The Christadelphian, May 1913, C.C. Walker

“Sin and Sacrifice”

We have received from brother Wm. Smallwood, of Toronto, Canada, a pamphlet of 92 pages on “Bible Teaching concerning Sin and Sacrifice” and we find ourselves in entire agreement with the matter set forth. Although the pamphlet is controversial, the writer exhibits a good spirit, and strives only for the preservation of the truth in its integrity.

It is not our purpose to enter upon this controversy here and now; but, perceiving how much confusion has arisen from misunderstanding of terms, we have thought it might be of service to point out again (what has very many times been pointed out before, and in the above-named pamphlet most recently) the primary and other meanings of the word “Sin.”

The dictionary may give us a start. Sin, in The Century Dictionary, is thus defined:—

1.—Any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God (West-minster Assembly’s Shorter Catechism). The true definition of sin is a much-contested question, theologians being broadly divided into two schools of thought—the one holding that all sin consists in the voluntary and conscious act of the individual; the other that it also includes the moral character and disposition of the race—one that all moral responsibility is individual, the other that there is also a moral responsibility of the race as a race. To these should be added a third school, which regards sin simply as imperfection and immaturity, and, therefore, requiring for remedy principally a healthful development under favourable conditions. Theologians also divide sin into two classes—actual sin and original sin. Actual sin consists in the voluntary conscious act of the individual. Original sin is the innate depravity and corruption of the nature common to all mankind. But whether this native depravity is properly called sin, or whether it is only a tendency to sin, and becomes sin only when it is yielded to by the conscious voluntary act of the individual, is a question upon which theologians differ. . . .

2.—A serious fault; an error; a transgression; as, a sin against good taste.

3—An incarnation or embodiment of sin.

Thus far the dictionary, which illustrates popular understanding and misunderstanding of the term, for which reason we quote it. But how come theologians to be divided into these two or more schools of thought? Is it not because in the Scriptures they have found the term used in two or more different ways, and with two or more different meanings, and their theology has not enabled them satisfactorily to reconcile these. That is the fact. But these things should not be so among Christadelphians; who should be “of one mind,” and whose leaders and teachers should be of sufficient intelligence and faithfulness rightly to divide the word of God, so that all its parts are harmonized, and no passage of Scripture is set against another.

Divine usage is the basis of scriptural language, to which all true interpretation must conform. For lack of observance of this principle endless confusion has been wrought over such terms as “soul,” “God,” “heaven,” and “hell.” And it is so with this term “sin.” The dictionary definitions given above conform more or less accurately to the divine usage of the term; but this can be discovered direct from the word of God itself. Let us turn to the Scriptures.

1. “Sin is the transgression of the law”; literally “Sin is lawlessness.” This is the primary definition that is given by the apostle John (1 Jno. 3:4). “All unrighteousness is sin” (1 Jno. 5:17). This lawlessness and unrighteousness is made manifest by the law of God, which is “holy, and just, and good.” This is the doctrine of Paul (Rom. 7:12–13). “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men” (Rom. 5:12). Since that time sin has been so inveterately ingrained in human nature that in divine usage it signifies “an incarnation or embodiment of sin” that is “the flesh.”

2. “Sin is a synonym for Human Nature” (Dr. Thomas). Metonymy is that figure of speech by which, as the Greek term signifies, one name or noun is put for another to which it stands in a certain relation. There is a metonymy of cause, of effect, of subject, and of adjunct.

Sin is the cause of punishment and death and hence is sometimes put for these. “Arise, lest thou be consumed in the iniquity (margin, punishment) of the city” (Gen. 19:15). “I will pour their wickedness upon them” (Jer. 14:16), that is the punishment thereof. “This shall be the sin (margin), of Egypt” (Zech. 14:19), that is “punishment,” as in the text.

Sin is both the cause and the effect of the flesh, so much so that even the man after God’s own heart exclaims: “Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psa. 51:5). Hence the flesh is called “a body of sin” and “a body of death” (Rom. 6:6; 7:24). “Is the law sin?” (Rom. 7:7), that is, Is sin the effect of the law? The Lord Jesus Christ being, as he so often declared himself to be, Son of Man, was equally “a body of sin” with David and Paul, though sinless in character. And it is because of this that he is said to have borne our sins in his own body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24). He bore the effects of sin in his own body, and so put sin away by obedience unto death and consequent resurrection unto life eternal in harmony with the will of God who had so commanded him.

“Sin” is used with reference to Christ by the apostle Paul in a way that is a stumbling block to some: “He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin” (2 Cor. 5:21). That is, God revealed himself in Christ, a member of a sin-stricken race, who was nevertheless sinless in character. If it be suggested that “sin” should be read and understood as “sin offering,” it must be replied that that offering was “his body” (Heb. 10:10); and that αμαρτια (sin) is never rendered “sin offering” in the New Testament. “Sin” is applied to the golden calf which Aaron made (Deut. 9:21); to the idol sacrifices and high places of Israel (Hos. 4:8; 10:8), because these were the products and associations of the sin of Israel.

Sin is personified. He is a Master who has “servants” (John 8:34; Rom. 6:6, 17, 20), and pays terribly bad “wages” (Rom. 6:23). He is a King who “reigns” (Rom. 5:21; 6:12, 14). He “reigned unto death”; “had the power of death” and is therefore “the devil” (Heb. 2:14). Jesus died that through death he might “destroy him,” “put him away,” “cast him out,” which he did in the initial stage when he rose again from the dead, and will do completely hereafter when he abolishes sin and death from the earth. Sin is a Warrior whose “instruments” (margin, arms, or weapons), are the “members” of his “servants” (Rom. 6:13).

Sin is an evil principle of the flesh, of which the best of men are conscious. The apostle Paul speaks of “sin that dwelleth in me” (Rom. 7:20). “I find a law” says he, “that when I would do good, evil is present with me.” He spoke of it as “the law of sin which is in my members” (verse 23) which his flesh unwillingly “served” (verse 25). Thus Paul is in harmony with David in Psalm 51.

It is manifest from the foregoing considerations, and others that might be submitted, that “sin” in the Bible is not a simple but a highly complex thing; and that we cannot hope to understand the expressed mind and purpose of God in Christ concerning it, apart from careful and prayerful study of the divine usage in the Word of God. If we attempt to force a figure of speech by a literal construction based on the primary meaning of the word “sin,” confusion and disgrace will result. And so it will be if we attempt to force a primary meaning upon a figurative usage. Thus, if we say, as has been said: “Christ bore in his body upon the tree our sins of wicked works” we invite the comment of the enemy: “Nonsense! we had none. We were not then born!” If we were to say “God made Christ to be the transgression of the law (sin)” (2 Cor. 5:21) we should meet with the rejoinder: “Your own book says he was no transgressor.”

These remarks are only made to inculcate caution and discrimination in controversy over Sin and Sacrifice. Dr. Thomas and Brother Roberts illustrate this well in their writings, to which, after the Bible, we earnestly commend our readers. The Blood of Christ and The Slain Lamb, by Brother Roberts, faithfully and simply exhibit the truth; which is more fully developed in Elpis Israel. Nobody has improved upon this last. Many have spoiled it under profession of superior enlightenment.—Ed.