SINS AND SIN.

We may be said to know persons and things just in proportion as we discern how they differ. It is easier to see where Paul, for instance, may resemble John, than to perceive in what respects John differs from the Apostle of the Gentiles. So in regard to the meaning of the phrases, " House of God " and " the Kingdom of Heaven." Many could point out the resemblances, who would find it a much more difficult task to describe the differences. But real knowledge, even in natural things, depends largely upon the clearness with which we make and the keenness with which we appreciate distinctions. So it is with regard to truth and divine things. Progress will be made very much in proportion as we learn to distinguish things that differ.

Thus it is said that the natural man knows not spiritual things. The carnal, likewise, are not able to bear their being fully communicated. On the other hand, the spiritual discerneth all things. (i Cor. 2:14, 15 ; 3:1-3.) About the things to be added to faith it is said, " He that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off." (2 Pet. 1:9.)

But if any one wishes to learn, there is every encouragement, since the believer has received the capacity in obtaining a new nature. He also received the Spirit, which is of God, that he might know the things that are freely given to Him of God. (i Cor. 2:12; i Jno. 2:27.) Then, as all spiritual things, as well as the power to enjoy them, are ours, we ought to have interest and purpose of heart to set ourselves to discern things that differ.

It may be safely affirmed that none of the distinctions of Scripture are unimportant. One of the most conspicuous of these is the distinction between sins and sin. In the New Testament, especially in the Pauline Epistles, the difference between sins and sin is carefully made and constantly kept in view. That this fact is little regarded, notwithstanding its prominence, and the practical results depending on its apprehension, is truly remarkable. But ignorance and negligence bring forth fruit after their kind. Many sincere Christians are consequently deprived of the enjoyment of peace, rest, liberty, and power. Some who long for better things, through fear of extravagance, remain in life-long bondage. The ardent aspirations of others carry them over such scruples, and often lead them to adopt one-sided, wrong, and even dangerous views of sanctification.

For instance, one of the Perfectionist School thus puts their view that if a sinner "will confess his lost condition, ' God is faithful and just, not only to forgive, but also to cleanse from all sin, 'actual and original.'" With varying expressions, they leave no doubt as to their meaning being that "the carnal mind is beplucked up by the roots and the tendencies to evil taken away." They affirm that God is able to do that for the believer now, and consider any thing less a limiting of divine power. Death, they say, does not sanctify, so God must do it while the believer lives.

God's plan of deliverance is confounded with His power. One need scarcely say that such error will here receive no countenance. The distinguishing between sins and sin strikes at the very root of such false teaching. But doubtless the unsatisfactory experiences of many Christians, the feats and prejudices against the reception of truth, which would be like sunshine in their hearts, and the hazy, questionable teaching on Christian progress, can all more or less be traced to the neglect of the distinction between sins and sin. The importance of knowing and observing the difference, therefore, cannot be easily over-estimated. Indeed, the knowledge of, and attention to, this distinction, become a fair test of a satisfactory Christian experience, and a criterion as to whether or not what is taught on the subject of holiness is according to Scripture.

We may therefore inquire :Wherein lies the difference between sins and sin ? At the outset we remark that there is a difference in the facts. Yes, and " facts are stubborn cheils that winna ding." Though so closely related, sins and sin are more distinct than the singular and plural of the same word. They represent different things. The distinction is not made conspicuous in the Old Testament. This may be accounted for by the fact that man was never fully treated according to his lost condition until Christ was on the cross. It came out, indeed, before God, previous to the flood-"God said unto Noah:The end of all flesh is come before Me." (Gen. 6:12,13.) But God in patience left man to be tested four thousand years before He brought out the utter ruin of man by condemning sin in the flesh. This was what was done when His Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, was crucified. (Rom. 8:3.) Transgressions are always condemned ; from the time of the fall, man was regarded as a sinner, liable to punishment. The Jewish ceremonies and sacrifices referred chiefly to sins actually committed. But the full revelation of the great remedy for sin brought out more distinctly the depth, the danger, the deadliness of the malady. Hence, in the New Testament, we find man not only treated as a sinner, but he is shown to be lost. In the one case, it is a question as to what he has done; in the other, it is what he is in his nature. Having acted contrary to God, he has sinned ; but there was something anterior to this which was the cause of his doing what was wrong. The thing in him which produced the sins demands his attention. In the one case it is a question of his guilt; in the other, it is the ruin of his nature. This is a much darker view of his condition. He has not only done wrong, but he has got that in him as part of his very self which makes it impossible for him of himself ever to do right. In short, for the doing of good, he is without will, without strength ; he is ruined-lost. Apart from any sins actually committed, he finds that the malady has reached his inmost soul, and that, do as he may, he bears about with him a ruined nature, ready at any moment to manifest itself in positive transgressions.

It is just as if his horse may not be stumbling now, but he keeps a tight rein and has to be watchful, because he knows that the animal has got the bad capacity of stumbling. So as to man's own nature, if it is not acting, if he is not sinning now, he requires to watch, because the thing which produces the sins is in him. Merely to obtain forgiveness, blessed as that is, leaves the source of all the evil untouched. The inherent bad capacity, the evil nature, requires to be reached and judged. Yea, even suppose he never sinned again ; if a man is not renewed in nature, he has in him that evil potentiality, which will not only keep him out of God's presence, but it will in the end shut him up with Satan. There is, therefore, something more wrong than his being a sinner, having sins ; he is without hope, except by new creation, for he has an irrecoverably ruined nature. This nature, or the evil principle within him, is called sin, while its fruits, in overt acts, are spoken of as sins. That they are distinct may be further seen by the fact that the one may be found without the other, at the same moment, in connection with the same person. Take, for instance, a newborn babe, before it is thought to have willed and acted contrary to God. The child, strictly speaking, cannot be said to have sins; but as connected with Adam, the head of the race, it has inherited a ruined nature,-that is to say, it has sin. "By one man sin entered into the world." " I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." (Rom. 5:12; Ps. 51:5.) This is brought out by the words of the Lord Jesus in a manner which, from its connection, is at once striking and suggestive. In speaking of Zacchaeus, the publican, one who had doubtless been guilty of many sins in going astray, the Lord says, " The Son of Man is come to seek and save that which was lost." (Luke 19:10.) By his personal activity in will and waywardness, the man has made it necessary that he should be sought. Whereas, in reference to the children, "These little ones," He says, "The Son of Man is come to save that which is lost." (Matt. 18:2:) There is no hint as to the children having gone astray, yet they are said to be lost. This throws light upon the distinction before us. The wandering is connected with conduct; being lost is on account of having been born with a corrupt nature. Hence, the babe may be said to have sin, but not sins.

Our distinction may be further illustrated by looking at the scene of the crucifixion. There were three victims, " On either side one, and Jesus in the midst." Then, think of them after sins have been imputed to Jesus as the substitute ; also, after the thief has confessed Him, and has heard that assuring word, " To-day shall thou be with Me in paradise." While the spotless victim was being made an offering for sin, before He said " It is finished," and the vail of the temple was rent, think of the three persons there amid the darkness, Begin with the central figure, and it must be acknowledged that personally, though numbered with the transgressors, He is still "holy, harmless, and undefiled." He "offered Himself without spot to God." But He also "bare our sins in His own body on the tree." (i Pet. 3:24.)

There, then, He has sins on Him; but He has no sin in Him. Thus we find the sins apart from the sin. Then, think of the thief who had confessed that "this Man had done nothing amiss!" Though His hands were now nailed to the cross, the faith of the penitent also recognized Him as the One who would wield the scepter of the kingdom. That malefactor's sins are taken away; he is made meet for paradise. But, being still in the body, though he has no sins on him, he has sin in him.

Again, though in the opposite way to what was noticed with the Saviour, we see that sins and sin are distinct-so distinct that they can be separated. If the case of the other malefactor is considered, he has sins on him and sin in "him. Then, in this momentous event, the Substitute, the believer, and the unforgiven sinner, afford a striking illustration of the difference between sins and sin. Sins are overt acts, which ought not to have been done, or the omission of acts which ought to have been done; sin is a state or condition. Things had been done by the penitent thief which brought him to the gibbet. When forgiven by the Lord, till released by death, he was still in the condition of one having an evil nature. The impenitent thief could do no more acts of thieving, nor could he now live honestly; but he had still the nature which made him a thief. The law condemned the acts, and punished him for committing them; but the law could not change, restrain, or even touch, the will, or the bad capacity, in the thief's nature. That evil potentiality is beyond the domain of law. Hence, it is said that "sin is lawlessness," as this is allowed to be the proper rendering of i Jno. 3:4. Instead of the evil principle within, therefore, being curbed by law, it is only provoked thereby. Hence, the apostle says, "I had not known lust, expect the law had said, 'Thou shalt not covet.' But sin taking occasion by the commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence." (Rom. 7:7, 8.) So, also, he says, " The mind of the flesh is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." (Rom. 8:7.) In such thoughts, he has before his mind the state of the evil nature rather than its acts. In other words, he is writing of sin rather than sins. Thus, though quite distinct, a ruined nature and actual guilt stand in the relation of cause and effect. There is all the difference and relationship between a man's nature and his guilt that subsists between a cloud and its rain-drops, a fountain and its streams, the root of a tree and its fruit. The difference in the facts of sin and sins is thus apparent:sin in the nature is the cloud, the fountain, the root; sins in the practice are the raindrops, the streams, the fruit.

Since there is such a difference in the facts, may we not anticipate that there must be a difference in God's way of dealing with sins and sin ? This distinction needs only to be pointed out now to be discerned and appreciated. Once known, it may be welcomed as the missing key to unlock the mystery of many a perplexing experience on the part of believers bowed down with the sense of inward corruption.

Then we observe that both sins and sin are wholly condemned as opposed to the righteousness and the holiness of God. The cross is God's answer to both. But it is an answer in two distinct ways. If one may so speak, what comes out from the sinner, in positive acts as sins, is met by what comes out from the Surety, in atoning blood. On the other hand, what is proved to be in the sinner, as an evil principle of sin, is met by what is done in the Surety, when in Him sin is condemned in the flesh. (Rom. 8:3.) Not for a moment is it to be thought that there was evil in the flesh of Jesus, but that on the cross, "in the likeness of sinful flesh" and as identified with it, the evil principle was condemned in His death. This is easily understood. The wicked workers in the old world before the flood were apart from and untouched by Noah when he began to build the ark. Yet the Spirit says that in preparing the ark " he condemned the world." (Heb. 11:7.) They were thus judged by Noah's work. Likewise, though apart from Christ, the evil principle of sin, the world and its prince, were judged in Christ on the cross. (Jno. 12:31; 16:2:) The sentence was passed upon them on Calvary. The execution of the sentence is a different thing, as the court-room is not the scaffold, nor the judge the executioner. Then the evil principle, sin in the nature, though judged at the cross, may, and indeed does, still exist in the believer. But it is like a prisoner under sentence of death ; he is restrained, and society freed from his evil power, while he awaits execution. But the illustration fails. To the law and the world he has died judicially already :yet in fact he still lives. Such is the case with the evil principle of sin in the Christian, though he may fail to realize deliverance.

There is deliverance for him since God has brought in the answer of death-death with Christ. It is said that Christ has died unto sin, and His condition as to sin is the condition of every Christian (Rom. 6:10), since all Christians are in Christ. But the man who is in Christ has still the evil principle of sin in him. So Paul found, even after being in the third heaven, that he needed a thorn in the flesh to keep him from being exalted above measure. Before he had time to have any such feelings of pride he had not sinned in this respect. It could not be a question of forgiveness. There was as yet no pride to be forgiven. But he needed deliverance that the tendency to pride might be so held in check that he might not sin in that way. Then, instead of the blood of Christ, on account of which he had forgiveness, he had to think of the death of Christ, by which he found deliverance. To the inward evil tendency, not the outward acts to which it might lead, the only answer was death and judgment.

So the believer finds deliverance from the bondage and power of sin by reckoning himself dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God in Christ Jesus.(Rom. 6:2:) From the presence of sin he will not get free till he actually dies or the Lord comes. But he may live such a life of holiness as to have Christ magnified in his body. Sin, the evil nature, has been condemned in the flesh; yet there it is like a prisoner in a condemned cell, and faith may and ought to carry the key, so that the convict should be prevented from doing further injury. . We repeat that sin is there, and if allowed to act, it may have sway ; but the believer is entitled to reckon himself dead to it, and, in faith, he may turn the key, and say, Sin shall not have dominion over me, for I am not under the law, but under grace. (Rom. 6:11-14.) Then it is no inward cleansing, or eradication of evil from the heart, as so many seek and set themselves to attain. As already noticed, God's way is not to purify or remove sin, the evil nature, from the believer. Deliverance from its power is what is meanwhile held out in Scripture, so that, as set free from its power, though having sin within him still, he may serve God, and have his fruit unto holiness. (Rom. 6:22.) But words, or flesh and blood, cannot reveal the secret; yet to the one who seeks, the Lord will make it known, and the after life will manifest that the change is as great as giving up hand power for the power of steam. "Ask," " Seek," "Knock," in this respect are energizing words for believers longing after deliverance. Sins, therefore, are borne by the Substitute. In His death, sin is condemned in the flesh, so that the fruits and the root of evil, are equally judged. The same mighty stroke of divine justice visits the sins committed and the evil nature possessed by the sinner. There is, nevertheless, a twofold result. The sins are forgiven :the evil nature is given over to death and judgment. Atoning blood washes away the guilt, all at once, and once for all, so that no second cleansing in this respect is required, nor are any believers more thoroughly cleansed than others. Each and all are equally once purged, and perfected forever. (Heb. 10:) 'Their sins are to be remembered no more. But the presence of sin, the evil nature, must be ever kept in mind, along with the thought that it has been met and stripped of its power when our old man was crucified with Christ, that the body of sin might be annulled, that henceforth we should not serve sin. (Rom. 6:6.) But the illustration and application of the difference between forgiveness and deliverance we must leave to be taken up, if the Lord will, in another paper. W. C. J.