INFINITE SIN | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 23, 1878

INFINITE SIN.

Bro. R. Thompson writes us that he has lately heard a Presbyterian minister speak from Job 22: 5, “Is not thy wickedness great? and thine iniquities infinite?” and argue from it eternal misery, on the ground that “infinite sin” demands infinite punishment.

Turning to the passage, we find that the words are from Eliphaz the Temanite, and are only one of a series of false charges which he made against Job. For instance, he says to Job in the next verse, “For thou hast taken a pledge from thy brother for naught, and stripped the naked of their clothing. Thou hast not given water to the weary to drink, and thou hast withholden bread from the hungry.” Verse 9: “Thou hast sent widows away empty,” &c. These things Eliphaz urges to sustain his charge that Job’s iniquity was infinite.

But to show how unjust and cruel such accusations were, we read in chapter 29: 12-17, what course Job did actually take. He says: “I delivered the poor. . . . The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me; and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy. I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame. I was a father to the poor; and the cause which I knew not, I searched out. And I brake the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth.”

Therefore we conclude that Job’s wickedness was not great, nor his iniquities infinite.

For Eliphaz to charge Job thus, under these circumstances, was wicked; and for a Presbyterian minister, or any other minister, to indorse the charge, and then try to prove from it eternal misery, is foolish.