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The Magnitude of Sin

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Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 16, 1859

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 14, No. 4.

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The Magnitude of Sin.

By Adolphe Monod

THE Scriptures everywhere present to our view sin in its true deformity. Not one of us can have a just idea of the guilt and enormity of sin in the sight of God. We have been so accustomed to live in the polluted atmosphere of this world, which drinks in iniquity as water and eats it as bread, that we cannot discern the sin which everywhere so completely surrounds us. My experience is briefly this. We find in the Bible these words: “We were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.” For a long time I could not admit this declaration, it appeared to me so evidently an exaggeration; and even after God had by his grace turned my heart towards him, it was long before I could completely accept it. And even now, I cannot comprehend it to the full, though convinced that it is perfectly true; and if I do not realize it in my experience, the fault is entirely mine. It was this that made me comprehend the necessity of a witness existing before us, without us, and above us. I accept this declaration as coming from God, because I find it in his word, and I pray that he may reveal to me the full meaning of it by his Holy Spirit. I have, by the grace of God, attained (I do not say in a short space of time—these things do not advance so rapidly—but in an interval of several years) to a clearer view of this doctrine, and to a deeper feeling of its truth in my own heart; and I am sure that I shall some day acknowledge it to be the most faithful resemblance that has ever been traced of my heart—I mean of my natural, unregenerated heart. Let us pray that God would gradually more and more reveal to us our state of sin, though only by degrees; for he is well aware that if our knowledge of our own condition were to increase more rapidly than our knowledge of his mercy, we should fall into despair.—Adolphe Monod.