Sin and Its Penalty

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 11, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 31.

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Sin and Its Penalty

1. What is sin?

“Sin is the transgression of the law.” John 3:4.

2. What is its cause?

“When lust [unlawful desire] hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin.” James 1:15.

3. And what is its end?

“Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” James 1:15.

NOTE.— Death is as fully the result of sin as the seed is the final result in the life of the plant.

4. Is man, then, a free moral agent?

“Ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life.” John 5:40.

NOTE.— If one continues to take slow poison, death is certain at last by a great physical law, but the free moral agency of the victim has not been infringed; he might have refrained from taking the poison and thus avoided its effects. Man can not of himself refrain from sin, but Christ freely offers the ability to refrain, and hence the argument applies. Man’s liberty is to choose his master.

5. Does God desire the death of sin’s victim?

“I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God; wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.” Eze. 18:32.

6. Is the death of the sinner an arbitrary decree?

“The wages of sin is death.” Rom. 6:23.

NOTE.— The cause of sin is unlawful desire, desire traveling in paths it ought not, which results in taking what does not belong to it. When applied to property, this is stealing; when applied to life, it is murder. It is apparent that to prevent the sinner’s death it would be necessary either to give him life while continuing in sin, or upon his turning away from sin. To give him life while in sin would be to immortalize sin. For example, for God to make a murdering man immortal would be for Him to guarantee murder to continue always, and thereby place His fair creation in the eternal jeopardy of fiends. It would place the awful peril and suffering upon the innocent, instead of upon the guilty originator, where it belongs. The one act of man’s murder, or any number of them, limited to time as at present, is as nothing to the thought of God’s eternalizing it. Sin has no reason for its existence. It is inexcusable. If it could be excused, it would cease to be sin. It is the outworking of a principle at war with the great law of love which is the foundation of the divine government.

7. What has God done that man may escape sin and its consequences?

“God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16.

8. How much did Christ suffer for sinners?

“He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.” Isa. 53:5.

9. What course may the sinner take?

“He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.” Prov. 28:13.