p. 339 | Sins of Omission by J. A. Wood

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, Cal. · Nov 14, 1878

Sins of Omission.

By J. A. Wood

THEOLOGICAL writers usually classify sin into those of commission and those of omission; meaning, by the former, overt acts of transgression, or the doing of what ought not to be done; and by the latter, the not doing what we ought to do, and the not being what we ought to be.

This distinction stands related to a corresponding distinction in the moral law; since this both enjoins and forbids—requires some things to be done, and forbids the doing of certain other things. Neglect to fulfill its requisitions is a sin of omission; the doing what it prohibits is a sin of commission.

Each of these classes of sin includes an internal state of mind, even when it results in no corresponding conduct, as well as our external doings or failures to do. Indeed, the only real sin is in the mind; and it may be manifested externally in natural development, or it may not be. In the latter case, it is none the less sin.

Most, if not all men, commit more sins of omission than of commission; and in many cases the sins of omission are the more aggravated. There cannot be a more grievous sin than not loving God, and there cannot be one more certainly, terribly and justly damning than not to accept Christ as a Saviour.

In Matt. 25, Christ represents the wicked at the final judgment as doomed to hell because they had not ministered to him in the person of the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, and the sick, and the imprisoned.

It was not what they had done that had made and evinced their character, but what they had not done. They had not shown love to him, nor to his loving, suffering friends. They evinced that they neither loved God nor man. Hence their righteous doom among the enemies of all good.

What a lesson the Saviour here presents by his heart-searching representation! Oh! let us examine, and see how our account stands of things not done—the hungry not fed, the naked not clothed, the sick not visited, and the poor and needy not ministered unto.

There is a vast amount of self-deception among sinners and many professed Christians, the result in a great measure of not considering this aspect of sin.

Multitudes all about us have no just sense of their moral turpitude. Why? Because they make no account of sins of omission. They do not look at the law of God requiring them to love God supremely, and their fellow-men as themselves; and hence they see not their chief guilt. As to sins of commission, they find themselves by no means among the most scandalous sinners of the race. Hence the ruinous estimate of themselves, which deludes their guilty souls.

Then, what a dense throng of merely nominal Christians, whose outward Christianity is at least so fair as to subject them to no church discipline or censure; but oh! the things not done—the fervent prayers not offered; the crosses not borne; the self-denial and sacrifice for Christ not made; the daily efforts to save souls not put forth; the thousand nameless testimonies of love to Christ, which bursts forth at countless points where that love really burns within, which are not seen.

How will these deeds and duties not done rise up at last and testify against these professors in that day when God shall judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ, and put an end to every hope that is not eternal! The precious doctrine of entire sanctification by no means overlooks sins of omission. On the contrary, it seeks to set the heart right, and bring it into the permanent attitude of loving God supremely and our fellow-beings impartially.

Perfect love, as required in the Bible, is that very state in which the inner spirit worships God, and loves its neighbor as itself. Such are the principles and such its aims.—Rev. J. A. Wood.