greatest advantages 'fin the flesh'' to attain righteous. ness ( Phil. 3 :3-9), but he had miserably failed ( Rom. 7 :24).
Ther ,efore all men have fai,led (Rom. 1 :18.-2 :29). , But he is
not satisfied with a mere experiential demonstration of the
universality o:f sin. He likewi se bases it on the dictum of
Scripture (Rom. 3 :9-20). More than that he studied the
facts of hu ,man life, both Jewish and Gentil,e, and so by tl1e
inductive method is led by the Spirit to declare ''by the
,vorks , of the law sl1all no flesh be justified in f-Iis sight''
(Rom. 3 :20); ''All have sinned and are coming short of
the glory of God'' (Rom. 3 :23).

THE PERSISTENCE OF TI-IE SIN PRINCIPLE

In Gal. 5 :17, 18, Paul tells the Galatian Chri stians that
''tl1e flesh lusteth against the Spirit, a11d the Spirit against
the flesh; for these are cont1ary the one to the otl1er, that
ye may not do the things that ye would''. Lightfoot says:
''It is an appeal to their own consciousness: Have you not
evidence of these two opposing principles in your own
hearts !?''* The Galati,an Christians are exhorted ta ''walk

* ''Com~ on

Gal,.'' in loc,o.

62

in ,the Spirit'' and let not the sin p rinciple, which is not utterly vanq .uished in the flesh at regeneration, prev lail and
cover them in def eat and shame . This same pe1sistence of
the sin principl .e is describe d in R om.. 8 :5-,9, w.here he surely
is describing the experience of believers. Then in Phil. 3 ~ 12
14, he allu,desl to his 0 1wt1 Christian exp erience 'thu s: ''1
count not tha .t I have already obtainecl ; or am already made
perfect; but I p res 1s on if so be that I n1ay lay hold on tl1at
for which also I was laid hold on by Chris t .Jesus ,. Bre thren,
I lc,ount not myself yet to have laid l1old. ~ . I press on
toward . the .goal unto the prize of t.he high calling of God
in Christ Jesus''.
Paul knew by experience that the old
sin principle still pursued h.im and that 011 .account of the
weaknes :s of th e flesh he had not reached the ''goal'' ' of practical righteousnes ,,s. Even in his old age ( 1 Tim. 1 :15)1 l#1e
br ,eaks fortl1 in the co11sciousness of his own enormous inherent sinf ttlness: ''Faithful is tl1e saying, a n d wort}1y , of all
acc eptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners; of whom I am chief''. Every Greek scl10Iar kn.ows
that :in tl1e last clause, . ''I am'', both pronoun and verb being
exp ,res .sed an d their ,order inv,erted, is emphatic. .Sin pu1sued
'
the great and consecrated apostle even . down to gray hairs.
Sin is a Napoleo11 conducting : his disturbing, destructive, and
death hring1ng campaigns e.v ,en in the Ch.ristian's lif e. W ,e
tnay, by the , grac~ of God and the help 0 f the Spirit, make
hin1 pris ,oner on E lba, but he will escape an d continue till
life's latest breath to distract our minds land def eat our
h1oliest ,amb .itions, Bu.t this . N apoleo11 in tl1e re alm of our
religious ex.perience , like the Napo 'leon in .the experie ,nce of
Eu10.pean kings and
nation
s,,
shal
l
1neet
his
Wat
erloo
.

S,IN FINALLY VANQUISHED IN CHRIST JESUS

Paul has thi.s thought of conquest in 1nind in that unique

pa ssage, Rom. S. :12-21. .'The conquest of sin by grace in
1

Ch.rist Jesus far transcends

th e, den1olishing power of sin

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63

Pa ul,s Testi,,,.iatty to the Doctrine of .Sin ,

1

handed down by Adam to his posterity.

''But ,vhere sin
abounded, grace abounded more exteedingly,
that as sin
reigne,,d in d eath, even so might grace reign through righteous-
ness un .to eternal life thr ,ough Jesus .Christ our Lord''. Tl1is
is the apostle's prean of triumph as he draws the last pen
str ok,e in describ .ing the blesse .dness 0 t.he justified man.
The first historic conquest of sin in Christ was His conceptio11 without sin; though born of a sinful woman, he.r
sinf'u] natur e wa.s not handed down to Hi1n. Tl1en followed
victory after victory in those thirty silent years in which
He never yielded to a single sinful jmpulse; in the wilderness
Stn1ggle when in that supren1e m,oment He sai d, Get thee
hence, Satan; on Calvary when I-Ie meekly submitted to
the sufferings of lluman sin, in which submission He showecl
Himself above sin; , in the resurrection when deat h was defeated an d driven f1om his own battle field, the grave, while
fI .e as the Son of God arose in triump1ri and in forty days
afte ,rwa1d s,at down on the right l1and of the Father, to send
to men the Spirit to apply and enforce His mediatorial work.
Then this conquest of sin is persona,lize'llin each believer.
At regeneration the sin principle is subdued by the Spirit in
Christ and the D ivi:ne nature .so implanted as to gu.arante e
the complete conquest of sin. In the life of co11s
ecration and
service th ie sin principle g'oe'is down in defeat st.ep by step,
until in death whose sting is sin,. the believer triumphs in
Christ on the last fiel,d; he f e els. 1ri0 sting and knows the
strif 'e with the sin monst er is, forever passed, and in exul~
tatio,n h e receives ."an al)undant entranc.e'' to the ki11gdotn
of gl ory, a,s Paul trit1mphantly r eceived it. (Phil. 1 :21, 23;
2 Tin1. 4 :6-8.),
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