The Biblical Conception of Sin 11 3:23) ; and generally Solomon’s Verdict holds goods of every day, “There is no man that sinneth not” (1 Kings 8 :46 ), not even the best of men who have been born again by the Spirit and the incorruptible seed of the Word of God, renewed in their minds and created anew in Christ Jesus. Even of these one writer says: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive our selves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1 :8 ) ; while another counsels Christians to mortify the deeds of the body, and to put off the old man which is corrupt according to the deceit ful lusts of the flesh (Rom. 7 :13 ; Col. 3: 5-10) ; and a third asserts that “in many things we all offend” (James 3 :2 ) . How true this is may be learned from the fact that Scripture mentions only one person in whom there was no sin, viz., Jesus of Nazareth, who not only challenged His contempo raries (in particular His enemies) to convict Him of sin, but of whom those who knew Him most intimately (His disciples) testified that He “did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth” (1 Pet. 2 :22 ; 1 John 3 :5 ) . Of this exception of course the exnlanation was and is that He was “God manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3 :16 ). But besides Him not a single person figures on the page of Holy Writ of whom it is said or indeed could have been said that he was sinless. Neither Enoch nor Noah in the ante-diluvian age; neither Abraham nor Isaac in patriarchal times; neither Moses nor Aaron in the years of the Israelitish wanderings; neither David nor Jonathan in the days of the undivided monarchy; neither Peter nor John, neither Barnabas nor Paul, in the Apostolic age, could have claimed such a distinction; and these were some of the best men that have ever appeared on this planet. Nor is it merely extensively that the reign of sin over the human family is universal, but intensively as well. It is not a malady which has affected only one part of man’s complex constitution: every part thereof has felt its baleful influence. It has darkened his understanding and made him unable, with out supernatural illumination, to apprehend and appreciate
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