Paul’s Testimony to the Doctrine of Sin 33 son, debtor to one, owing satisfaction”.* In this passage it is used with the dative of God (0e£>) and so “all the world” is declared by Paul to be “under judgment of God, having lost its suit with God, owing satisfaction to God” (and, it being implied, not able to render satisfaction to Him). This passage implies that the essence of sin is “guilt”. Man by sin is “under judgment”, “under sentence”. He has come into court with God, is found to have broken God’s law, and so is guilty and liable to punishment. A sec ondary element in sin is implied in this term, the helplessness of man in sin, “owing satisfaction to God”, but not able to render it. It must be noted that Paul thinks of this guilt as having d i f f e r e n t degrees according to the light against which the sinner sins (Rom. 2:12-14). The Gentile sins without the law, that is, without knowing the requirements of the written law, and so he perishes without the law, that is, without the severity specially provided for the transgressor in the written law. But the Jew, who sins against the superior light of written revelation, shall receive the more severe penalty prescribed in the written law. All men are guilty of breaking God’s law, but the different realms of law afford different degrees of light, and so the various transgressors are guilty in varying degrees, just as there are different degrees of mur der and manslaughter, according to the circumstances and motives of those guilty. Paul uses the term sin to express three phases of sin: F ir st , the sin principle, or sin in the abstract. He uses the term more often in this sense than in any other. He often personifies the sin principle, doubtless because he be lieves in the personal Satan. S econdly , by implication he teaches that man is in a state of sin. (Rom. 5:18, 19.) “All men unto condemnation” means that men are in a state of condemnation—guilty of breaking God’s law, and therefore * I b i d .
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