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Paul’s Testimony to the Doctrine of Sin
sin principle] entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned . . . as through one trespass the judgment came unto all men to condemnation . . . for as through the one man’s dis obedience many were made sinners” (Rom. 5:12, 18, 19). In this parallelism between Adam and Christ, Paul is seek ing to show, by contrast, the excellence of grace and the transcendent blessedness of the justified man in Christ. He is not primarily discussing the origin of human sin. But that does not depreciate his testimony. The fact that it is an incidental and not a studied testimony makes it all the more trustworthy and convincing. Nor is Paul here simply voicing the thought of his unin spired fellow-countrymen as to the entrance of sin into our race. Dr. Edersheim says: “So far as their opinions can be gathered from their writings, the great doctrines of orig inal sin and the sinfulness of our whole nature were not held by the ancient Rabbis”.* Weber thus summarized the Jewish view as expressed in the Talmud: “By the Fall man came under a curse, is guilty of death, and his right relation to God is rendered difficult. More than this cannot be said. Sin, to which the bent and leaning had already been planted by creation, had become a fact, ‘the evil im pulse’ (cor malignum, 4 Es. 3:21) gained the mastery over mankind, who can only resist it by the greatest efforts; be fore the Fall it had power over him; but no such ascendency”,f The reader is referred to Wisd. 2:23ff, Ecclus. 25:24 (33), 4 Es. 3:7, 21ff, Apoc. Baruch 17:3, 54:15, 19, as expressions of the Jewish view of the entrance of sin into the world and the relation of Adam to the race in the transmission of guilt. One of these passages, Ecclus. 25:24 (33) the sin of the race is traced back to Eve: “from a woman was the beginning of sin”. * “Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah,” I. 165. t Altsyn. Theol., p. 216.
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