Imputation:
is used to designate any action or word or thing as reckoned to a person. Thus in doctrinal language (1) the sin of Adam is imputed to all his descendants, i.e., it is reckoned as theirs, and they are dealt with therefore as guilty; (2) the righteousness of Christ is imputed to them that believe in him, or so attributed to them as to be considered their own; and (3) our sins are imputed to Christ, i.e., he assumed our "law-place," undertook to answer the demands of justice for our sins. In all these cases the nature of imputation is the same (Rom 5:12-19; Phm 1:18,19).
Imputation:
im-pu-ta'-shun:
I. MEANING AND USE OF THE TERM
II. THE THREEFOLD USE OF THE TERM IN THEOLOGY
Original Sin, Atonement, Justification
III. THE SCRIPTURAL BASIS OF THESE DOCTRINES
1. Imputation of Adam's Sin to His Posterity
2. Imputation of the Sins of His People to Christ
3. Imputation of the Righteousness of Christ to His People
LITERATURE
I. Meaning and Use of the Term.
The word "imputation," according to the Scriptural usage, denotes an attributing of something to a person, or a charging of one with anything, or a setting of something to one's account. This takes place sometimes in a judicial manner, so that the thing imputed becomes a ground of reward or punishment. The word is used in the King James Version a number of times to translate the Hebrew verb chashabh and the Greek verb logizomai. These words, both of which occur frequently in Scripture, and which in a number of instances mean simply "to think," express the above idea. That this is the case is clear also from the other English words used in the King James Version to translate these Hebrew and Greek words, as, for example, "to count," "to reckon," "to esteem." Thus chashabh is translated in the King James Version by the verb "to impute" (Le 7:18; 17:4; 2Sa 19:19); by the verb "to reckon" (2Sa 4:2); by "to count" as something (Le 25:31 English versions). The verb in 1Sa 22:15 is sim. Similarly, logizomai is translated by the verb "to impute" (Ro 4:6,8,11,22,23,24; 2Co 5:19; Jas 2:23); by the verb "to count" (Ro 2:26; 4:3,5); "to account" (Ga 3:6); and by the verb "to reckon" (Ro 4:4,9,10). In the Revised Version (British and American) the word used to render logizomai is the verb "to reckon."
These synonyms of the verb "to impute" bring out the idea of reckoning or charging to one's account. It makes no difference, so far as the meaning of imputation is concerned, who it is that imputes, whether man (1Sa 22:15) or God (Ps 32:2); it makes no difference what is imputed, whether a good deed for reward (Ps 106:30 f) or a bad deed for punishment (Le 17:4); and it makes no difference whether that which is imputed is something which is personally one's own prior to the imputation, as in the case above cited, where his own good deed was imputed to Phinehas (Ps 106:30 f), or something which is not personally one's own prior to the imputation, as where Paul asks that a debt not personally his own be charged to him (Phm 1:18). In all these cases the act of imputation is simply the charging of one with something. It denotes just what we mean by our ordinary use of the term. It does not change the inward state or character of the person to whom something is imputed. When, for example, we say that we impute bad motives to anyone, we do not mean that we make such a one bad; and just so in the Scripture the phrase "to impute iniquity" does not mean to make one personally bad, but simply to lay iniquity to his charge. Hence, when God is said "to impute sin" to anyone, the meaning is that God accounts such a one to be a sinner, and consequently guilty and liable to punishment. Similarly, the non-imputation of sin means simply not to lay it to one's charge as a ground of punishment (Ps 32:2). In the same manner, when God is said "to impute righteousness" to a person, the meaning is that He judicially accounts such a one to be righteous and entitled to all the rewards of a righteous person (Ro 4:6,11).
II. The Threefold Use of the Term in Theology.
Original Sin, Atonement, Justification:
Three acts of imputation are given special prominence in the Scripture, and are implicated in the Scriptural doctrines of Original Sin, Atonement and Justification, though not usually expressed by the words chashabh and logizomai. Because, however, of its "forensic" or "judicial" meaning, and possibly through its use in the Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) to translate logizomai in Ro 4:8, the term "imputation" has been used in theology in a threefold sense to denote the judicial acts of God by which the guilt of Adam's sin is imputed to his posterity; by which the sins of Christ's people are imputed to Him; and by which the righteousness of Christ is imputed to His people. The act of imputation is precisely the same in each case. It is not meant that Adam's sin was personally the sin of his descendants, but that it was set to their account, so that they share its guilt and penalty. It is not meant that Christ shares personally in the sins of men, but that the guilt of his people's sin was set to his account, so that He bore its penalty. It is not meant that Christ's people are made personally holy or inwardly righteous by the imputation of His righteousness to them, but that His righteousness is set to their account, so that they are entitled to all the rewards of that perfect righteousness.
These doctrines have had a place in theology of the Christian church from the earliest Christian centuries, though the doctrine of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ was first fully and clearly stated at the time of and following the Reformation. The first two of these doctrines have been the possession of the entire Christian church, while the third one of them is affirmed by both the Reformed and Lutheran branches of Protestantism.
III. The Scriptural Basis of These Doctrines.
These three doctrines have a basis in the Scripture, and underlie the Scripture doctrines of Original Sin, Atonement, and Justification.
1. Imputation of Adam's Sin to His Posterity:
The doctrine of the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity is implied in the account of the Fall in Ge 2 and 3, taken in connection with the subsequent history of the human race as recorded in Ge and in the rest of the Old Testament. Many ancient and modern interpreters regard this narrative as an allegorical, mythical or symbolical representation in historical form, either of a psychological fact, i.e. of something which takes place in every individual, or of certain general truths concerning sin. By some exegetes, following Kant, it has been held to depict an advance of the race in culture or ethical knowledge (Reuss; against which view compare Budde, Clemen); by others it has been regarded as a symbolical representation of certain truths concerning sin (Oehler, Schultz); by others it has been regarded as historical (Delitzsch). This latter view is the one which accords with the narrative itself. It is evidently intended as historical by its author, and is so regarded by the New Testament writers. It is, moreover, introduced to explain, not an advance of the race, but the entrance of sin into the world, and the connection of certain penal evils with sin. It does this by showing how these evils came upon Adam as a punishment for his disobedience, and the subsequent history shows that his posterity were subjected to the same evils. It is true that the threat of punishment to Adam in case of disobedience was made to him alone, and that the penalties threatened are said to have come only upon him and Eve (Ge 3:16-19). Nevertheless, it is clear from the account of the subsequent history of the race that it actually shared in the punishments inflicted upon Adam, and that this was in consequence of his sin. This implies that in Ge 2:16 f are contained the terms of a covenant in which Adam acted as the representative of the race. If, therefore, the race shares in the penalty of Adam's sin, it must also share in his guilt or the judicial obligation to suffer punishment. And this is precisely what theology of the entire Christian church has meant by saying that the guilt of Adam's sin was imputed to his posterity. This is in accordance with God's method of dealing with men in other recorded instances (Ge 19:15; Ex 20:5; De 1:37; 3:26); and the assertion of the principle of personal responsibility by Ezekiel and Jeremiah against an abuse of the principle of representative responsibility implies a recognition of the latter (Eze 18:2,4; 33:12; Jer 31:29).
The universality of sin and death is not brought into connection with the Fall of Adam by the other Old Testament writers. This is done, however, by Paul. In 1Co 15:21 f, Paul says that the death of all men has its cause in the man Adam in the same way in which the resurrection from the dead has its cause in the man Christ. The death of all men, accordingly, is not brought about by their personal sins, but has come upon all through the disobedience of Adam. Upon what ground this takes place, Paul states in the passage Ro 5:12-21. He introduces the subject of Adam's relation to the race to illustrate his doctrine of the justification of sinners on the ground of a righteousness which is not personally their own. In order to do this he takes the truth, well known to his readers, that all men are under condemnation on account of Adam's sin. The comparison is between Adam and Christ, and the specific point of the comparison is imputed sin and imputed righteousness. Hence, in 5:12 Paul does not mean simply to affirm that as Adam sinned and consequently died, so men sin and die. Nor can he mean to say that just as God established a precedent in Adam's case that death should follow sin, so He acts upon this precedent in the case of all men because all sin, the real ground of the reign of death being the fact that all sin, and the formal ground being this precedent (B. Weiss); nor that the real ground is this precedent and the subordinate ground the fact that all sin (Hunefeld). Neither can Paul intend to say that all men are subject to death because they derive a corrupt nature from Adam (Fritzsche); nor that men are condemned to die because all have sinned (Pfleiderer). Paul's purpose is to illustrate his doctrine of the way in which men are delivered from sin and death by the way in which they are brought into condemnation. The main thought of the passage is that, just as men are condemned on account of the imputation to them of the guilt of Adam's sin, so they are justified on account of the imputation to them of the righteousness of Christ. Paul says that it was by one man that sin and death entered into the world, and it was by one man that death passed to all men, because all were implicated in the guilt of that one man's Sin (5:12). In proof of this the apostle cites the fact that death as a punishment was reigning during a period in which the only possible judicial ground of this fact must have been the imputation of the guilt of that one man's sin (5:13,14). Hence, there is a precise parallel between Adam and Christ. Just as men are condemned on account of Adam's disobedience, so they are justified on account of the obedience of Christ (5:18,19). The thought of the passage is imputed sin and imputed righteousness as the ground of condemnation and of justification respectively.
2. Imputation of the Sins of His People to Christ:
That our sins are imputed to Christ is not expressly stated in the Scripture, but is implied in those passages which affirm that Christ "bore our sins," and that our iniquities were "laid upon him" by Yahweh. To bear inquity or sin, though it may sometimes mean to bear it away or remove it, is an expression often applied in Scripture to persons charged with guilt and subjected to the punishment of their own sin (Le 5:17; 7:18; 19:8; 22:9). That the Hebrew verb nasa' has this meaning is also indicated by its being interchanged with the verb cabhal, which means "to bear as a burden" and is used to denote the bearing of the punishment of sin (Isa 53:11). In the Old Testament sacrificial system, which according to the New Testament is typical of the sacrifice of Christ, the imposition of hands on the head of the victim signified the substitution of it for the offender and the transfer of his guilt to it. This idea is brought out clearly in the case of the two goats on the great Day of Atonement (Le 16). When, therefore, the Servant of Yahweh in Isa 53 is said "to bear iniquity" (53:11), or that "the chastisement of our peace was upon him" (53:5), or that "Yahweh hath laid (literally, "caused to fall") on him the iniquity of us all" (53:6), the idea expressed is that Christ bore the punishment of our sin vicariously, its guilt having been imputed to Him. The thought of the prophecy is, as Delitzsch says, that of vicarious punishment, which implies the idea of the imputation of the guilt of our sins to Christ.
The same idea underlies these expressions when they occur in the New Testament. When Peter wishes to hold up Christ as an example of patience in suffering, he takes up the thought of Isa, and adduces the fact that Christ "his own self bare our sins in his body upon the tree". (1Pe 2:24). The context indicates that Peter had the prophecy of Isa 53 in mind, so that his meaning is, not that Christ carried our sins even up to the cross, but that in His death on the cross Christ bore the punishment of our sin, its guilt having been imputed to Him. The same thought is expressed by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the contrast between the first and second advents of Christ is made to hinge upon the fact that in the first He came to be sacrificed as a sin-bearer, burdened with the guilt of the sin of others, whereas in His second coming He will appear without this burden of imputed or vicarious guilt (Heb 9:28). Paul also gives expression to the same thought when he says that Christ was "made. to be sin on our behalf" (2Co 5:21), and that He became "a curse for us" (Ga 3:13). In the former passage the idea of substitution, although not expressed by the preposition huper which indicates that Christ's work was for our benefit, is nevertheless clearly implied in the thought that Christ, whose sinlessness is emphasized in the ver, is made sin, and that we sinners become righteous in Him. Paul means that Christ was made to bear the penalty of our sin and that its guilt was imputed to Him in precisely the same way in which we sinners become the righteousness of God in Him, i.e. by the imputation of His righteousness to us. The same thought is expressed in Ga 3:13, where the statement that Christ was made a curse for us means that He was made to endure the curse or penalty of the broken law. In all these passages the underlying thought is that the guilt of our sin was imputed to Christ.
3. Imputation of the Righteousness of Christ to His People:
The righteousness upon the ground of which God justifies the ungodly is, according to Paul, witnessed to in the Old Testament (Ro 3:21). In order to obtain the blessedness which comes from a right relation to God, the pardon or non-imputation of sin is necessary, and this takes place through the "covering" of sin (Ps 32:1,2). The nature of this covering by the vicarious bearing of the penalty of sin is made clear in Isa 53. It is, moreover, the teaching of the Old Testament that the righteousness which God demands is not to be found among men (Ps 130:3; 143:2; Isa 64:6). Accordingly, the prophets speak of a righteousness which is not from man's works, but which is said to be in Yahweh or to come from Him to His people (Isa 32:16 f; 45:23 ff; 54:17; 58:8; 61:3; Jer 51:10; Ho 10:12). This idea finds its clearest expression in connection with the work of the Messiah in Jer 33:16, where Jerusalem is called "Yahweh our righteousness" because of the coming of the Messianic king, and in Jer 23:6 where the same name is given to the Messiah to express His significance for Israel. Although the idea of the imputation of righteousness is not explicitly asserted in these passages, the idea is not merely that the righteousness spoken of is recognized by Yahweh (Cremer), but that it comes from Him, so that Yahweh, through the work of the Messiah, is the source of His people's righteousness.
This idea is taken up by Paul, who makes explicit the way in which this righteousness comes to sinners, and who puts the idea of imputed righteousness at the basis of his doctrine of Justification. By the righteousness of Christ Paul means Christ's legal status, or the merit acquired by all that He did in satisfying the demands of God's law, including what has been called His active and passive obedience. Notwithstanding the fact that most of the modern expositors of Paul's doctrine have denied that he teaches the imputation of Christ's obedience, this doctrine has a basis in the apostle's teaching. Justification leads to life and final glorification (Ro 5:18; 8:30); and Paul always conceives the obtaining of life as dependent on the fulfillment of the law. If, therefore, Christ secures life for us, it can only be in accordance with this principle. Accordingly, the apostle emphasizes the element of obedience in the death of Christ, and places this act of obedience at the basis of the sinner's justification (Ro 5:18). He also represents the obedience of the cross as the culminating point of a life of obedience on Christ's part (Php 2:8). Moreover, Paul affirms that our redemption from all the demands of the law is secured by the fact that Christ was born under law (Ga 4:4). This cannot be restricted to the fact that Christ was under the curse of the law, for He was born under law and the result of this is that we are free from all of its demands. This doctrine is also implied in the apostle's teaching that Justification is absolutely gracious, taken in connection with the fact that it leads to a complete salvation.
The importance in Paul's thought of the doctrine of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to the believer can be seen from the fact that the question how righteousness was to be obtained occupied a central place in his religious consciousness, both before and after his conversion. The apostle's conversion by the appearance of the risen Christ determined his conception of the true way of obtaining righteousness, since the resurrection of Christ meant for Paul the condemnation of his entire past search for righteousness by works of the law.
That the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to the believer does lie at the basis of Paul's doctrine of Justification can be further seen from the fact that Justification is absolutely free and unmerited so far as the sinner is concerned (Ro 3:24; 5:15; Ga 5:4; Tit 3:7); its object being one who is ungodly (Ro 4:5); so that it is not by works (Ro 3:20,28; Ga 2:16; 3:11; 5:4; Php 3:9); and yet that it is not a mere pardon of sin, but is a strictly "forensic" or judicial judgment, freeing the sinner from all the claims of the law, and granting him the right to eternal life. This last truth is plain because God's retributive righteousness lies at the basis of Paul's doctrine of Justification (Ro 2); is manifested in it (Ro 3:25 f); because Christ's expiatory work is its ground (Ro 3:25); and because our redemption from the curse of the law rests upon Christ's having borne it for us, and our redemption from all the demands of the law depends upon their fulfillment by Christ (Ga 3:13; 4:4). Hence, the gracious character of Justification, according to Paul, does not consist in its being merely a gracious pardon without any judicial basis (Ritschl); or in God's acceptance of a subjective righteousness produced by Him in the sinner (Tobac); or in the acceptance of faith instead of a perfect righteousness (Cremer). The gracious character of Justification consists for Paul in the fact that the righteousness on the ground of which God justifies the ungodly is a righteousness which is graciously provided by God, and which Paul contrasts with his own righteousness which comes from law works (Php 3:9). The sinner, therefore, is pardoned and accepted as a righteous person, not on account of anything in himself, but only on account of what Christ has done for him, which means that the merits of Christ's suffering and obedience are imputed to the sinner as the ground of his justification.
This truth is explicitly affirmed by Paul, who speaks of God's imputing righteousness without works, and of righteousness being imputed (Ro 4:6,11). The idea of the imputation of righteousness here is made clear by the context. The one who is declared righteous is said to be "ungodly" (Ro 4:5). Hence, he is righteous only by God's imputation of righteousness to him. This is also clear from the contrast between imputation according to grace and according to debt (Ro 4:4). He who seeks righteousness by works would be justified as a reward for his works, in antithesis to which, imputation according to grace would be the charging one with a righteousness which he does not possess. Accordingly, at the basis of Justification there is a reckoning to the sinner of an objective righteousness. This same idea is also implied and asserted by Paul in the parallel which he draws between Adam and Christ (Ro 5:18 f). The apostle says that just as men are condemned on account of a sin not their own, so they are justified on account of a righteousness which is not their own. The idea of imputed sin and imputed righteousness, as was said, is the precise point of the parallelism between condemnation in Adam and justification in Christ. This is also the idea which underlies the apostle's contrast of the Old and New Covenants (2Co 3:9). The New Covenant is described as a "ministry of righteousness," and contrasted with the Old Covenant which is described as a "ministry of condemnation." If, therefore, this last expression does not denote a subjective condition of men under the old dispensation, but their relation to God as objects of His condemnation, righteousness must denote the opposite of this relation to the law, and must depend on God's judicial acquittal. The same truth is expressed by Paul more concretely by saying that Christ has been "made unto us righteousness from God" (1Co 1:30). Here the concrete mode of expression is chosen because Paul speaks also of Christ being our sanctification and redemption, so that an expression had to be chosen which would cover all of these ideas. One of the clearest statements concerning this objective righteousness is Php 3:9. The apostle here affirms that the righteousness which the believer in Christ obtains is directly opposite to his own righteousness. This latter comes from works of the law, whereas the former comes from God and through faith in Christ. It is, therefore, objective to man, comes to him from God, is connected with the work of Christ, and is mediated by faith in Christ.
The idea clearly stated in this last passage of a righteousness which is objective to the sinner and which comes to him from God, i.e. the idea of a new legal standing given to the believer by God, explains the meaning, in most cases, of the Pauline phrase "righteousness of God." This phrase is used by Paul 9 t: Ro 1:17; 3:5,21 f, 25 f; 10:3 (twice); 2Co 5:21. It denotes the Divine attribute of righteousness in Ro 3:5,25 f. The customary exegesis was to regard the other instances as denoting the righteousness of a sinner which comes to him from God, in accordance with Php 3:9. More recently Haering, following Kolbing in general, has interpreted all these instances as denoting God's justifying action. But this interpretation is most strained in 2Co 5:21, where we are said to "become the righteousness of God," and in Ro 10:3-6, where the righteousness of God is identified with the righteousness which comes from faith, this latter being contrasted with man's own inward righteousness. That a righteousness of man which he receives from God is here referred to, is confirmed by the fact that the reason given for the error of the Jews in seeking a righteousness from law works is the fact that the work of Christ has made an end of this method of obtaining righteousness (Ro 10:4). This righteousness, therefore, is one of which man is the possessor. The phrase, however, cannot mean a righteousness which is valid in God's sight (Luther), although this thought is elsewhere expressed by Paul (Ro 3:20; Ga 3:11). It means a righteousness which comes from God and of which He is the author. This is not, however, by making man inwardly righteous, since all the above passages show the purely objective character of this righteousness. It is the righteousness of Php 3:9; the righteousness which God imputes to the believer in Christ. Thus we "become the righteousness of God" in precisely the same sense in which Christ was "made to be sin" (2Co 5:21). Since Christ was made sin by having the guilt. of our sin imputed to Him so that He bore its penalty, Paul must mean that we "become the righteousness of God" in this same objective sense through the imputation to us of the righteousness of Christ. In the same way, in Ro 10:3, the contrast between God's righteousness and the Jew's righteousness by works of the law shows that in each case righteousness denotes a legal status which comes from God by imputation. It is this same imputed righteousness which makes the gospel the power of God unto salvation (Ro 1:17), which has been revealed by the law and the prophets, which is received by faith in Christ by whose expiatory death God's retributive righteousness has been made manifest (Ro 3:21,22,25,26), and which is represented by Peter as the object of Christian faith (2Pe 1:1).
In two passages Paul affirms that Abraham believed God and "it was imputed to him for righteousness" (Ro 4:3 the King James Version; Ga 3:6). The old Arminian theologians, and some modern exegetes (H. Cremer) assert that Paul means that Abraham's faith was accepted by God instead of a perfect righteousness as the meritorious ground of his justification. This, however, cannot be the apostle's meaning. It is diametrically opposed to the context where Paul introduces the case of Abraham for the very purpose of proving that he was justified without any merit on his part; it is opposed to Paul's idea of the nature of faith which involves the renunciation of all claim to merit, and is a simple resting on Christ from whom all its saving efficacy is derived; and this interpretation is also opposed to Paul's doctrine of the absolutely gracious character of Justification. The apostle in these passages wishes to illustrate from the case of Abraham the gracious character of Justification, and quotes the untechnical language of Ge 15:6. His meaning is simply that Abraham was justified as a believer in God, and not as one who sought righteousness by works.
LITERATURE.
Besides the Comm., see works on Old Testament Theology by Dillmann, Davidson, Oehler, Schultz; and on New Testament Theology by H. Holtzmann, B. Weiss, Schmidt; also Chemnitz, De Vocabulo Imputationis, Loc. Theol., 1594, II, 326 ff; J. Martin, The Imputation of Adam's Sin, 1834, 20-46; Clemen, Die Christliche Lehre yon der Sande, I, 1897, 151-79; Dietzsch, Adam und Christus, 1871; Hunefeld, Ro 5:12-21, 1895; Crawford, The Doctrine of the Holy Scripture Respecting the Atonements, 1876, 33-45, 188-90. Compare also the appropriate sections in the Works on the Scripture doctrine of Justification, and especially on Paul's doctrine of Justification, e.g. Owen, Justification, 1st American edition, 185-310; Ritschl, Die Christliche Lehre yon der Rechtfertigung und VersShnung, II2, 1882, 303-31; Bohl, Von der Rechtfertigung durch den Glauben, 1890, 115-23; Nosgen, Schriftbeweis fur die evangel. Rechfertigungslehre, 1901, 147-96; Pfleiderer, Die Paulinische Rechtfertigung, ZWT (Hilgenfeld herausg.), 1872, 161-200; Paulinism, English translation, I, 171-86; with which compare Pfleiderer's later view of Paul's teachings, 2nd edition, 1890, 178-89; G. Schwarz, Justitia Imputata? 1891; H. Cremer, Paulinische Rechtfertigungslehre, 1900, 329-49; Tobac, Le problame de la justification dans Saint Paul, 1908, 206-25. On Paul's doctrine of the righteousness of God, of the many monographs the following may be mentioned: Fricke, Der Paulinische Grundbegriff der erortert auf Grund v. Rom. III, 21-26, 1888; Kolbing, Studien zur Paulinische Theologie, TSK, 1895, 7-51; Haring bei Paulus, 1896.
Written by Caspar Wistar Hodge
Sin (1):
(chatta'th, "a missing," ?awon, "perversity]" pesha?, "transgression," ra?, "evil," etc.; hamartano, "miss the mark," parabasis, "transgression" with a suggestion of violence, adikia, "injustice," "unrighteousness"):
1. Sin as Disobedience
2. Affects the Inner Life
3. Involves All Men
4. The Story of the Fall
5. The Freedom of Man
6. A Transgression against Light
7. Inwardness of the Moral Law
(1) Prophets
(2) Paul
(3) Jesus
8. Sin a Positive Force
9. Heredity
10. Environment
11. Redemption
12. Life in Christ
13. Repentance
14. Forgiveness
LITERATURE
1. Sin as Disobedience:
A fairly exact definition of sin based on Biblical data would be that sin is the transgression of the law of God (1 Joh 3:4). Ordinarily, sin is defined simply as "the transgression of the law," but the idea of God is so completely the essential conception of the entire Biblical revelation that we can best define sin as disobedience to the law of God. It will be seen that primarily sin is an act, but from the very beginning it has been known that acts have effects, not only in the outward world of things and persons, but also upon him who commits the act.
2. Affects the Inner Life:
Hence, we find throughout the Scriptures a growing emphasis on the idea of the sinful act as not only a fact in itself, but also as a revelation of an evil disposition on the part of him who commits the act (Ge 6:5).
3. Involves All Men:
Then also there is the further idea that deeds which so profoundly affect the inner life of an individual in some way have an effect in transmitting evil tendencies to the descendants of a sinful individual (Ps 51:5,6; Eph 2:3). See HEREDITY; TRADITION. Hence, we reach shortly the conception, not only that sin is profoundly inner in its consequences, but that its effects reach outward also to an extent which practically involves the race. Around these various items of doctrine differing systems of theology have sprung up.
4. The Story of the Fall:
Students of all schools are agreed that we have in the Old Testament story of the fall of Adam an eternally true account of the way sin comes into the world (Ge 3:1-6). The question is not so much as to the literal historic matter-of-factness of the narrative, as to its essentially psychological truthfulness. The essential thought of the narrative is that both Adam and Eve disobeyed an express command of God. The seductiveness of temptation is nowhere more forcefully stated than in this narrative. The fruit of the tree is pleasant to look upon; it is good to eat; it is to be desired to make one wise; moreover, the tempter moves upon the woman by the method of the half truth (see ADAM IN THE OLD TESTAMENT). God had said that disobedience to the command would bring death; the tempter urged that disobedience would not bring death, implying that the command of God had meant that death would immediately follow the eating of the forbidden fruit. In the story the various avenues of approach of sin to the human heart are graphically suggested, but after the seductiveness of evil has thus been set forth, the fact remains that both transgressors knew they were transgressing (Ge 3:2 f). Of course, the story is told in simple, naive fashion, but its perennial spiritual truth is at once apparent. There has been much progress in religious thinking concerning sin during the Christian ages, but the progress has not been away from this central conception of willful disobedience to the law of God.
5. The Freedom of Man:
In this early Biblical account there is implicit the thought of the freedom of man. The idea of transgression has sometimes been interpreted in such wise as to do away with this freedom. An unbiased reading of the Scriptures would, with the possible exception of some passages which designedly lay stress on the power of God (Ro 8:29,30), produce on the mind the impression that freedom is essential to sin. Certainly there is nothing in the account of the Old Testament or New Testament narratives to warrant the conception that men are born into sin by forces over which they have no control. The argument of the tempter with the woman is an argument aimed at her will. By easy steps, indeed, she moves toward the transgression, but the transgression is a transgression and nothing else. Of course, the evil deed is at once followed by attempts on the part of the transgressors to explain themselves, but the futility of the explanations is part of the point of the narrative. In all discussion of the problem of freedom as relating to sin, we must remember that the Biblical revelation is from first to last busy with the thought of the righteousness and justice and love of God (Ge 6:9 tells us that because of justice or righteousness, Noah walked with God). Unless we accept the doctrine that God is Himself not free, a doctrine which is nowhere implied in the Scripture, we must insist that the condemnation of men as sinful, when they have not had freedom to be otherwise than sinful, is out of harmony with the Biblical revelation of the character of God. Of course this does not mean that a man is free in all things. Freedom is limited in various ways, but we must retain enough of freedom in our thought of the constitution of men to make possible our holding fast to the Biblical idea of sin as transgression. Some who take the Biblical narrative as literal historical fact maintain that all men sinned in Adam (see IMPUTATION, III, 1). Adam may have been free to sin or not to sin, but, "in his fall we sinned all." We shall mention the hereditary influences of sin in a later paragraph; here it is sufficient to say that even if the first man had not sinned, there is nothing in our thought of the nature of man to make it impossible to believe that the sinful course of human history could have been initiated by some descendant of the first man far down the line.
6. A Transgression against Light:
The progress of the Biblical teaching concerning sin also would seem to imply that the transgression of the law must be a transgression committed against the light (Ac 17:30; 1Ti 1:13). To be sinful in any full sense of the word, a man must know that the course which he is adopting is an evil course. This does not necessarily mean a full realization of the evil of the course. It is a fact, both of Biblical revelation and of revelation of all times, that men who commit sin do not realize the full evil of their deeds until after the sin has been committed (2Sa 12:1-13). This is partly because the consequences of sin do not declare themselves until after the deed has been committed; partly also because of the remorse of the conscience; and partly from the humiliation at being discovered; but in some sense there must be a realization of the evil of a course to make the adoption of the course sinful. E.g. in estimating the moral worth of Biblical characters, especially those of earlier times, we must keep in mind the standards of the times in which they lived. These standards were partly set by the customs of the social group, but the customs were, in many cases, made sacred by the claim of divine sanction. Hence, we find Biblical characters giving themselves readily to polygamy and warfare. The Scriptures themselves, however, throw light upon this problem. They refer to early times as times of ignorance, an ignorance which God Himself was willing to overlook (Ac 17:30). Even so ripe a moral consciousness as that of Paul felt that there was ground for forgiveness toward a course which he himself later considered evil, because in that earlier course he had acted ignorantly (Ac 26:9; 1Ti 1:13).
7. Inwardness of the Moral Law:
The Biblical narratives, too, show us the passage over from sin conceived of as the violation of external commands to sin conceived of as an unwillingness to keep the commandments in the depths of the inner life. The course of Biblical history is one long protest against conceiving of sin in an external fashion.
(1) Prophets.
In the sources of light which are to help men discern good from evil, increasing stress is laid upon inner moral insight (compare Isa 58:5 f; Ho 6:1-7). The power of the prophets was in their direct moral insight and the fervor with which they made these insights real to the mass of the people. Of course it was necessary that the spirit of the prophets be given body and form in carefully articulated law. The progress of the Hebrews from the insight of the seer to the statute of the lawmaker was not different from such progress in any other nations. It is easy to see, however, how the hardening of moral precepts into formal codes, absolutely necessary as that task was, led to an externalizing of the thought of sin. The man who did not keep the formal law was a sinner. On such basis there grew up the artificial systems which came to their culmination in the New Testament times in Pharisaism. On the other hand, a fresh insight by a new prophet might be in violation of the Law, considered in its literal aspects. It might be necessary for a prophet to attack outright some additions to the Law. We regard as a high-water mark of Old Testament moral utterances the word of Micah that the Lord requires men to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with Him (6:8). At the time this word was uttered, the people were giving themselves up to multitudes of sacrifices. Many of these sacrifices called for the heaviest sufferings on the part of the worshippers. It would seem that an obligation to sacrifice the firstborn was beginning to be taught in order that the Hebrews might not be behind the neighboring heathen nations in observances of religious codes. The simple direct word of Micah must have seemed heresy to many of its first hearers. The outcome, however, of this conflict between the inner and the outer in the thought of transgression was finally to deepen the springs of the inner life. The extremes of externalism led to a break with moral realities which tended to become apparent to the most ordinary observer. The invective of Jesus against New Testament Pharisaism took its force largely from the fact that Jesus gave clear utterance to what everyone knew. Those who thought of religion as external gave themselves to formal keeping of the commandments and allowed the inner life to run riot as it would (Mt 23:23, et al.).
(2) Paul.
With the more serious-minded the keeping of the Law became more and more a matter of the inner spirit. There were some who, like Paul, found it impossible to keep the Law and find peace of conscience (Ro 7). It was this very impossibility which forced some, like Paul, to understand that after all, sin or righteousness must be judged by the inner disposition. It was this which led to the search for a conception of a God who looks chiefly at the heart and judges men by the inner motive.
(3) Jesus.
In the teaching of Jesus the emphasis upon the inner spirit as the essential factor in the moral life came to its climax. Jesus honored the Law, but He pushed the keeping of the Law back from the mere performance of externals to the inner stirrings of motives. It is not merely the actual commission of adultery, for example, that is sin: it is the lustful desire which leads to the evil glance; it is not merely the actual killing of the man that is murder; it is the spirit of hatred which makes the thought of murder welcome (Mt 5:21,27). Paul caught the spirit of Jesus and carried the thought of Jesus out into more elaborate and formal statements. There is a law of the inner life with which man should bind himself, and this law is the law of Christ's life itself (Ro 8:1-4). While both Jesus and Paul recognized the place of the formal codes in the moral life of individuals and societies, they wrought a great service for righteousness in setting on high the obligations upon the inner spirit. The follower of Christ is to guard the inmost thoughts of his heart. The commandments are not always precepts which can be given articulated statement; they are rather instincts and intuitions and glimpses which must be followed, even when we cannot give them full statement.
8. Sin a Positive Force:
From this standpoint we are able to discern something of the force of the Biblical teaching as to whether sin is to be looked upon as negative or positive. Very often sin is defined as the mere absence of goodness. The man who sins is one who does not keep the Law. This, however, is hardly the full Biblical conception. Of course, the man who does not keep the Law is regarded as a sinner, but the idea transgression is very often that of a positive refusal to keep the commandment and a breaking of the commandment. Two courses are set before men, one good, the other evil. The evil course is, in a sense, something positive in itself. The evil man does not stand still; he moves as truly as the good man moves; he becomes a positive force for evil. In all our discussions we must keep clearly in mind the truth that evil is not something existing in and by itself. The Scriptures deal with evil men, and the evil men are as positive as their natures permit them to be. In this sense of the word sin does run a course of positive destruction. In the thought, e.g., of the writer who describes the conditions which, in his belief, made necessary the Flood, we have a positive state of evil contaminating almost the whole world (Ge 6:11). It would be absurd to characterize the world in the midst of which Noah lived as merely a negative world. The world was positively set toward evil. And so, in later writings, Paul's thought of Roman society is of a world of sinful men moving with increasing velocity toward the destruction of themselves and of all around them through doing evil. It is impossible to believe that Romans 1 conceives of sin merely in negative terms. We repeat, we do not do full justice to the Biblical conception when we speak of sin merely in negative terms. If we may be permitted to use a present-day illustration, we may say that in the Biblical thought sinful men are like the destructive forces in the world of Nature which must be removed before there can be peace and health for human life. For example, science today has much to say concerning germs of diseases which prove destructive to human life. A large part of modern scientific effort has been to rid the world of these germs, or at least to cleanse human surroundings from their contaminating touch. The man who sterilizes the human environment so that these forces cannot touch men does in one sense a merely negative work; in another sense, however, his work makes possible the positive development of the forces which make for health.
9. Heredity:
It is from this thought of the positiveness of sin that we are to approach the problem of the hereditary transmission of evil. The Biblical teaching has often been misinterpreted at this point. Apart from certain passages, especially those of Paul, which set forth the practically universal contamination of sin (e.g. Ro 5:18, etc.), there is nothing in the Scriptures to suggest the idea that men are born into the world under a weight of guilt. We hold fast to the idea of God as a God of justice and love. There is no way of reconciling these attributes with the condemnation of human souls before these souls have themselves transgressed. Of course much theological teaching moves on the assumption that the tendencies to evil are so great that the souls will necessarily trangress, but we must keep clearly in mind the difference between a tendency to evil and the actual commission of evil. Modern scientific research reinforces the conception that the children of sinful parents, whose sins have been such as to impress their lives throughout, will very soon manifest symptoms of evil tendency. Even in this case, however, we must distinguish between the psychological and moral. The child may be given a wrong tendency from birth, not only by hereditary transmission, but by the imitation of sinful parents; yet the question of the child's own personal responsibility is altogether another matter. Modern society has come to recognize something of the force of this distinction. In dealing with extreme cases of this kind, the question of the personal guilt of the child is not raised. The attempt is to throw round about the child an environment that will correct the abnormal tendency. But there can be little gainsaying the fact that the presence of sin in the life of the parent may go as far as to mark the life of the child with the sinful tendency.
10. Environment:
The positive force of sinful life also appears in the effect of sin upon the environment of men. It is not necessary for us to believe that all the physical universe was cursed by the Almighty because of man's sin, in order to hold that there is a curse upon the world because of the presence of sinful men. Men have sinfully despoiled the world for their own selfish purposes. They have wasted its resources. They have turned forces which ought to have made for good into the channels of evil. In their contacts with one another also, evil men furnish an evil environment. If the employer of 100 men be himself evil, he is to a great extent the evil environment of those 100 men. The curse of his evil is upon them. So with the relations of men in larger social groups: the forces of state-life which are intended to work for good can be made to work for evil. So far has this gone that some earnest minds have thought of the material and social realms as necessarily and inherently evil. In other days this led to retreats from the world in monasteries and in solitary cells. In our present time the same thought is back of much of the pessimist idea that the world itself is like a sinking ship, absolutely doomed. The most we can hope for is to save individuals here and there from imminent destruction. Yet a more Biblical conception keeps clear of all this. The material forces of the world-apart from certain massive physical necessities (e.g. earthquakes, storms, floods, whirlwinds, fires, etc.), whose presence does more to furnish the conditions of moral growth than to discourage that growth-are what men cause them to be. Social forces are nothing apart from the men who are themselves the forces. No one can deny that evil men can use physical forces for evil purposes, and that evil men can make bad social forces, but both these forces can be used for good as well as for evil. "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain" waiting for the redemption at the hands of the sons of God (Ro 8:19-23).
11. Redemption:
In the thought of Jesus, righteousness is life. Jesus came that men might have life (Joh 10:10). It must follow therefore that in His thought sin is death, or rather it is the positive course of transgression which makes toward death (Joh 5:24). But man is to cease to do evil and to learn to do well. He is to face about and walk in a different direction; he is to be born from above (Joh 3:3), and surrender himself to the forces which beat upon him from above rather than to those which surge upon him from below (Ro 12:2). From the realization of the positiveness both of sin and of righteousness, we see the need of a positive force which is to bring men from sin to righteousness (Joh 3:3-8).
Of course, in what we have said of the positive nature of sin we would not deny that there are multitudes of men whose evil consists in their passive acquiescence in a low moral state. Multitudes of men may not be lost, in the sense that they are breaking the more obvious of the commandments. They are lost, in the sense that they are drifting about, or that they are existing in a condition of inertness with no great interest in high spiritual ideals. But the problem even here is to find a force strong enough and positive enough to bring such persons to themselves and to God. In any case the Scriptures lay stress upon the seriousness of the problem constituted by sin. The Bible is centered on redemption. Redemption from sin is thought of as carrying with it redemption from all other calamities. If the kingdom of God and of His righteousness can be seized, all other things will follow with the seizure (Mt 6:33). The work of Christ is set before us as chiefly a work of redemption from sin. A keen student once observed that almost all failures to take an adequate view of the person of Christ can be traced to a failure to realize adequately the seriousness of sin. The problem of changing the course of something so positive as a life set toward sin is a problem which may well tax the resources of the Almighty. Lives cannot be transformed merely by precept. The only effective force is the force of a divine life which will reach and save human lives.
See REDEMPTION.
12. Life in Christ:
We are thus in a position to see something of the positiveness of the life that must be in Christ if He is to be a Saviour from sin. That positiveness must be powerful enough to make men feel that in some real sense God Himself has come to their rescue (Ro 8:32-39). For the problem of salvation from sin is manifold. Sin long persisted in begets evil habits, and the habits must be broken. Sin lays the conscience under a load of distress, for which the only relief is a sense of forgiveness. Sin blights and paralyzes the faculties to such a degree that only the mightiest of tonic forces can bring back health and strength. And the problem is often more serious than this. The presence of evil in the world is so serious in the sight of a Holy God that He Himself, because of His very holiness, must be under stupendous obligation to aid us to the utmost for the redemption of men. Out of the thought of the disturbance which sin makes even in the heart of God, we see something of the reason for the doctrine that in the cross of Christ God was discharging a debt to Himself and to the whole world; for the insistence also that in the cross there is opened up a fountain of life, which, if accepted by sinful men, will heal and restore them.
13. Repentance:
It is with this seriousness of sin before us that we must think of forgiveness from sin. We can understand very readily that sin can be forgiven only on condition that men seek forgiveness in the name of the highest manifestation of holiness which they have known. For those who have heard the preaching of the cross and have seen something of the real meaning of that preaching, the way to forgiveness is in the name of the cross. In the name of a holiness which men would make their own, if they could; in the name of an ideal of holy love which men of themselves cannot reach, but which they forever strive after, they seek forgiveness. But the forgiveness is to be taken seriously. In both the Old Testament and New Testament repentance is not merely a changed attitude of mind. It is an attitude which shows its sincerity by willingness to do everything possible to undo the evil which the sinner has wrought (Lu 19:8). If there is any consequence of the sinner's own sin which the sinner can himself make right, the sinner must in himself genuinely repent and make that consequence right. In one sense repentance is not altogether something done once for all. The seductiveness of sin is so great that there is need of humble and continuous watching. While anything like a morbid introspection is unscriptural, constant alertness to keep to the straight and narrow path is everywhere enjoined as an obligation (Ga 6:1).
14. Forgiveness:
There is nothing in the Scriptures which will warrant the idea that forgiveness is to be conceived of in such fashion as would teach that the consequences of sin can be easily and quickly eliminated. Change in the attitude of a sinner necessarily means change in the attitude of God. The sinner and God, however, are persons, and the Scriptures always speak of the problem of sin after a completely personal fashion. The changed attitude affects the personal standing of the sinner in the sight of God. But God is the person who creates and carries on a moral universe. In carrying on that universe He must keep moral considerations in their proper place as the constitutional principles of the universe. While the father welcomes back the prodigal to the restored personal relations with himself, he cannot, in the full sense, blot out the fact that the prodigal has been a prodigal. The personal forgiveness may be complete, but the elimination of the consequences of the evil life is possible only through the long lines of healing set at work. The man who has sinned against his body can find restoration from the consequences of the sin only in the forces which make for bodily healing. So also with the mind and will. The mind which has thought evil must be cured of its tendency to think evil. To be sure the curative processes may come almost instantly through the upheaval of a great experience, but on the other hand, the curative processes may have to work through long years (see SANCTIFICATION). The will which has been given to sin may feel the stirrings of sin after the life of forgiveness has begun. All this is a manifestation, not only of the power of sin, but of the constitutional morality of the universe. Forgiveness must not be interpreted in such terms as to make the transgression of the Law of God in any sense a light or trivial offense. But, on the other hand, we must not set limits to the curative powers of the cross of God. With the removal of the power which makes for evil the possibility of development in real human experience is before the life (see FORGIVENESS). The word of the Master is that He "came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly" (Joh 10:10). Sin is serious, because it thwarts life. Sin is given so large a place in the thought of the Biblical writers simply because it blocks the channel of that movement toward the fullest life which the Scriptures teach is the aim of God in placing men in the world. God is conceived of as the Father in Heaven. Sin has a deeply disturbing effect in restraining the relations between the Father and the sons and of preventing the proper development of the life of the sons.
Tennant, Origin and Propagation of Sin; Hyde, Sin and Its Forgiveness; chapter on "Incarnation and Atonement" in Bowne's Studies in Christianity; Stevens, Christian Doctrine of Salvation; Clarke, Christian Doctrine of God; various treatises on Systematic Theology.
Written by Francis J. McConnell
See ETHICS
See ETHICS OF JESUS
See GUILT
See JOHANNINE THEOLOGY
See PAUL, THE APOSTLE
See PAULINE THEOLOGY
See REDEMPTION
Sin (2) →
He is a cross pendant.
He is engraved with a unique Number.
He will mail it out from Jerusalem.
He will be sent to your Side.
Emmanuel
Bible Verses About Welcoming ImmigrantsEmbracing the StrangerAs we journey through life, we often encounter individuals who are not of our nationality......
Who We AreWhat We EelieveWhat We Do
2025 by lntellectual Reserve,Inc All rights reserved.
