Systematic Theology - Sin

Sin and Sins

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: Government

Genre: Speech

Track: 12

Dictation Name: 12 – Sin and Sins

Year: 1980

Our subject in this session is “Sin and Sins.” Our text is I John 3:4. “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law.”

We shall be now spending a little more time dealing with something we’ve touched on repeatedly throughout our study of sin, and that is the difference between the principle of sin and particular sin; sin in itself, and sin in the act. What John here says is whosoever committeth sin (and the word for sin is hamartia, missing the mark, falling short) transgresseth anomia (also, the law), or we can translate it, does lawlessness. Whosoever committeth sin does lawlessness, for sin (hamartia) is the transgression of the law (or is lawlessness).

We have two words, in other words, for sin in this verse. These two words are important to understand. One is anomia, given as transgresseth also the law, or is the transgression of the law, which means anti-law. This is the principle of sin. The principle of sin is to be against God’s Law and against God Himself. Genesis 3:5 gives us the principle of sin: ‘ye shall be as god,’ every man his own god, knowing (determining) good and evil for himself. Hamartia, missing the mark, falling short, is the particular acts of sin, so that the seven deadly sins give us particular acts. People are arrested for particular acts. When you and I sin we are committing particular acts of sin. Now there is a difference thus between the two. One is the principle of sin, the other is the particular sin, the act. There’s both a difference and yet an identity, because they are both to be called sin.

Now Westcott, a great commentator of the last century, said (and I quote) speaking of this verse, I John 3:4, “Sin and lawlessness are convertible terms. Sin is not an arbitrary conception. It is the assertion of the selfish will against a paramount authority. He who sins breaks not only by accident, or in an isolated detail, but essentially the law which he was created to fulfill. This law which expresses the divine ideal of man’s constitution and growth has three chief applications. There is a law for each man’s personal being, there is the law of his relation to things without him, there is the law of his relation to God. To violate any part of this three-fold law is to sin, for all parts are divine. The Mosaic Law was directed in a representative fashion to each of these spheres of duty. It touched upon man’s dealing with himself, upon his treatment of creation, of men, animals, and crops, upon his duty towards God. In this way it was fitted to bring home to men the divine side of all action. The origin of sin and selfishness is vividly illustrated by St. James 1:14 following, who shows also that the neglect of duty, the violation of the law of growth is sin (James 4:17). So St. John lays down that unrighteousness, the failure to fulfill our obligations to others, is sin.” Well, we must disagree with one thing that Westcott said. Sin is more than selfishness. It sees itself as God.

As I said, there is an identity between sin and sins, but a difference also. One is the expression of the other. Sins are the expression of sin. In the believer, sins are the lingering effect of the old or fallen man in us.

Another commentator, Alexander Ross, said concerning this verse, “We notice how frequently John uses in this chapter [I John 3] the emphatic expression ‘everyone that,’ translated ‘whosoever’ in verses 6, 9, 10 and 15. What’s it suggest? That in each case where this characteristic form of language occurs, there is apparently a reference to some who would question the application of a general principle in particular cases. Here John says with decided emphasis that there is no special class of specially illumed men who are superior to the obligation to keep the Law of God.” Ross adds further, with regard to the fifth verse which reads, “And ye know that he was manifested,” that is Christ was manifested “to take away our sins and in him is no sin.” He says, “Not only does the man who habitually sins throw off the yoke of God’s Law, but he stultifies the whole purpose of the coming of the Son of God in the flesh.”

To abide in sin or to commit particular sins habitually, John says is evidence of lawlessness, of the principle of sin ruling us. The professed believer is in reality not of Christ when he does so, but he is of the devil, John goes on to say in [chapter 3] verses 6 – 10.

“6Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.

7 Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.

8 He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.

9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.

10 In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.”

In other words, the principle of sin cannot be in us if we are of Christ. We are not dedicated to lawlessness. Lawlessness is not our life, but it is the lifestyle of all who are of the devil. They are a law unto themselves.

Sanctification means obeying God’s Law instead of sinning. Another commentator, Amos T. Wilder says, “To purify ourselves (in verse 3), means to refrain from disobedience of the divine law. The gravity of sin or sinful acts is emphasized by the identifying of them with lawlessness, a term which seems to have connoted sin in all its enormity and blasphemy if we judge II Thessalonians 2:7, 8 as the lawless one and his activity as the mystery of lawlessness.” Wilder is wrong in one point in that what Thessalonians speaks of is not anti-Christ but the man of sin. The man of hamartia is the anomis.

To commit hamartia, particular sins, to commit them continually, John says, is failure to abide in Christ and is the evidence of our lawlessness. It means that we belong to the enemy.

Too often the Church has concentrated on particular sins: drunkenness, adultery, fornication and so on, instead of the principle of sin, man’s desire to be as god and determine good and evil for himself. Now in a sense, this is understandable because a pastor, as he deals with people, is dealing with problems of a particular sin. People who come to him have a problem within their marriage or a problem with their children or a problem in their personal life or in their business life; particular sins. So it becomes very easy for the pulpit to spend its time harping on particular sins and to forget to tell people about sin as a principle. And this is very dangerous.

More than once over the years I have encountered situations where people thought they were converted because they had decided against a particular sin, when in reality, they were still sinners at heart. To give you a particular case, a rather substantial person who had a great deal to lose if he got involved in a messy divorce trial, was involved very extensively in adultery, and it threatened his marriage, it threatened him with a loss of a sizeable portion of his holdings, it threatened him with loss of his children. And he swore off adultery. What he was threatened in made a Christian out of him—he thought. And his attitude was adultery is a messy business. To live a good family life, a so-called Christian family life, to him made good sense. After all, he was not going to lose his estate that way. But he was not converted. All that had happened was that because he had decided that because he’d quit adultery and he had been called to task by a minister whom his wife brought into the situation, and the whole of what would happen to him came home to him, he swore off adultery. He decided the church was a great thing. The minister had saved him from a horrible mess, and here he was, the president of the biggest corporation in the community. But he was still a sinner, because he had not surrendered to Christ, at the key point. He had simply decided that this particular sin was bad business for his life. He found God’s way safer. It made sense, but the principle of sin, anomia, lawlessness, was not touched in him.

The pulpit has been very weak at this point. It can speak out against adultery. It should, and it does. Not as often perhaps as it should, but it must also say the heart of all sin, the principle of all sin is man’s desire to be his own lord, his own god, and to determine good and evil for himself, to have the seat of the government of his life in his hands. In both kinds of sin, particular sin and the principle of sin, priority is given to man. The principle is, my will be done. In the Christian, the growth of man in sanctification means that whenever he falls into a particular sin, as immediately and swiftly as possible, he corrects it and changes because he recognizes what sin and sins mean. He has a new principle of life which is not anomia, but Jesus Christ and so he must render to Christ and to God the Father the obedience of faith. Like Jesus Christ, he must say lo I come in the volume of the book, it is written of me, to do Thy will, oh God, as Hebrews 10: 7, 9 tell us.

The Christian, Paul tells us in Colossians 3:5 works to mortify, to put to death morally, ethically, his members on earth, that is, sin in his being. As Paul tells us in that verse, “mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness which is idolatry.” Now, we cannot read these in terms of Asceticism because Paul elsewhere in this letter condemns the Colossians for their Asceticism. What Paul is saying, every aspect of our being, which still moves in terms of the fallen man, the Old Adam within us, we have to put to death. And so we must destroy in ourselves fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desires and covetousness, which is idolatry.

However, what Paul is saying here is not only that covetousness is idolatry, which it emphatically is, but all these things are idolatry, every one of these particular sins. All forms of particular sins are idolatry because what we say in every particular sin is the principle of sin, my will be done. So lurking behind every particular sin is idolatry. And so the Christian must, as he finds himself sinning, whether that sin be an outward act or an inward state of mind, such as bitterness or an unhappiness with what God ordains, he must say to himself, this is idolatry. We cannot see the particular act as weakness. We have to see it always in relation to the principle of sin: idolatry.

Are there any questions now?

Yes…

[Audience] We hear a philosophy of ‘carnal Christianity’.

[Rushdoony] What? Carnal, yes…

[Audience] That’s basically what you would fit into ah, this whole idea of principle of sin, correct?

[Rushdoony] Yes. That’s why carnal Christianity is a false doctrine. There is no such thing as carnal Christianity. If it’s carnal, it’s not Christian. What they are saying, someone can still be totally dedicated to the principle of sin, idolatry, to lawlessness, to being fallen and still being a sinner—but we are redeemed in Christ, so the principle of our life is not idolatry, and we work to root out each particular manifestation. We mortify; we kill these things in us.

[Audience] I continually deal with a few people who discuss the idea how they had this friend when they were back in college (Bible college), how he was a dedicated Christian at that point. He’d heard about him recently, and the fellow was now ah, in an adulterous situation, living with this girl, and, and then they’d say, well, then he came back to Christ. He was just living, you know, a carnal Christian life for this brief time, and now he’s come back to Christ {?}

[Rushdoony] Well, that’s---

[Audience] fine and dandy, and then they bring up David, you know, King David, the situation that he lived in for a time.

[Rushdoony] Yes, but David immediately saw what it was.

[Audience] Right. And they, but they bring up the idea, and I don’t’ know where they get it, because I went back over the story {?} and David lived a year or two before he sought repentance, asked for forgiveness.

[Rushdoony] I don’t think the Bible gives any grounds for that.

[Audience] I couldn’t find that either but they continually brought that up.

[Rushdoony] Well, we can illustrate what sin is and particular sins this way:

When we came here, all that area outside here under the oaks was in ivy, a big, heavy ivy. It took all of a summer of some hard work, two or three of us, to hack that out. So we dug up everything. Now you can compare that to what happens when we are redeemed in Christ. Sin, the tree of sin, the vine of sin, is rooted out—killed. But then, little sprouts kept coming up for about two years, you see. And we had to go out there and the minute we saw one of them, chop it and dig up the root so that we could clean that area of all ivy before we replanted it. And it was a constant job, going out there and checking on it, and keeping all water off of it, of course, so we would not be feeding the ivy.

Now, you can compare that to salvation and sanctification. Salvation: you cut off the vine, or the tree of sin. Sanctification: our growth. Every time some of the old roots start popping up, you chop ‘em down and uproot. Now, we’re never finished in life with that process, but that’s what it is. We don’t have the vine or the tree of sin growing fully and freely in us, but we have those shoots that keep popping up all the time that we have to be on our guard against.

Yes…

[Audience] Could you explain the paradox of Pietism which denies the connection between sin and the Law of God yet tends to be highly legalistic?

[Rushdoony] Yes. The paradox of Pietism which denies the connection between sin and sanctification and the Law of God, and also at the same time tends to be highly legalistic.

In a couple of days in Southern California, I’m going to be speaking on the doctrine of Christ, Christ as Savior. One of the persistent problems in the Early Church was the fact that so many of the Gentile converts came out of the background of the mystery religions. The mystery religions emphasized one thing above all else, and that was the solution to the problem of death. The mystery religions were like a secret lodge. You went there, you joined them and a semi-divine or heroic savior through certain practices and rituals, saved you from death. He made you, he assured you of life after death. There was virtually no morality to the mystery religion. It was just your connection with your savior, you see. In fact, some of the mystery religions were highly immoral. Even Rome was afraid of the mystery religions because some of them were so openly amoral, or erotic in conduct.

Now, when you separate the law from the faith, you are reducing it to the same level of a mystery religion, antinomian. The whole purpose of it becomes salvation out of this world, not dominion over this world. So you’ll find that these Pietists are not concerned about this world, they’re only concerned about being saved out of this world in terms of immortality. Now that’s the mystery religion’s goal, not Christianity.

So they really drift into an alien faith, paying no attention to what our Lord said, who declared, “occupy till I come.” Does that help answer?

[Audience] …but you would be a {?} Baptist, {?}

[Rushdoony] I don’t know enough about them, but Pietism has deeply infected all fortunes of the Christian Church.

In the early days of Pietism, I think I called attention to this in Revolt Against Maturity. You have some highly immoral practices among the early Pietists. They were radically Antinomian.

Any other questions or comments? Well if not, let us bow our heads in prayer.

Our Lord and our God, we give thanks unto Thee that Thou hast made us a new creation in Jesus Christ, that Thou hast delivered us from the principle of sin and given us grace to uproot and mortify the particular sins in our lives, to uproot them by Thy Spirit and power. Give us grace always to grow in Thee, to abide in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to give thanks unto Thee, our Father, for Thy grace unto us, who are so ready to demand, and so slow in gratitude. In Jesus’ name.