What Is Sin? by John Harvey Waggoner

International Tract and Missionary Society · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Jul 15, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 27.

What Is Sin?

By John Harvey Waggoner

A WRITER in a professedly religious paper gives his opinion of Bible truth in the following words:—

“That wickedness or righteousness will only be determined by the gospel, and not by the law, especially to the people of the gospel age, I think is clearly shown by the Scriptures.”

The writer is a man of some learning, and has spent many years in the ministry, yet prejudice has so blinded his mind that he cannot see the force of the simplest and plainest expressions in the New Testament. John says: “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law.” 1 John 3:4. And Paul’s language is explicit and unmistakable in its import. Of his own experience he said: “I had not known sin, but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, ‘Thou shalt not covet.’” Rom. 7:7. And again he said: “By the law is the knowledge of sin.” Rom. 3:20. No man ever sincerely comes to Christ—no man is ever genuinely converted—unless he is truly convicted of sin, and is thus made to feel his need of a Saviour. This conviction is only by the law, for “sin is the transgression of the law,” and “by the law is the knowledge of sin,” and Paul says that without the law he would not have known that he was a sinner. In these New Testament evidences is found a complete vindication of the words of the psalmist: “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.” Ps. 19:7. The conversions of antinomianism are all spurious. The preaching of no-lawism is not the preaching of the gospel of Christ; it is a perversion of the gospel.

The context of the words quoted from Rom. 3 shows that we are not mistaken in referring them to the law of God, the ten commandments.

1. It is a law by which no flesh shall be justified. Verse 20. This is not the law of Christ, or the gospel, for justification comes only by the gospel. There is no justification in a broken law, especially if the law is “holy, and just, and good.” It only condemns—proves the transgressor a sinner, and thus leads him to seek a Saviour from his transgressions and the curse. See Gal. 3:12-24.

2. It is a law of which the sinner cannot avail himself in having the “righteousness of God” conferred upon him. Verse 21.

3. It is a law which is not made void, but established by faith. Verse 31. It is thus shown to be distinct from faith, or the gospel, for, “The law is not of faith.” Gal. 3:12.

4. It is the law which was given to the Jews, of which Paul says: “Unto them were committed the oracles of God.” Verse 2. Of these Stephen also spoke when he said that Moses received at Mount Sinai “the lively oracles to give unto us.” Acts 7:38.

5. This law has jurisdiction over all, for it is distinctly shown that if these oracles given to the Jews were made of no effect, God could not judge the world. Rom. 3:2-6. Both Jews and Gentiles have transgressed it, and all the world are by it proved guilty before God. Verses 9-19.

Paul also taught “repentance toward God;” for repentance is of sin, and sin is transgression of the law, and the law of God we have all transgressed; “and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ;” for Jesus Christ is the mediator between God and man; the only way of salvation from sin. And the last warning message of this dispensation—“The true advent message,” or “present truth”—says: “Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” They honor both the Father and the Son, in the law and the gospel. They believe in genuine repentance as well as in a living faith.

The relation of the gospel of Christ and the law of God is exactly the relation of the pardon of a Governor and the statute of a State. No one would ever dare to say that the law of the State was abolished to give room for the pardon of the Governor, or that the pardon makes void and supersedes the statute. It is reserved for professed teachers of the gospel—for the preachers of religious antinomianism—to utter such absurdities. And, oh, shame! this they call the gospel of Christ. Surely the perils of the last days are come, and covenant breakers with an abundant profession of godliness, deny the power thereof, and are striving to remove its very foundations. Ps. 11:3. “It is time for thee, Lord, to work; for they have made void thy law.” Ps. 119:126.

J. H. W.