A Compendium of Christian Theology

By William Burt Pope, D.D.,

Volume Two

Chapter 2

Nature of Sin

NATURE OF SIN

            Self-Separation from God

            Guilt

            Consciousness of Sin and of Obligation to Punishment

            Death Spiritual

            Physical. Eternal

Sin, having been considered in its origin as matter of revelation and faith, may now be viewed as matter of experience in its nature and development. Here we are shut up to the definitions of Scripture, generally given in a variety of names by which sin is characterized. These names, which are few but distinct and clear, describe it in two ways

First, with reference to God, it is the voluntary separation of the human will from the Divine, expressed in disobedience to His law. Secondly, in relation to man, it is guilt, as the consciousness of personal wrong and personal liability to punishment. It will be found that all the revelations of the Word of God concerning sin as such, and apart from its peculiar aspect as original sin, or the sin of the race, may be reduced to these simple elements

SELF-SEPARATION FROM GOD

The essence of that mystery in the created spirit which we call sin is its voluntary separation from God: that is and must be the root and reality of all evil in the creature

1. It may be questioned whether any Scriptural term expressly indicates this ultimate secret, behind the act of disobedience to law imposed. But more than one of them seem to point towards it. Thus shataatiy and won, sin and iniquity, united in the iniquity of my sin, 1 both signify deflection from the true aim: the former rather denoting the missing of the mark, the latter the perverse-ness in aiming wrong. So the leading Greek term amartia means also the missing of the mark, with the idea of deviation from it, as is seen in amartein, intransitively to become separate, and thus to fail of its object. Still, the primary and fundamental quality of sin, that it is voluntary separation from God, is not absolutely expressed; it is everywhere implied as the hidden fountain of all the rivers that make sad the life of man

1 Psa. 32:5

2. Almost every definition of sin in the Scripture marks it as transgression of law. It is enough to refer to St. John's first epistle, which contains the profoundest doctrine of sin and redemption: hee hamartía estín hee anomía, sin is lawlessness or breach of law. 1 How fearful sin is, as the darkness which is not in God, the Apostle has shown at the outset; but here at the end we have his only express definition, and with it the Scripture closes. A great variety both of Hebrew and of Greek terms unite in this central idea, that sin is departing from the prescribed way of duty, the disobedience to express commandment: as Cicero says, Peccare est tanquam lineas transilire. St. John's definition is important, as showing the difference between the act of transgression and the state of transgression. The words mean that the act is the result of the state, and the state also the result of the act Sin is only the act of a primitive transgressing will, but that will forms the character behind the future will, and shapes its ends. This final statement of St. John may be divided into its two branches, each of which will shed light upon the general terminology of Scripture. Sin is the voluntary separation of the soul from God: this implies the setting up of the law of self actively, and passively the surrender to internal confusion

1 1 John 3:4

(1.) Though the essence of sin is not selfishness, that is its, first manifestation. Self is set up in the place of God; it is anomia, lawlessness in principle, having thrown off the Divine restraint; parabasis, transgression in act; adikia, iniquity; amartia, deviation from the way or end appointed of God, regarded both as an act and as a state; asebeia, godlessness. While some of these terms are negative, expressing the deflection of the will from its harmony with that of the Supreme, Whose nature and will are one, either or both being the ground of eternal moral obligation to the creature, they still describe sin as the positive condition of the soul: not indeed as any real entity within it, but as the active direction of the will. In the Old Testament this positive element is very prominent. In paasha sin is active lawlessness or willful transgression, as in the words of Job: for he addeth rebellion unto his sin. 1 It is revolt against rightful authority: they have . .

trespassed against My law. 2 In raa'at or ra', which is one of the earliest terms, we have the ideas both of perverseness and of universal evil: and God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth. 3 There are some other words which include the thought of a violent revolt against Divine authority. By shgeeniy this is connected with wandering from God; probably it occurs in one of the earliest and most solemn accounts of the effect of sin: in their wandering they are flesh. 4 It may be said that the great mass of the definitions in both the Old and the New Testaments stamp it as the active uprising of the human will against the ordinances of Divine law written either on the heart or in positive statutes

1 Job 34:37; 2 Hos. 8:1; 3 Gen. 6:5; 4 Gen. 6:3

(2.) It may be doubted, however, whether in the Old or in the New Testament there is any one term for sin which expresses its activity as a principle, without a side reference to its privative character and the ruin which it involves. Such terms as epithumias, lust in concupiscence, echthra eis Theon, enmity against God, and ta eauton zeeton, seeking one's own, seem only positive and active; but they regard sin under special aspects, and certainly include its internal perversion. Though its energy as the root of human evil is all but unbounded, it is an energy in evil which is also the misuse of faculties created for good alone. Hence, sin is in Scripture inward confusion, discord, disease, wretchedness, vanity: especially, as will hereafter be seen, in the habitual use of sarx or flesh to express both the vanity and the sinfulness of human nature. The term poneria, evil, itself testifies to the labor and wearisomeness and vanity of sin, as it is related to ponos, labor. In the Old Testament a considerable number of words express the same characteristic of conscious turbulence, disorder, and unrest. Such are aamaal: they conceive MISCHIEF 1 (or vexation) and bring forth vanity; aawen, evil or depravity, as the result of wrongdoing; resha', wickedness, pointing to its restless activity whether as internal or as affecting others: the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt; there is no peace, saith my God, to the WICKED; 2 eeyn indicating the nothingness or vanity of sin: he that soweth iniquity shall reap VANITY; 3 and they that plow iniquity and sow wickedness reap the same. 4 These words do not exhaust the catalogue of terms which define the quality of sin as substituting for the obedience of the Divine law a state of internal anarchy, as throwing the whole soul into confusion, as creating disturbance around, and ending in vanity and wretchedness both physical and spiritual

1 Job 15:35; 2 Isa. 57:20,21; 3 Pro. 22:8; 4 Job 4:8

CONSCIOUSNESS OF GUILT

Viewed more particularly with regard to its effect upon man's relation to God's law sin is guilt, or the human consciousness of a Divine imputation: first, the consciousness of PERSONAL responsibility for the sin as committed by self; and, secondly, the consciousness of personal RESPONSIBILITY for the sin, as an obligation to punishment on account of it. These two inseparable attendants on the act of transgression are in reality one; but may be conveniently distinguished

I. How truly the idea of Guilt is distinct and unique may be seen in the language by which it is expressed in Scripture, first, with reference to the Divine imputation of sin, and, secondly, in the human echo of that imputation in conscience

1. The universal testimony of the Bible, from the first revelation of sin down to the last revelation of redemption from it, declares that the Holy Lawgiver imputes man's evil to man as its author; and will reckon to him the violation of the law and the dishonor done to the majesty of His own holiness. The evil that is in the natural world—that is, what evil has been brought into it by the Fall—He reckons only indirectly to the human transgressor, but his sin He reckons directly to him. There is no THOU more direct than that which excited in the two first sinners the sentiment of guilt: Adam, where art thou? 1 Because THOU hast done this, thou art cursed! Because thou hast done it: here is guilt in the sense of CULPA or fault. Thou art cursed: here is guilt in the sense of REATUS or penalty. That sin is guilt in both these senses, and that guilt in both these senses is sin, the Old Testament teaches in its entire doctrine of expiation. Offence against God passes not away with the act, it clings still to the transgressor, and can never be put away from him save by his rendering satisfaction. That satisfaction he can render only by the endurance of the penalty: either in his own person or through the intermediation of other satisfaction counted as his own. He must carry the burden of his sin with him, or bear his iniquity. 2 There is one word, ashaamow which, as connected with chataatow, expresses constantly the idea of guilt attaching to every sin. Although in many passages it has a limited sense, designating the trespass-offering appointed to be brought for offences committed through error, negligence or ignorance, yet that very limitation serves to impress all the more significantly the deep meaning of guilt as such. The trespass-offering, or, as it should be rendered, the guilt-offering, was itself guilt as the representative of guilt: it was ASHAM; and so in the supreme Offering our Lord was made sin for us. 3 It is enough to refer to one text, which may stand for a large number. If a soul sin, and commit any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the Lord; though he wist it not, yet is he GUILTY (PECCATI REUS), and shall bear his iniquity; and he shall bring a ram without blemish out of the flock, with thy estimation, for a trespass-offering, unto the priest: and the priest shall make an atonement for him concerning his ignorance wherein he erred and wist it not, and it shall be forgiven him. It is a trespass-offering: he hath certainly trespassed against the Lord. 4 Here we discern distinction in guilt — as the Vulgate translates, juxta mensuram aestimationemque peccati, — in relation to the theocratic laws of the old covenant. But the underlying trespass, the heart and root of all offences, is the same. Hence when we pass into the New Testament, which makes sin exceeding sinful 5 in the light of the finished Atonement, the distinction is done away. The sin-offering and the trespass-offering are united in the One Sacrifice for sins. 6 The highest conception of guilt is that of man's hupódikos géneetai toó Theoó —that all the world may become guilty before God. 7 Though there is a sense in which the Gospel still marks the sin of him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, 8 and makes a difference between that servant which knew his Lord's will 9 and him that knew not, between the debtor who owed five hundred pence and the debtor who owed fifty, 10 yet all sin is debt, for which satisfaction must be made. The new covenant has introduced this new, term, and teaches the exaction of the uttermost farthing: 11 teaching it all the more rigorously because the secret of a full satisfaction and a frank forgiveness is at hand. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven; 12 and the guilty are children of wrath. 13 The law accompanies the Gospel, and makes the offender in one point guilty of all, 14 pántoon énochos, or, in our Lord's language, guilty or in danger of eternal sin. 15 Hence this phrase, which expresses the New-Testament idea of guilt most emphatically, includes the two meanings with which we set out: personal guilt as breaking the law, and personal obligation to endure its punishment: pántoon énochos and énochos Thanaton. These last words suggest the most affecting illustration of the distinction. We are guilty in both senses: our Holy Savior was only guilty of death. 16 all is expressed in our word SIN; according to its most probable derivation from the Latin SONS, nocens, that which is the guilty cause of death to the soul

1 Gen. 3:9,14; 2 Lev. 5:1; 3 2 Cor. 5:21; 4 Lev. 5:17-19; 5 Rom. 7:13; 6 Heb. 10:12; 7 Rom 3:19; 8 Jas. 4:17; 9 Luke 12:47,48; 10 Luke 7:41; 11 Mat. 5:26; 12 Rom. 1:18; 13 Eph. 2:3; 14 Jas. 2:10; 15 Mark 3:29; 16 Mat. 26:66

2. The Conscience in man bears its own clear testimony. This faculty of our nature, or representative of the Judge in our personality, is simply in relation to sin the registrar of its guilt. It is the moral consciousness, rather of instinct than of reflection, though also of both, faithfully assuming the personal responsibility of the sin and anticipating its consequences. Such is the Scriptural meaning of the word. It is not the standard of right and wrong set up in the moral nature. St. Paul speaks of that as written in the heart of universal man: the Gentiles show the work of the law written in their hearts. 1 He goes on to speak of their conscience also bearing witness, by its accusing or else excusing, undoubtedly looking upward to a Judge and forward to a judgment. What St. Paul calls suneideéseoos, St. John calls kardia, meaning however, not the heart, in which St. Paul seats the law, but the consciousness of the inner man. The conscience is the self of the personality, in universal humanity never excusing, but always accusing, and is the conscience of sins. 2 But of this we need not speak further now. It is enough to establish the distinction between the standard of right and wrong which may be defective and is not conscience proper, and that moral consciousness which infallibly unites the fault and its consequences in the consciousness of the sinner

1 Rom. 2:15; 2 Heb. 10:2

GUILT AS FAULT AND PUNISHMENT

We may now look more particularly at the idea of guilt under its two aspects: observing, however, preliminarily that what is here said has reference only to sin generally, without including those modifications of its phenomena and degrees of its guiltiness which are concerned rather with the doctrine of Original Sin

THE PERSONAL FAULT

Guilt is the personal consciousness of being responsible for the wrong: the transgressor violating the commands of the law acknowledges the law and its rights against himself

1. This is the sense of the forensic term aitia: the sinner is and knows himself to be the agent and the cause of his own sin. Hence it is defined as reatus culpae; or guilt in respect to its fault. The eternal alliance of sin and guilt in human consciousness cannot be too deeply pondered. This consciousness refutes all those theories of the origination of sin to which reference has been made: it exonerates God; it honors the law; while it does not excuse the Tempter, it lays not upon him as the instrument the guilt of which it assumes the responsibility. In this conscience of sin the devils tremble. This is the deepest secret in the heart of every human transgressor: the mouth may deny it, not knowing what it says; but the inner man is true to its moral instinct The first evasion of guilt was only an evasion; and it was Adam's guilt that said, The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. 1 This was the knowledge of evil which had been threatened, and the very attempt to transfer the guilt of self to secondary agents was proof that evil was known. Job represents all men when he speaks of the self-deception of covering sin with a covering not of the sanctuary: If I covered my transgressions, as Adam, by hiding mine iniquity in my bosom. 2 When Eve said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat, 3 it was her guilt that spoke. The English term Guilt has affinity with the term Beguiled, but with a far deeper meaning

1 Gen. 3:12; 2 Job 31:33; 3 Gen. 3:13

2. This sure and unerring consciousness of wrong speaks in conscience; but conscience maybe suppressed, may speak inarticulately, or may be perverted in its decisions. The whole economy of law is designed to revive it, to restore it to its sobriety, and constrain it to give its clear witness against self. The sinner takes his first step towards return to God when he acknowledges himself inseparably identified with his past transgression, and owns that himself and his sin are one. St. Paul's words, making out of his own experience an example, are very clear: I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died: 1 I DIED. When afterwards he might seem to cover his sin like Adam, Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me, 2 he does not impute to sin as another agent the guilt due to himself. He only speaks as one who was no longer under the absolute bondage of sin, no longer insensible to its enormity, but struggling to get free. No more I only means that his better self, still guilty—O wretched man that I am! —Was striving, though as yet in vain, to be free: the evil which I would not THAT I DO. But at present we are only considering the conscience of sin awakened by the conviction of the Spirit: the results of that awakening are in the future

1 Rom. 7:9; 2 Rom. 7:17,24

THE PUNISHMENT

Guilt has another meaning. It is the sure obligation to punishment; or what is sometimes called the reatus poenae. We must remember that it is here regarded as absolute, without reference to any atoning provision; that it is the penalty of a living soul, and not annihilation: and that it is the penalty of the human spirit informing a human body. The soul that sinneth is GUILTY OF DEATH, or of being sundered from the Holy Spirit of life: the death of the spirit separated from God, involving the separation of soul and body, and in its issue eternal. This is a hard saying, taken alone; but its mitigation will come in due time

I. SPIRITUAL DEATH is the departure of the Holy Spirit as the bond of union between God and every living soul. Through His withdrawal the spirits, whether of angels or of men, are separated from fellowship with God, retaining the natural elements of His image, but no longer reflecting His holiness. This penalty we are now considering in the abstract, and without reference to its character as affected by redemption. It is enough to say that in itself it is the departure of the life of the soul as the soul was created to exist in God

This is not only the penalty of sin, but also gives it a specific nature, and leads to those manifestations of it which are the best and only definitions of spiritual death. As by the law is the knowledge of sin 1 positively, so also the absence of the Holy Ghost negatively makes its evil known in all its forms and characters

1 Rom. 3:20

1. Instead of the Divine Spirit, SELF becomes the ascendant and ruling principle of the life: the mystery of sin in its origin was the severance of the free spirit from God and the aspiring to become its own god. Now the mystery is revealed: the spirit of man, without the Spirit of God, is surrendered to Self. The life and activity of the self, or selfishness in all its forms, is, whether among angels or among men, the death of the soul. Hence, as will be hereafter seen, the process of recovery from that death is the return of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, when the I no longer lives. If any man will come after me let him deny himself. 1 He that loveth his life doth lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. 2 Such sayings point to the principle that true and essential death is the living to self

1 Mat. 16:24; 2 John 12:25

2. According to the original constitution of man the flesh was, in its innocent alliance with the things of sense, subject to his spirit governed by the Divine Spirit: the penalty of sin is the forfeiture of that dominion, as over the outer world generally, so over his own physical nature. Hence the FLESH gives one of its prevalent denominations to sin as manifested in man and in this world. The restoration of the Holy Ghost to human nature restores it to spirituality again: to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life.1 1 Rom. 8:6

3. The absence of the Spirit, making the heart of man an interior temple and all nature a temple external, surrenders man to IDOLATRY. He is a being formed for worship; and his instinct, even in its perversion, is that of a creature bowing down to something above himself. We can hardly imagine the lost spirits without this: there may be something corresponding to human idolatry among the fallen intelligences who followed the revolt of the archangel. But, as to man, while self becomes his interior god, the outer world becomes a vast Pantheon. Hence this positive idolatry is also UNGODLINESS, the meaning of which, as the word tells us, is being without the worship of God, and therefore estranged from His holy nature

4. Sin also becomes a governing PRINCIPLE, capable of end-less development. This springs from the great fact that the elements of human nature were constructed for unlimited progress: if not from glory to glory, then from shame to shame. There is a fearful self-generating power in evil, which grows unto more ungodliness. 1 It may not be lawful to say that sin is punished by sin; but most surely spiritual death to good has in it all the fullness of spiritual life to evil. This accounts for the infinite varieties of transgression, from the secret fault known only to God, up to the sin against the Holy Ghost

1 2 Tim. 2:16

5. Lastly, it must be remembered that, whatever sin is, it is the accident of a nature that is not in itself changed. It is only the separation from God; but the soul going out of His presence still bears in its wanderings His image, the natural characteristics of which are not marred by the introduction of any new faculty created for evil alone. There is nothing new introduced into the fibers of our being as human. In other words, sin must be left altogether to the region of tendency and bias of the WILL, as formed by the character and as forming it in return

II. PHYSICAL DEATH is the penalty of human sin: not however in itself, but as connected with death spiritual: connected with it in some sense as resulting from the same deprivation of the Holy Ghost, Whose indwelling 1 regenerate man is the pledge of the physical resurrection, even as it is the principle of the spirit's resurrection to life. But it is declared to be expressly the penalty of sin in man; who was on its account subjected to the vanity that was the lot of the lower creatures, denied access to the Tree of Life, and surrendered to the dissolution that had already been the natural termination of the existence of the inferior orders of the inhabitants of earth. From the moment of the entrance of sin death reigned, as afterwards in Adam's descendants, so in himself: for death means mortality, and includes all the innumerable evils that introduce it. It must be remembered that we have no experience of this doom as absolutely unrelieved by the Gospel; but here we have only to do with the punishment itself. As the penalty of spiritual death gives new characteristics to sin, so also does the penalty of physical death

It stamps upon it the attributes of impotence and misery; especially, as we have seen, in Old-Testament definitions. To this we must refer again. Meanwhile, it is enough to say that, whatever our first parents may have understood, the sentence pronounced upon their sin could not have been primarily even, certainly not alone, the separation of soul and body. Moreover, physical death in the sense of the annihilation of man's whole physical nature, as he is soul and spirit, is never once alluded to throughout the Scriptures. To die never in the Bible means extinction

1 Rom. 8:11

III. DEATH as the doom of sin is of itself necessarily ETERNAL

1. This penalty is now regarded in the abstract, pronounced upon sin as such. It is the separation of the soul from God, looked at apart from redemption, and therefore a sentence in itself unrelieved and unqualified. This dread truth may be viewed negatively and positively. The withdrawal of the Holy Spirit is a penalty which leaves the sinner without the possibility of self-restoration; and in that is everlasting death. But it is also the positive decree of the Righteous Judge Who separates evil for ever from Himself. In harmony with this distinction are certain well-marked definitions of sin in the New Testament. It is enmity against God, 1 and that implies in itself an eternal severance, as in the case of the unredeemed spirits. It is BONDAGE to evil: that is, the free spirit, never losing its power of self-determination, is determined by the presence of the sinful principle to only evil continually. 2 And in the combination of these again lies the element of eternal death. As the favor of God is life, so death is His displeasure; the sense of guilt, uniting the personal responsibility and the apprehension of punishment, is capable of unlimited continuance. And when it is said that the wrath of God abideth on 3 the unbeliever, we need no other account of the penalty of eternal death

1 Rom. 8:7; 2 Gen. 6:5; 3 John 3:36

2. As a sentence pronounced upon sin, death was not declared to be eternal in the beginning, nor ever announced as such until the Redeemer brought life and immortality to light. 1 It was a suspended decree, as indeed every part of the sentence was suspended

Physical death immediately took effect, but only in its preliminaries: the deceiver spoke half the truth when he said that, in the day they ate of the fruit, the Protoplasts should not surely die. 2 Spiritual death took effect at once, but that also, as we shall see, not without alleviation. That the severance of the soul from God should endure for ever was not pronounced, because the provisions of mercy might reverse that part of the decree. But with those provisions of mercy we have not yet to do. However, when the grace of God bringing salvation to man was fully revealed, it most solemnly supplemented what had been lacking in the primitive denunciation, and unfolded its deep hidden meaning. It is the Scriptural characteristic of this second death 3 that it is never foreannounced as a threatening sanction, but always predicted as a consequence of impenitent sin: it is not so much declared to be the penalty of guilt as the penalty of redemption rejected. The Gospel to them that are perishing is a savor from death unto death: 4 death spiritual deepening into death eternal

1 2 Tim. 1:10; 2 Gen. 3:4; 3 Rev. 2:11; 4 2 Cor. 2:15,16

3. But though the sentence of eternal death is bound up with the scheme of recovery, as the sanction of a rejected Gospel, it must be remembered that it is everywhere declared to be the necessary issue of sin as the opposite of all that is called life. Life is nowhere in the Word of God made equivalent to continuance in being: were it so eternal death would be eternal annihilation. Life is communion with God, and its consummation is eternal; death is the end of unrighteousness, and its consummation eternal. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. 1 Doubtless there are great varieties in the application of the term death, as there are also of the term life; but the applications of the two terms run parallel. Our Lord's words are emphatic: Verily, verily, I say unto you, he, that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation. 2 Here the contrast of life and death eternal is exhibited. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour cometh and now is, when the, dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live. 3 Here it is the contrast of spiritual life and death. Marvel not at this: for the hour cometh in the which all that are in the tombs shall hear His voice, and shall come forth: they that have done good, unto the, resurrection of life, and they that have done ill, unto the resurrection of damnation. 4 Here the physical life is made eternal, and the spiritual is between the two. It is in the light of these sovereign words that the contested passage of St. Paul must be read: as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin. 5 Here physical death is the penalty of sin; but spiritual and eternal death cannot be excluded, as is evident from the context which surrounds this text in the Apostle's great chapter of Sin

It closes with the sentence: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. 6 In the earlier part of the chapter which deals with sin generally, before coming to Original Sin, we have four terms that express its whole nature, both in itself and in that penalty of death in its spiritual and its eternal sense from which the Atonement rescues us. Referring expressly to the state in which we were found by redemption, St. Paul calls men generally hamartolois, transgressors of the law in their very nature; asebes, ungodly and cut off from the favor, presence, and service of God; asthenes, without strength, essentially impotent; and, finally, echthros, enemies, the objects of a positive displeasure or wrath of the Supreme which apart from the mediation of Christ will endure for ever. This quaternion of terms must be carried on into the latter part of the chapter where it is shown how the first transgression paved the way for them. In their light sound exposition cannot limit death as the penalty of sin to the death of the body

1 Rom. 6:23; 2 John 5:24; 3 John 5:25; 4 John 5:28,29; 5 Rom. 5:12; 6 Rom. 5:21; 4. But this leads at once to the connection between moral evil and redemption; the consideration of which will clear the path for the doctrine of Original Sin. In interposing the following section we follow the guidance of St. Paul himself, who passes, in turning from his most complete description of sin generally to his most complete account of its relation to our race, over that sacred bridge: we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom we have now received the Atonement. 1 Not only he but every writer of Scripture, as well in the New Testament as in the Old, constantly connects evil with the system of deliverance from it. Sin is always discussed, defined, dwelt upon in all its development and issues, at the foot of the Altar in the old economy, and at the foot of the Cross in the new. It is a fact which has been alluded to already, and will recur hereafter, that many of the Hebrew and Greek terms for sin itself are used also to express the expiation of sin, while in some phrases the bearing of iniquity and its forgiveness are actually one. It is sufficient to quote one instance. In Leviticus it is said: Whosoever curseth his God shall bear his sin, 2 wnaasaa' chet'ow. Of the Servant of God we read, He Himself bare the sin of many, 3 Whuw' cheet'- rabiym naasaa'; this, if compared with the words concerning the scapegoat, to bear upon him all their iniquities to a land not inhabited, 4 shows that the bearing sin was also the bearing it away by atonement. Then we hear the pardoned penitent crying, Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin, 5 W'ataah naasaa'taa `won chataa'tiy of the utmost sin, the perfect propitiation provided for it, and the assured sense of forgiveness, are all signified by the same profound phrase. Passing by this, however, we must impress on our minds the blessed truth that we at least, as sinners of mankind, never need study sin save in the direct light of redemption

1 Rom. 5:11; 2 Lev. 24:15; 3 Isa. 53:12; 4 Lev. 16:22; 5 Psa. 32:5