Tne Doctrine of Sin The Weakening of the Idea of Sin a Complete Departure from the Bible Bj> PROF. JAMES ORR
Holiness; the other is the idea of Moral Law. To these may perhaps be added a third—the idea of thè Moral End, of the Chief Good, identified, as Ritschl rightly held, with the Kingdom of God. Trans gression of moral law alone does not give the full idea of sin in the Christian sense; even as the moral law itself, in Christianity, cannot be severed from the idea of the holy God, whose law it is, and whose character is expressed in it. Sin, in other words, is not simply a moral, but is peculiarly a religious con ception. Sin is transgression against God; the substitution of the creature will for the will of the Creator; revolt of the creature will from God. It is this relation to God which gives the wrong act its distinctive character as sin (cf. Ps. 51:4). It is, therefore, only in the light of God’s character as holy—per fected, in Christ’s teaching in the aspect of Fatherly love,—and of God’s end for man, that the evil quality and full enor mity of sinful acts can be clearly seen. Hence the impossibility of so much as discussing the Christian teaching about sin without reference to the divine holi ness, and to man’s relation to this. Hence also the vital importance, as Christ’s words to Nicodemus suggest, and as will afterwards be seen, of just conceptions .of sin for the right under standing of the higher Christian doc trines. It is in inadequate and mistaken views of sin that the root of so much misapprehension of these doctrines lies. . In a large part of the thought of our time there is a wide, often a complete departure from these presuppositions of the Christian doctrine of sin, with, as
T he follow ing article is com prised of ex tra c ts from a tim ely book, “Sin as a Problem of T oday,” by Prof. Jam es O rr, a book th a t should be w idely read in th ese d ay s w h en th e B ible view of sin is so m uch discounted by v ario u s sects. .
IN is here: this conscience-and universal experience attest. The evidences of its presence are not slight or intermittent.
Men may belittle it, try to forget it, treat it as a superstition or disease of imagin ation—there are, as we shall see, no lack of such attempts in the thinking of today—but the grim reality asserts itself in the dullest consciousness, and com pels acknowledgment o|£ its existence and hateful power. Drug conscience as deeply as one may, a time comes when it awakes. Turn in what direction one will, sin confronts one as a fact in hu man life—an experience of the heart, a development in history, a crimson thread in literature, a problem for science, an enigma for philosophy. This deep-seated presence and baleful operation of moral evil in the world, prolific of such untold mental and physi cal anguish, has pressed as a frightful burden on the minds of men in all ages, and has given rise to every sort of the ory and effort—to great world-systems in thought and elaborate penitential and propitiatory devices in religion—for its explanation and alleviation. What an array of speculations and of methods for obtaining deliverance and peace, arising from this cause, has the world witnessed —witnesses still! Sin in Christianity is connected with' two ideas, without the right apprehen sion of which it cannot be properly con ceived. TEe one is the idea of the Divine
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