The Christadelphian, April 1922, C.C. Walker

“The Meaning of ‘Sin’”

J.A.J. submits two questions as under. Introducing the first, he writes:—

Sin as generally understood is “transgreassion of the law,” is it not? For “where no law is there is no transgression” (Rom. 4:15). Temptations of mankind come partly from external enticements; but they arise in a much greater sense from the bodily apetites and impulses which have to be checked and controlled by Divine law.

Question 1:—Are the fleshly desires in themselves sin? Or is it that they produce sin if they are allowed to have rebellious operation? James (1:14) says “Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin.” From the foregoing may we not say that before “conception” lust was present or is present and is in itself legitimate? but when brought into touch with some other principle which possesses the other essential element to conception, sin is the natural outcome?

Answer.—“Sin is lawlessness” (1 Jno. 3:4). “Lust” is desire, and desire is not necessarily lawless, though it very frequently is. The word “lust” has acquired a more sinister meaning with the lapse of time. With us it now almost exclusively denotes illegal sexual desire. That “lust” is not necessarily sin is evident from a consideration of such passages as Deut. 12:15, 20, 21: 14:26, where “whatsoever thy soul lusteth after” is permitted subject to the regulation of the law of God. And it is even said in Gal. 5:17 that “the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.” James is speaking of “temptation” in the sense of seduction to sin and death. He says a man must not blame God for this, for it is his own fault, and not God’s. “Let no man say when he is tempted (i.e., ‘drawn away,’ verse 14) I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away (from the path of obedience to God) by his own (lawless) lust, and enticed (to sin, or ‘lawlessness’). Then the lust when it hath conceived, beareth sin: and the sin when it is full grown bringeth forth death” (R.V.).

Question 2.—In what sense, or senses if more than one, do you consider “sin” is to be understood other than “transgression of the law”? I am not writing on these points to set up any controversy.

Answer. — The primary meaning of “sin” is “lawlessness,” as above shown; and as may be seen clearly by reference to the history of our first parents. “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin” (Rom. 5:12). And we have the history of the case in Gen. 3. But there are secondary meanings of “sin,” which, however, are all related to this primary idea.

Metonyny (meta, implying change, and onoma, a name, or noun) is a figure of speech by which one name or noun is used for another to which it stands in a certain relation. There are various kinds of metonymy, as of Cause, Effect, Subject, and Adjunct. In the first the cause is put for the effect. In the second the effect is put for the cause. Thus “sin” is sometimes put for the effect or punishment of sin. “Arise, take thy wife and thy two daughters which are here,” said the angel to Lot in Sodom, “lest thou be consumed in the iniquity (marg., punishment) of the city” (Gen. 19:15). Here “iniquity” is put for the judgment of which it was the cause. “This (plague) shall be the sin (marg.) of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles” (Zech. 14:19). Here (in the Hebrew, as indicated in the marginal note) “sin” is used by metonymy for the punishing plague, which is its retribution. The English Bible has here resolved the figure in translation. Compare the margin of the R.V. Moses, in Deut. 9:21, says of the golden calf which Israel made: “I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burned it with fire, and stamped it and ground it very small, even until it was as small as dust, and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount.” Thus the brook that descended out of the mount in a typical manner washed away Israel’s “sin” in washing away the effect thereof. In Exodus 32:20 it is added that Moses “made the children of Israel drink of it.” In Hos. 4:8: 10:8, God says concerning Israel: “They eat up the sin of my people.’ “The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed.” Here “sin” by metonymy stands for objects connected with transgression—the offerings and the high places. The flesh is a “body of sin” because it is mortal because of sin (Rom. 6:6). Its natural impulses are said to be “the motions of sins” (7:5); and “the body is dead because of sin” (8:10). Hence to forgive sins is to remove the morbid condition of body existing because of sin. This the Lord Jesus did in measure in the case of the man sick of the palsy (Matt. 9.). And this he will do to the utmost in the case of his accepted brethren. “He shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory” (Phil. 3:21). “Repent therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19). There is also the common New Testament figure of personification applied to Sin. He is a king who “reigns,” a Master who pays “wages,” and so on. But all these figures are related to the primary meaning of “lawlessness” and disobedience as aforesaid. Thank you, brother, for the assurance that you “do not write to set up controversy.” Of this we have much more than enough. But it is inevitable till the Lord comes.