THE DOCTRINE OF SIN
T.P. Simmons
In the chapters on "Satan-His Origin, Work, and Destiny"
and "The Original State And Fall Of Man" we covered the ground of the
origin of sin in the universe and also its entrance into the human family. For
that reason these subjects will not be treated in this
chapter.
It is very important that we have an adequate understanding of
sin. Many modern errors concerning salvation cannot be held by those who think
logically if they have a proper conception of sin.
I. THE NATURE OF SIN
Sin is a hydra-headed thing. It presents different phases. An
adequate treatment of sin must deal with these different phases:
1. SIN AS AN ACT.
In 1 John 3:4 we have the definition of sin as an act. It is a
transgressing or a going contrary to the law of God.
2. SIN AS A STATE.
There are many people who cannot or will not see that sin goes
deeper than an overt act. A little reflection will show that our acts are but
expressions of our inner selves. Inward sinfulness then must precede overt acts of sin.
Jesus taught this in principle when He said: "Either make the
tree good, and his fruit good; or make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt:
for the tree is known by his fruit" (Matt. 12:33). This means that there
must be a corrupt tree before there can be corrupt fruit. Jesus taught this
truth explicitly when He said: "For out of the heart
proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, thefts, false witness, blasphemies
. . ." (Matt. 15:19). He taught it again when He said: "And this is
the condemnation: that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness
rather than light" (John 3:19). Still again He taught it in the Sermon on
the Mount by emphasizing the fact that men can break the commandments of God by
harboring evil thoughts. See Matt. 5:21,22,27,28. In simple
words this means that a man is not what he is because of what he does; rather
he does what he does because of what he is, fundamentally speaking.
Note the following additional scriptural proofs that man is not
only sinful in conduct, but that he also exists in a sinful state- a lack of conformity to God in mind and heart:
(1) The Hebrew and Greek words translated "sin" are as
applicable to dispositions and states as to acts.
(2) Sin may consist of omitting to do the right
thing as well as of doing the wrong thing. "To him that knoweth to do
good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin" (Jas. 4.17).
(3) Evil is ascribed to thoughts and affections. Gen. 6:5; Jer.
17:9; Heb. 3:I2.
(4) The state of the soul that gives rise to
overt acts of sin is expressly called sin.
Rom. 7:8,11,13,14,17,20
(5) Sin is alluded to as a reigning principle in the life.
Rom. 6:21
3. SIN AS A PRINCIPLE.
In principle sin is rebellion against God. It
is refusing to do the will of Him who has every right to demand obedience of
US.
4. SIN IN ESSENCE.
"We may follow Dr. E. G. Robinson in
saying that, while sin as a state is unlikeness to God, as a principle is
opposition to God, and as an act is transgression of God's law, the essence of
it always and everywhere is selfishness" (Strong Systematic Theology, p.
295).
Sin may be described as a tree of self-will, having two tap roots.
One is a "no" to God and His demands. The other is a "yes"
to self and self's interests. This tree is capable of
bearing every manner of sin in the catalogue of sins. Selfishness is always manifest
in the sinner in the elevation of "some lower affection or desire above
regard for God and His law" (Strong). No matter what form sin may take, it
is always found to have selfishness as its root. Sin may take the forms of
avarice, pride, vanity, ambition, sensuality, jealousy, or even love of others-
in which case others are loved because they are conceived of
as being in some way connected with or contributing to self. The sinner may
seek truth, but always for selfish, egotistical purposes. He may give his goods
to feed the poor, or even his body to be burned, but only through selfish
desire for fleshly gratification or for honor or reward. Sin as selfishness has
four component parts: "(1) Self will, instead of submission; (2)
self-seeking, instead of benevolence; (3) self-righteousness,
instead of humility and reverence; (4) self-sufficiency, instead of faith"
(Harris).
In proof of the fact that sin is essentially selfishness we urge
the following considerations:
(1) In the apostasy of the last days it is said
that "men shall be lovers of self," and also "lovers of pleasure
rather than lovers of God." (2 Tim. 3:2,4).
(2) When the "man of sin" is revealed, he shall be he
that "exalteth himself against all that is called God" (2 Thess. 2:4).
(3) The essence of the law of God is to love God supremely and
others as self.
The opposite of this, the supreme love of self, must be the
essence of sin. Matt. 22:37-39.
(4) Satan's apostasy consisted of the
preference of self and selfish ambition to God and his will.
Isa. 14:12-15; Ezek. 28:12-18.
(5) The sin of Adam and Eve in the garden
sprang from a preference of self and self-gratification to God and His will.
Eve ate of the forbidden fruit because she thought it would give
desired wisdom. Adam partook of the fruit because he preferred his wife to God;
and the reason he preferred his wife to God is that he conceived of his wife as contributing more than God to his
self-gratification.
(6) Cain's murder of Abel was prompted by jealousy, which is a
form of selfishness.
(7) Selfishness is the cause of the sinner's
impenitence.
God has commanded all men everywhere to repent. Men refuse to do
this because they prefer their own wills to the will of God.
We see, then, that sin is not merely a result
of man's imperfect development. It is a perversity of the will and disposition.
Man will never outgrow it so long as he is in the flesh. Regeneration puts a
check upon it; but it does not destroy it. Nor is sin the mere result of the
union of the spirit with the body. The spirit itself is sinful and would be
just as sinful out of the body as in the body if left in its natural state.
Satan has no body; yet he is supremely sinful. Neither is sin mere finiteness. The elect angels in Heaven are finite; yet they are
without sin. Glorified saints will still be finite; yet they will have no sin.
II. THE UNIVERSALITY OF SIN IN THE HUMAN FAMILY
All men, with the sole exception of the
God-man, Christ Jesus our Lord, are sinful by nature and express that inward
sinfulness in willful transgressions as soon as they reach the age of
accountability. This fact is proved by-
1. The Universal Need of Repentance, Faith, and Regeneration.
Luke 13:3; John 8:24; Acts 16:30,31; Heb. 11:6; John 3:3,18.
2. Plain Scripture Declarations.
1 Kings 8:46; Psa. 143:2; Prov. 20:9; Eccl.
7:20; Rom. 3:10, 23; Gal. 3:22.
III. THE EXTENT OF SIN IN MAN'S BEING
The Scriptures teach that the extent of sin in man's being is
total. This is the meaning of total depravity.
1. TOTAL DEPRAVITY NEGATIVELY CONSIDERED.
Total depravity is a much-misunderstood subject. For that reason
we need to understand that total depravity does not mean-
(1) That man by nature is utterly devoid of conscience.
Even the heathen has conscience. Rom. 2:15.
(2) That man by nature is destitute of all of those qualities that
are praiseworthy according to human standards.
Jesus recognized the presence of such qualities in a certain rich
man (Mark 10:21).
(3) That every man is by nature prone to every form of sin.
This is impossible, for some forms of sin exclude others.
"The sin of miserliness may exclude the sin of luxury; the sin of pride
may exclude the sin of sensuality" (Strong).
(4) That men are by nature incapable of engaging in acts that are
externally conformed to the law of God.
Rom. 2:14.
(5) That men are as corrupt as they might be.
They may and do grow worse. 2 Tim. 3:13.
Thus total depravity does not mean that
depravity is total in its degree. It has to do with extent only.
(6) Moreover total depravity does not mean that there is depravity
or corruption of the substance or essence of the soul.
Total depravity consists only of a moral perversion of all the
facilities of the soul as we shall now see. It is the sinful bent of these
faculties that gives to man a sinful nature. To say that one cannot affirm that
man has a sinful nature without attributing sin to the substance of the soul is
to deny that there is any such thing as moral character. Perhaps that which
happened in the fall of the race cannot be better expressed
than in the following words from Delitzsch; "In consequence of the first
sin, the internal nature of man became possessed by death, by the dissolution
of the previous unity of the manifold powers reciprocally acting in the life of
the spirit and soul; and by the disappearance of the spiritual life in God's
image, and its reflection in the soul. Hitherto God's love filled the spirit's
will, thought and feeling: this threefold divinely filled life of the spirit was the holy image of the Godhead in man. But when
Satanic thoughts of a loveless God found entrance into man's mind, then entered
enmity . . . into the place of love, and Turba [confusion, devastation,
destruction] in the place of peace: the powers of the soul fell into confusion,
and kindled in passionate eagerness opposed to God" (A System of Biblical
Psychology, p. 153). This fallen condition of man is further elucidated by
Strong as follows: "In fine, man no longer made God
the end of his life. While he retained the power of self-determination in
subordinate things, he lost that freedom which consisted in the power of
choosing God as his ultimate aim. The intuitions of the reason were abnormally
obscured, since these intuitions, so far as they are concerned with moral and
religious truth, are conditioned upon a right state of the affections; and--as
a necessary result of this obscuring of reason--conscience,
which as the moral judiciary of the soul, decides upon the basis of law given
it by reason, became perverse in its deliverances. Yet this inability to judge
or act aright, since it was a moral inability springing ultimately from will,
was itself hateful and condemnable" (Systematic Theology p. 307). In man
today this inherited moral inability sprang from the will of Adam which was the
will of the race; therefore our will. 1 Cor. 15:22; Rom. 1:12,16-19.
Let us note the Biblical proof of the foregoing as we consider:
2. TOTAL DEPRAVITY CONSIDERED POSITIVELY.
Total depravity means that sin has permeated every faculty of
man's being just as a drop of poison would permeate every molecule of a glass
of water. Sin has warped every faculty in man, and thus it taints his every
act.
A. Man is Depraved in Mind. Gen. 6:5.
B. In Heart. Jer. 17:9.
C. In Affections so that He is Averse to God. John 3: 19; Rom.
8:7.
D. In Conscience. Titus 1:15; Heb. 10:22.
E. In Speech. Psa. 58:3; Jer. 8:6; Rom. 3:13.
F. Depraved from Head to Foot. Isa. 1:5,6.
C. Depraved when Born. Psa. 51:5; Psa. 58:3.
(2) The Effect of Total Depravity.
A. No Remnant of Good Remains in Man by Nature. Rom. 7: I&
B. Therefore Man by Nature Cannot Subject
Himself to the Law of God or Please God. Rom. 8:7,8.
C. Man is by Nature Spiritually Dead. Rom. 5:12; Col. 2:16; 1 John
3:14.
D. Therefore He Cannot Comprehend Spiritual
Things. 1 Cor. 2:14.
E. Hence He Cannot Until Quickened by the Spirit of God, Turn From
Sin to God in Godly Penitence and Faith. Jer. 13:23; John 6:44,65; 12:39,40.
The basis of depravity and spiritual inability
lies in the heart. It is deceitful and incurably wicked (Jer. 17:9). Out of the
heart are the issues of life (Prov. 4:23). No one can bring a clean thing out
of an unclean one (Job 14:4). Hence neither holiness nor faith can proceed from
the natural heart. Good things proceed from a good heart and evil things
proceed from an evil heart (Matt. 7:17,18; Luke 6:45).
3. TOTAL DEPRAVITY DEFENDED.
The doctrine of total hereditary depravity, as set forth above, is
opposed by three systems of theology as they deal with the effects of Adam's
fall upon the race. Let us briefly note these systems:
(1) Pelagianism.
This was propounded by Pelagius, a British monk, at Rome in 409.
Some of the features of Pelagianism were not original with Pelagius.
However, he was the ablest and most thorough exponent of the system as a whole.
Pelagius taught that every human soul is directly created of God.
This is Creationism, which was held also by Aristotle and Jerome, as opposed to
Traducianism, propounded by Tertullian and tacitly assumed by Augustine.
Logically, then, Pelagius felt obliged to consider the soul of a baby free from
evil tendencies. But he was wholly illogical in considering the soul of an
infant as merely innocent instead of positively holy. The holiness of God
forbids the supposition that He can create a being that is merely innocent,
just as surely as it forbids the supposition that He can create an evil being.
But Pelagius thought holiness could not be created. See Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10; 2
Pet. 1:4. Adam was created in the image of God, and that,
as we have seen, means more than mere innocence. Only arbitrary reasoning can
lead any Creationist to believe that the human soul at its origination is
merely innocent.
According to Pelagianism the only effect the sin of Adam had upon
the race lies in the effect of the evil example set by him. Adam's
sin was in no way our sin, and we do not inherit corrupt natures from him; the
only corruption of human nature being from persistent personal disobedience to
known law.
As would be expected, Pelagius taught that man is able to obey the
law of God, and that salvation can come by the law as well
as by the gospel. He believed that such men as Abel, Enoch, Joseph, Job, and
even Socrates and Aristides were saved by obeying God's law. God was wholly
excluded from man's inner life, and could reach man only through external
means.
This theory requires no detailed or extended
refutation. The student will see at once that it is the very antithesis of
Bible teaching in all of its phases. Let us dismiss it with this penetrating
characterization from Dorner: "It is Deism, applied to man's nature. God
cannot enter man's being if he would, and he would not if he could. Free will
is everything" (System of Doctrine, 2:38).
(2) Arminianism.
This system was elaborated by Arminius, a Dutch theologian
(1560-1609), who served as a professor in the University of Leyden, in South
Holland. Few, if any, of the elements of Arminianism were original with Arminius. Origen based election on God's foresight of the
believer's works. Moreover Arminius leaned toward Semi-Pelagianism.
Arminius taught that men are born without original righteousness
and with inherent evil tendencies; and are, therefore, wholly unable of
themselves to obey God or attain eternal life. The natural state of the infant
may be called sinful, but it does not involve guilt because
it is physical and intellectual rather than voluntary. Moreover it does not
spring from our racial unity with Adam. Adam's sin was not our sin. We inherit
our infirmities from Adam by divine appointment.
As a matter of justice, according to Arminius,
God has bestowed upon all men the special influence of the Holy Spirit (often
called "gracious ability") from the beginning of consciousness, with
which man has the power to cooperate and thus obey the will of God. It is only
when a human being consciously refuses to cooperate with the special influence
of the Holy Spirit that he becomes guilty before God. Original Arminianism was
greatly modified by John Wesley. But Wesleyanism, on the
whole, is just as flagrantly false as original Arminianism.
The same that was said of Pelagianism can be said of Arminianism.
It needs no further refutation than that which is given in the truth of the
Bible as set forth in the former portion of this chapter. In some respects it is simply extra-scriptural; in others it is anti-scriptural;
while in others it is logically unsound.
(3) The New England or "New School" Theology.
This system represents an attempted compromise
between Arminianism and Calvinism. It is called "New School" because
it opposed the old school of Puritan anthropology as expounded by Edwards and
Bellamy. It was built up through the successive labors of Hopkins, Emmons,
Dwight, Taylor, and last of all by Charles C. Finney. This school opposed much
of the truth taught by Edwards and then capitalized on his errors.
It is expedient that this school of theology be dealt with as it
is represented by its most recent advocate, Charles C. Finney in Finney's
Lectures on Systemaic Theology. This book has been highly and widely
recommended to young Baptist preachers. Here are some samples of its
deliverances: "Moral depravity cannot consist in any attribute of nature
or constitution, not in any lapsed or fallen state of nature;
for this is physical and not moral depravity." "It (moral depravity)
cannot consist in anything back of choice, and that sustains to choice the
relation of a cause. Whatever is back of choice is without the pale of
legislation." "Moral depravity is sinfulness, not of nature, but of
voluntary state." (pp. 230,231).
Upon these statements we remark:
(A) They involve a denial of our participation in the apostasy of
Adam, which is plainly taught in Rom. 5:12, as shown by later pertinent verses
in the chapter. "Have sinned" translates a verb in the aorist tense
in the Greek. Now the aorist tense can express action roughly equivalent to
that which is expressed by the imperfect tense; but in view
of the context of the passage the Revised Version dropped the word
"have" and translated the Greek verb simply "sinned." To
take this verb as referring to the personal sinning of each individual is to
ruthlessly wrest the last clause of the passage from its connection with the
first clause. Why is mention made of the fact that death came by Adam if our
death is not the result of Adam's sin? This interpretation,
moreover, "is inconsistent with ver. 13,14, which are intended to prove
what is here asserted: but they do not prove that all have actually sinned, but
rather the reverse" (Arnold, in An American Commentary on the New
Testament). The meaning of Rom. 5:12 as contended for here is further borne out
by 1 Cor. 15:22--"As in Adam all die . . ."
(B) They deny that sin exists as a state before there is a
conscious choice of evil. Thus they deny that it is a sinful state that gives
rise to sinful acts. This contradicts the principle enunciated by Jesus in
Matt. 12:33, and implies that an apple tree is an apple tree because it bears
apples and not vice versa. Jesus said that evil acts proceed out of the heart
(Matt. 15:19), and the word "heart," when used in
a moral or spiritual sense as it is here, refers to the affections, not the
will. Thus Jesus affirmed that the will acts because of the affections. Jesus
further taught this in John 3:19 in saying that men do not come to the light
because they love darkness. Then Jer. 17:9 says that the natural heart is
"desperately wicked." Furthermore Paul taught that his sins both of
commission and omission were the result of sin dwelling in him, that is, in his
carnal nature. Ro. 7:8,11,13,14,17,20. Paul's indwelling
sin after he was saved was not there because his will was committed to it as
his immanent preference or ultimate end;* it was there in spite of his will and
hindered the executive volitions of his will. Naturally Mr. Finney was forced
by the exigencies of his false system to deny that any part of Rom. 7 describes
Paul's experience as a saved man. The fact that he must ignore and deny the
plain meaning of the Bible to support his contentions is
enough to show their utter falsity.
(C) They are false in their implied denial that the will of the
natural man always acquiesces in the state of his nature. In the sense of
immanent preference or as an ultimate end, a natural man always wills to be
what he is. Otherwise he would not be free in being what he
is, but would be under constraint from without; and would not be responsible.
The sinner is blind (2 Cor. 4:3,4), not because at some point in his personal
existence he made a deliberate choice to be blind. God says it is the Devil
that has blinded him. How? By forcing blindness upon him from without? No; for
that would destroy the free agency of the sinner. The Devil has blinded the
sinner by blinding the race through the fall, from which
the sinner has received his blindness by inheritance. Yet the sinner is
responsible for his blindness. This could be true only upon the ground that his
will acquiesces in the blindness. The same is true with regard to every evil
tendency and disability of the sinner by nature.
(D) They are wrong in implying that a man's
affections are under the control of his will. Jesus said men reject Him because
of their affections. John 3:19. "Love is the fulfilling of the law"
(Rom. 13:10). Why? The first part of the verse tells--"Love worketh no ill
. . .," that is, love moves a man to do what is right. In other words,
love controls action and that means that love controls the will. Thus the will
is subject to the affections. A man does not choose to love in the final
analysis. He loves because of what he is and because of
what the object of his affections is. In the final analysis affections are
spontaneous. This is not to say that a man's intellect, his faculty of knowing,
has no part in determining his actions. His intellect is always involved in his
affections.
(E) They are wrong in that they deny the
existence of real character. If the will does not act according to character,
then there is no such thing as character; nor is there
__________
*See treatment of the will in chapter on The Moral Nature of Man
for meaning of these terms and also the meaning of "executive volitions."
__________
any such thing as responsibility. To talk about the character of
the will as a thing separate from the nature of the man to which the will
belongs is to talk childish nonsense.
(F) They are wrong in that they affirm that lapsed and fallen
nature is "physical and not moral depravity." In another place Mr.
Finney defines "physical depravity" as being "depravity of
substance as opposed to depravity of the actions of free will." This means
that Mr. Finney denied that there can be such a thing as moral and spiritual
disorder in the soul without a perversion of the very substance
or essence of the soul. It means also that if there should be such a thing as
moral or spiritual disorder, a setting of the soul in sin, involving a blinding
of the mind and a perverting of the heart- in other words, a spiritual
deadening of all the faculties of the soul, this would be physical depravity
and not moral depravity, for which a man cannot be held responsible.