CHAPTER I I I SIN AND JUDGMENT TO COME BY SIR ROBERT ANDERSON, K. C. B., LL. D., LONDON, ENGLAND
The Book of Judges records that in evil days when eivil war was raging in Israel, the tribe of Benjamin boasted of having 700 men who “could*sling stones at a hair breadth and not miss.” Nearly two hundred times the Hebrew word chatha, here translated “miss,” is rendered “sin” in our Eng lish Bible; and this striking fact may teach us that while “all unrighteousness is sin,” the root-thought of sin is far deeper. Man is a sinner because, like a clock that does not tell the time, he fails to fulfill the purpose of his being. And that purpose is (as the Westminster divines admirably state it), “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” Our Maker in tended that “we should be to the praise of His glory.” But we utterly fail of this; we “come short of the glory of God.” Man is a sinner not merely because of what he does, but by reason of what he is. MAN A FAILURE That man is a failure is denied by none save the sort of people who say in their heart, “There is no God.” For, are we not conscious of baffled aspirations, and unsatisfied long ings after the infinite? Some there are, indeed, we are told, who have no such aspirations. There are seeming exceptions, no doubt—-Mr. A. J. Balfour instances “street arabs and ad vanced thinkers”—but such exceptions can be explained. And these aspirations and longings—these cravings of our higher being—are quite distinct from the groan of the lower creation. How, then, can we account for than? The atheistical evolu- 40
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