But what is this sin, the consciousness of which is thus forced upon
all--this determined, persistent, active evil? It is not the mere absence
of good-a negative gain--but it is the love of, and the actual striving
after that which is flatly condemned by God, and is in open rebellion
against Him. The centreing of the corrupt heart upon its own corruption.
Opposition to the pure will of God. Pride, falseness, unscrupulous
ambition. Self-seeking, regardless of the means by which its object is
obtained. Luxury, effeminacy, and sensuality. The lusts and fleshly
passions. Malice, cruelty, and envy. The greed of gain. The love and
thraldom of the world. There it is--the running sore of a suffering
race. The outflow of the carnal mind, which is not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can be. There is no getting away from it. "Against
this immovable barrier--the existence of sin--the waves of philosophy have
dashed themselves unceasingly since the birth of human thought, and have
retired broken and powerless, without displacing the minutest fragment of
the stubborn rock, without softening one feature of its dark, rugged
surface."
And the worst of all is that sin is a wrong against God. _Man sins, of
course, against himself._ That is written large on human affairs, so
that no fool, however great a fool, may miss it. Well may the prophet say,
"O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself!" Men mix the hemlock for
themselves! The sinner is a moral suicide!
_Man sins against his fellow._ Nothing is more evident to us than
that men tempt and corrupt one another. They hold one another back from
righteousness. They break down virtue, and extinguish faith, and silence
conscience in their neighbours. They act as decoys and trappers for each
other's souls. They play the Devil's cat's-paws, and procure for him the
rum of their fellows, which could not be compassed without their aid. In
short, the sinner is a moral murderer!
But, after all--and it is a hideous all--_the crowning wrong, and the
crowning misery, is that sin is sin against God_.
Unless the Bible be a myth, and the prophets a disagreeable fraud, and the
whole lesson of Jesus Christ's life and death an illusion, God is deeply
concerned with man. That concern extends to man's whole nature, his whole
existence, his whole environment; and most of all it is manifest with
regard to his sin. God puts Himself forward in the whole history of His
dealings with men as an intimate, responsible, and observing Party in the
presence of wrong-doing. He watches. He sees. He knows. He will consider.
He will remember or He will forget. He will in no wise acquit the guilty,
or He will pardon. Justice and vengeance are His, and so is forgiveness.
He will weigh in the balances. He will testify against the evil-doer, or
He will make an atonement for him. He will cut off and destroy, or He will
have mercy. He will repay, or He will blot out.
From beginning to end of Revelation--and there is something in the human
soul which strangely responds to Revelation in this matter--we have a
sense, a spiritual instinct, of the truth which Job set forth, "_If I
sin, then Thou markest me, and Thou will not acquit me from mine
iniquity_," which is confirmed by Jeremiah, "Though thou wash thee with
nitre and take thee much soap, _yet thine iniquity is marked before Me,
saith the Lord God_;" and which is insisted upon by the Apostle when he
writes, "We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every
one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath
done, whether it be good or bad."
Yes, it is against the Lord God men have sinned, and to Him they are
accountable. And they know it. Here again is something which does not come
by observation or instruction, but by an inward sense which can neither be
mistaken nor long denied. Sooner or later, men are compelled to
acknowledge God, and to acknowledge that they have sinned against Him. As
with David, when he cried out, "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned,
and done this evil in Thy sight"--so to every man comes at last the
awakening. We see, as David saw, that whomsoever else we have wronged,
_God_ is most wronged; whomsoever else we may have injured, the great
evil is that we have broken _His_ law and violated _His_ will.
In the light of that experience, sin becomes instantly a terrible and
bitter thing. The fact that sinners can win the approval of men, the
honour of success; that they can hide iniquity; that they can for a time
escape from punishment, makes no difference when God appears upon the
scene. Evil starts up for judgment. Memory marshals the ranks of
transgression. Retribution seems the only right thing to look for.
Punishment appears to be so deserved that nothing else can be possible. In
their own eyes they are guilty. Guilt is branded upon them.
It is from this realisation of having offended God that there spring the
dark forebodings of punishment. Men may dread it, and be willing to make
superhuman sacrifices to escape it, but they expect it all the same. Thus
in all ages men have cried out less for pardon and release from penalty
than for deliverance from the guilt and domination of evil. Their language
by a universal instinct has been like David's: "Have mercy upon me, O God,
according to Thy loving kindness: according unto the multitude of Thy
tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine
iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions:
and my sin is ever before me. Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned."