A Bible With Words on Law and LawlessnessBible World
3:41 John 3:4
Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.
Sin is the transgression, breaking, and violation of God's law. This is the Bible's only definition of sin, given in plain and decided language. The law meant is God's great moral standard of righteousness, holy, just, good and exceeding broad, summed in supreme love to God and love to neighbor as self. It is unchangeable, immutable and eternal, still alive and binding, and John wrote the definition after Christ's crucifixion, proving the Ten Commandments were not abolished at the cross. As a mirror and perfect standard it exposes guilt and gives the knowledge of sin, but it cannot pardon or save, driving the repentant sinner to faith in Christ's atoning sacrifice for pardon, cleansing, and power to cease transgressing and keep the law.
What Sin Is
Sin is the transgression, breaking, and violation of God's law. This is the Bible's only definition of sin, given in plain and decided language. To know sin is to know this definition and to feel oneself a transgressor of that law, for without the law people cannot know what sin is. Treating sin merely as crimes or failures of honor and patriotism misses this definition, and dealing plainly with sin by it is not contrary to Christian charity.
Even a single instance counts, and transgression in the smallest particular is sin deserving punishment. Departing from God's expressed will is sin even in the least particular, regardless of how small the act seems. Willful violation by thought, word, and deed is sin, and any departure from truthfulness and rectitude is transgression whether small or great and whether committed by rich or poor. Imperfection of character and any variance from God's expressed will are included, and repeated wrongdoing may become habitual without habit lessening its seriousness, for God's principles are immutable.
The law broken is particularly the moral law, yet it also includes every law the Creator established to govern human conduct. God's law includes both natural and spiritual law, both the Ten Commandments and the laws of our being that govern physical life and health. Needless violation of the laws established in the human body is virtually a violation of God's law and is as great a sin as breaking the Ten Commandments, just as much sin as breaking one of the Ten Commandments. Breaking nature's laws is breaking the law of God, so indulgence of appetite and passion, luxurious living, intemperance, and continual violation of natural law are continual transgression, bringing disease and suffering and accounting for accumulated misery, deformity, decrepitude, disease, imbecility, and feebleness in mental, moral, and physical power. The body belongs to its Creator and cannot rightly be treated as one's own to use as one pleases, and ignorance where light is available is itself sin, leaving men responsible to cherish light and learn what is in their highest earthly interest.
Sin is disloyalty to God, disobedience to His commandments, and rebellion against Him. It steps over the boundary from obedience to disobedience and sets the perverse will of man in opposition to the will of his Maker. Rebellion against God's precepts and laws is apostasy and disloyalty, putting rebels under Satan's banner as enemies of God's government, in the ranks of the powers of darkness in the company of the first great apostate who led part of heaven's family into disobedience. Such disobedience denies God's authority and rebels against His government, while obedience to His law protects human happiness and is for man's best interest in this world and surely for his eternal interest. Disregard for His requirements shows failure to respect His authority, and of all creatures on earth man alone is rebellious though he alone possesses reasoning powers to understand the claims of the divine law and a conscience to feel the guilt of transgression and the peace and joy of obedience.
The Law Described
The law in view is God's great moral standard of righteousness, His holy law, exceeding broad and prohibiting every evil thing. It expresses the whole duty of humanity, summed in supreme love to the Lord with all heart and soul and mind and strength and love to neighbor as self. It is a divine standard, not a human standard of comparison with other people, and failure to meet it is sin even when human measures are satisfied. Knowing its far-reaching principles is needful for present and eternal interest, and calling attention to its righteousness barricades the soul against deception.
It is the royal law, lasting as long as God's own throne, distinct from the law of types and shadows. It is the ancient law of Jehovah as old as the world, the old commandment from the beginning, existing at creation and spoken again on Mount Sinai and written on stone as the Ten Commandments with their requirements and prohibitions. Its principles bind angels and all human intelligences, and it demands perfect obedience from rich and poor, high and low. It is not arbitrary and severe, and it remains binding in this dispensation.
John wrote this definition after the crucifixion of Christ, which proves the law was not abolished at the cross. What ceased at His death, when type met antitype, was sacrificial offerings and the ceremonial law of types and shadows. By the crucifixion the law of Ten Commandments was established, and the gospel has not abrogated it nor taken one tittle from its claims, still demanding holiness in every part. To teach that Christ's death ended the royal law is a fatal deception that puts its teachers on the side of war against God's government, and denying that God has a law to govern angels and people denies the very standard whose transgression is sin. Abiding in Christ, who was manifested to take away sin and is without sin, is therefore incompatible with continuing to transgress, and righteousness is shown by doing righteousness.
The law is still alive and binding, unchangeable, immutable, eternal, pure, changeless and perfect, the great moral standard for every created intelligence, written on stone after the fall. Christ's death exalts the law and makes it honorable and testifies to its immutability, for had the law been changeable He need not have suffered on Calvary but took human nature and suffered and died that the transgressor might be pardoned, have another trial, leave rebellion and return to loyalty. To teach that the law is dead or abrogated is a bewitching delusion to immortalize sin, making it appear a virtue to trample God's law and hindering conversion, for if the law were dead sin would become universal and hell would triumph. To represent it as nonbinding gives sinners license to overstep its limits and live in freedom in violation of the commandments, removes the basis of moral responsibility, closes the soul against truth and its practical bearing on the heart, and leaves intemperance, licentiousness, avarice, thefts, perjuries and crimes of every description carried on under the cloak of Christianity. Grace does not set the law aside, and to profess love for Christ while rejecting His law and refusing obedience is opposition to God with a dead faith unsupported by good works.
Where there is no law there is no transgression, and without law there would be no sin. Where there is no breaking of the law there would be no sin and no death, for sin is what brought death into the world. Those who claim the law is abolished live in keeping with that claim by falling into lawlessness, and a lawless people cannot enter heaven to establish another world of the same kind. If the law were abolished, sin and transgression would have no meaning, and there would be no need for the gospel or a Saviour. Christ died as the sinner's substitute, taking the guilt of the transgressor and suffering the penalty of disobedience to bring transgressors back to loyalty and make peace with God possible for every penitent sinner, not to leave them continuing in sin, and His death proves the law changeless, since not one precept could be altered to meet man in his fallen condition.
Setting in First John
John's definition stands with the call to behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed in making sinners sons of God. They are sons now, with a future not yet revealed when they shall be like Christ at His appearing because they shall see Him as He is. That sonship is written in the Lamb's book of life without pride of appearance or outward display, holding before all the possibility of becoming sons and daughters of God and walking uprightly in a crooked and perverse generation. The world does not know them because it did not know Christ, regarding them as degraded, for Christ's deportment and character were different from the worldly standard and beyond its comprehension. The world cannot discern spiritual things, so its estimate of Christian life and virtue is false, and it does not notice even a life sacrificed to uplift fellow men from degradation and make them what God designed them to be.
The verse stands between the hope of seeing Christ as He is and being like Him when He appears, and the truth that Christ was manifested to take away sins. Everyone who has this hope purifies himself from all transgression even as Christ is pure, in contrast to committing sin which is transgressing the law. Having Christ abide in the heart requires constantly beholding Him, not merely thinking of Jesus and speaking of Him occasionally. The definition was written so that none will carelessly continue in sin, proving it is possible to live without sin and calling all to walk in the light of the living God.
It stands with the truth that Christ was manifested to take away sins and not to take away the law that defines sin, and that in Him is no sin and no transgression of the law. Whoever abides in Him constantly does not sin, for abiding means abiding constantly, while whoever sins has not seen Him, has not known Him, and has not accepted Him as personal Saviour. He removes sin when the transgressor confesses sin and purifies himself, making it possible for guilty believing rebels to keep His holy law and practice His righteousness. Claiming sanctification while breaking that law is therefore a deception, for abiding in Him is incompatible with continuing to transgress the law.
It stands with doing righteousness as the mark of being righteous even as He is righteous, while whoever commits sin is of the devil who sins from the beginning. The Son was manifested to take away sins and to destroy the works of the devil, and doing righteousness is keeping the commandments of God. Those who claim to be Christians yet live in sin work against Christ, misrepresent Him, are liars in whom the truth is not, are in terrible deception as blasphemers of God, and unless they cease sinning will be treated as servants of Satan in bondage to sin and without the truth, placed by God in the ranks of the powers of darkness in the company of the first great apostate. True Christians receive the gospel to work righteousness, have free access to God as Father, and love as brethren, for the children of God are manifest by doing righteousness and loving the brother and not following Cain whose works were evil while his brother's were righteous. Passing from death to life is known by loving the brethren, while hating the brother is murder with no eternal life abiding in him, and the love of God perceived because He laid down His life requires laying down lives for the brethren, not shutting up compassion from a brother in need, but loving in deed and in truth by keeping His commandments and believing on the name of Jesus Christ.
The chapter as a whole calls for manliness and firmness in Christian character, for a cheap Christian character works more harm in the world than the character of a worldling when professed Christians mislead others by professing to represent Him whose name they assume without representing Him. Its promises are joined to conditions to be met in the present now, cleansing from all defilement of flesh and spirit and perfecting holiness in reverence and fear of God, because tomorrow is not ours and now is the accepted time and now is the day of salvation. Every soul who has decided to take the name of Christian is under obligation to answer the character of excellence in humanity and reveal Christ's character in works as His chosen representatives to an apostate world, not receiving the grace of God in vain. This requires pressing forward from past mistakes to glorious things ahead, putting away discontent, murmuring, disagreeable words, disputing, quarreling, and a spirit of fault-finding, and cultivating sanctified refined aspirations and worthy ambitions. Its teaching shows the contrast between the principles of Christ and the principles of Satan, calling for learning meekness and lowliness from Christ, speaking as Christ spoke without harsh, passionate, rash words, keeping hereditary and cultivated tendencies under control, having the character daily refined, sanctified, and purified while living under the Saviour's keeping power in faithful service to God, and demonstrating the principles of the perfection of Christ's character in life as a foretaste of heaven, since no fault-finding spirit will enter heaven.
Law Reveals and Judges
The law is God's great moral standard of righteousness, holy and perfect, and sin is known only by testing character against it. It acts as a mirror that shows the perfection of a righteous character and enables the sinner to discern the defects, frailty, depravity, guilt, and exceeding sinfulness in his own. Looking into that divine mirror reveals human defects and the character that must be met, so that a person sees he is a sinner in its light. Until that is seen the need to be free from sin is not felt, and the spirit opposes being led in the way of the Lord. Through faith the truth is then accepted in the heart for purifying and cleansing, and divinity combined with humanity is shown to make it possible to partake of the divine nature, escape corruption through lust, and cease transgressing.
Conviction produced by that knowledge is the first step in being made right with God, in reconciliation, genuine conversion, and true repentance. Sinners must know what sin is before they can desire to be rid of it, for to continue in it is at peril of the soul. The far-reaching principles of the law summed in love to God with all heart, soul, strength, and mind and love to neighbor as self must therefore be properly understood and presented in simplicity so conscience is enlightened and a sense of sin is felt. A sinner must know what the law requires in order to understand what to repent of, and those who have received light about the commandments are not saved while knowingly transgressing them.
The law exposes sin but provides no cure, for there is no saving quality in it to pardon transgression, save, cleanse, or remove its consequences. While it promises life to the obedient it marks death as the portion of the disobedient. Contempt for that moral standard and enmity toward it proves a person does not know what it means to be saved, and those with no respect for the law of the universe cannot be taken to heaven. Godly sorrow under its exposure therefore drives the guilty in repentance toward God whose law was broken and in faith toward Christ and His atoning sacrifice and gospel. Freedom from condemnation and defilement comes only that way, bringing pardon for past sins even the deepest, adoption as a child of God, a new birth that brings the heart into harmony with God and accord with His law, and a passage from death to life, from sin to holiness, and from rebellion to obedience and loyalty.
That same just and holy law is the perfect rule of life by which character is measured and by which all will be judged in the last great day. Each must examine thoughts, words, and works by it as in a mirror and ask whether he is making it void or standing in its vindication. Building character upon that rock by complying with its requirements will stand the close test of judgment for eternity, while erecting a standard of one's own, casting aside the immutable law, and claiming to be perfect is building on sand and will end in loss at the bar of God. The definition is given so sin can be known and put away in order to gain heaven and its joy, with loyalty and walking in its light restoring what was lost through Adam by disobedience. Keeping the commandments remains as necessary now as in Eden and is the condition of eternal life, the tree of life, and entrance through the gates into the city, while no transgressor continuing in sin will enter heaven.
Christ Saves From Sin
Christ was without sin because He obeyed every requirement of the law, kept His Father's commandments with the law in His heart, and never violated even its smallest precept. That sinless obedience qualified Him to become the Sin-bearer of the race, taking human guilt as substitute and surety. His righteousness is imputed to believers because He both died and obeyed every requirement, imparted through faith since none can overcome by own strength, and the law being a transcript of His character, to disregard it is to disregard Him. His perfect obedience makes it possible for those who submit to Him to obey, so that heart, will, mind and thoughts united with Him live His life, clothed with the garment of His righteousness which is perfect obedience covering defilement and deformity so God sees Christ's law-keeping rather than nakedness. He took human nature and suffered and died that lawbreakers might be pardoned, have another trial, leave the banner of rebellion and return to loyalty under the Prince of light, for transgression brought loss of Eden and continuing in it means loss of heaven.
His suffering and death were required because the holy law was broken and could not be set aside, abolished, weakened, or changed in even the smallest item to meet fallen man, but was maintained in all its sacred dignity. He bore the sins of the world as substitute and surety, taking guilt upon Himself, suffering the penalty, curse and wrath of disobedience in His own body to ransom the transgressor, satisfy the demands of justice, and reconcile God to man and man to God. Non-execution of sin's penalty would be a crime in the divine administration, for God as Judge and avenger cannot dispense with His law to pardon sin, since His justice is His holiness in relation to sin, and its rectitude and moral excellence must be maintained and vindicated before the heavenly universe and unfallen worlds. Looking to the cross arouses conscience to see the majesty of the law, the holiness of God, and personal unlikeness to His character, proving the law changeless and revealing both sin's heinousness and God's love in giving Himself to save from eternal ruin all who would believe. He exalted the law and made it honorable by perfect obedience, refusing to permit it to be changed to save the perishing, so that it stands firm, unimpeached, pure, changeless, perfect and immutable as the great moral standard for every created intelligence.
Conviction that sin is breaking God's law is the first step in being made right with God, as the sinner tests character by that great standard as a mirror showing perfection and exposing defects. The law exposes and convicts but has no saving quality to pardon, cleanse or cure; while promising life to the obedient it marks death as the portion of the disobedient, so freedom comes only through the gospel by repentance toward God whose law was broken and faith in Christ as the atoning sacrifice. Through His blood the repentant receive pardon for past sins, washing of defiled character to whiteness, cleansing from even the deepest transgression, adoption as children of God, new birth bringing the heart into harmony with God and accord with His law, passing from death to life, from sin to holiness, and from rebellion to obedience and loyalty. The sinner confesses lawbreaking, rolls the broken law off at the foot of the cross where mercy and truth meet and righteousness and peace kiss, and when accused answers by looking to the Lamb, believing God forgives and takes away unrighteousness, rejoicing with a new song. Law without faith in the gospel cannot save, and gospel without law is inefficient and powerless, so the two must be presented together as a perfect whole.
Grace makes it possible to cease transgressing, keep the law, and with strength God gives obey all His commandments without despair, for they are not burdensome and obedience brings happiness and life without sin in full surrender. Abiding in Christ means not willfully breaking the law by thought, word and deed, for He was manifested to take away sin and in Him is no sin, and doing righteousness by keeping the commandments is being righteous as He is righteous. To profess sanctification, holiness, sinlessness or knowledge of God while openly despising the law, breaking it, and teaching others they may break it without consequence is deception, falsehood and blasphemy; such claimants do not know Christ, have not seen Him, truth is not in them, and whoever breaks the law is of the devil in the ranks of darkness with the first great apostate. The New Testament has not changed God's law and the Sabbath remains binding, so dealing plainly with sin is not contrary to Christian charity and charity does not excuse unconfessed sin.
No sinner can be saved in his sins while knowingly continuing in transgression after light has come revealing what sin is, for there is no excuse to remain in slavery since Christ suffered to redeem from it, and probation is opportunity to return to allegiance. Repentance means turning from breaking the royal law which lasts as long as God's throne, not the law of types and shadows that ended at Christ's death, and to teach that His death ended the royal law is fatal deception siding with Satan's war against God's government. Conversion is turning from transgression to obedience through repentance toward God for His law transgressed and faith toward Jesus as Advocate who pays the penalty incurred and removes stains by His blood, saving from sins not in them, and to tell the disloyal he is guiltless or can be saved continuing in transgression leaves him unconverted. The true believer abhors sin because it caused his Redeemer's suffering, will not continue that grace may abound, casts it away and wars against natural inclinations, with faith not abstract but acting in obedience, walking by faith, Christ living in him, eating and drinking and doing all to God's glory with Christ first and last and best. Without such repentance, claimants to childhood will stand in final judgment no higher than those making no claim, and those refusing self-denial for worldly gain reject self-sacrifice and risk eternal life.
Sin Origin and Consequences
Sin entered existence through rebellion against God's law in heaven, where Satan as the first great apostate disobeyed and drew part of heaven's family with him into disobedience until he and all united with him were cast out of God's presence and paradise. That same transgression lives in the man of sin who exalts himself above all that is called God or worshiped, sits in the temple of God showing himself as God, and speaks as Satan spoke in his heart of ascending into heaven, exalting his throne above the stars of God, and becoming like the Most High, only to be brought down to hell to the sides of the pit. The revealing of that power is now taking place as the great controversy grows stronger near the close of earth's history, calling Christians to show their colors and stand on the Lord's side. On earth sin was first displayed when Adam and Eve broke God's command by listening to flattery and doing what God told them not to do, opening suffering upon the world and bringing disorder, rebellion, and death.
Forgiveness through the promised seed of the woman who would crush the serpent does not make lawbreaking less hateful to God, nor does it remove the terrible end for those who keep breaking the law without repentance. Death stands as the penalty for breaking the law, and Christ met it by becoming substitute, surety, Redeemer, and Intercessor, giving fallen people a second probation with privilege and power to form character like God's. Christ as surety does not weaken or remove obligation to the law, for to change the law would grant Satan's demands and bring God, Christ, and the universe under his claims, and God will still judge the world by Christ to whom all judgment is given. Breaking the law originated with Satan, the prince of evil, who became an apostate in the heavenly courts for a reason God does not reveal, and breaking it brings the curse and stains a character God made untainted. Every man, woman, and child who knowingly breaks the law helps Satan and his evil angels in their warfare against good, is taken captive and chained in bondage to Satan's will, and is used to win others to his side, while Satan still works to tear down God's holy standard of righteousness by misrepresenting God's character, throwing his shadow between man and God to hide God's loveliness, and trampling God's commands underfoot.
Sin is an intruder for whose existence no reason exists, mysterious and unaccountable, impossible to explain and without any cause that can be given for it. It is the outworking of a principle opposed to and at war with the law of love, which is the foundation of God's government. To excuse sin is to defend it, for if sin could be excused and a cause justifying its existence shown, it would cease to be sin. God was in no way responsible for its entrance, with no arbitrary withdrawal of divine grace and no deficiency in the divine government giving occasion for rebellion.
Sin as transgression alienates people from God, separates and cuts off the soul from Him, and leaves His wrath resting upon the sinner. It forfeits the soul and cannot be afforded, so joined to the hope of seeing Christ, every person is called to purify himself as God is pure and to do something to prepare for future immortal life. Disobedience sets the perverse will of man in opposition to the will of his Maker, and its penalty is death; where there is no breaking of the law there would be no sin and no death. If sin had never entered there would have been no misery among His creatures and no discord in heaven or in earth, but disobedience has brought all of it, with guilt, defilement, crime, violence, and iniquity steadily increasing from Eden to the flood and onward. Yielding to strong natural inclination to transgress brings the curse of God more heavily upon mankind, cattle, and earth, with moral, mental, and physical degeneracy until the world is filled with misery of every type, the days of man shortened by his own course, the race depreciated, enfeebled, almost valueless, and generally unable to appreciate Calvary.
To sin against God is no light matter, while to obey His commandments is for man's best interest even in this world and surely for his eternal interest to submit to God and be at peace with Him. Of all creatures God made on earth, man alone is rebellious, though he alone possesses reasoning powers to understand the claims of the divine law and a conscience to feel the guilt of transgression and the peace and joy of obedience, made a free moral agent to obey or disobey while beasts of the field, the proud ocean, and the planets in perfect order obey the laws established for them. Human beings are therefore responsible for their choice, and the reward of everlasting life, an eternal weight of glory, is promised to those who do God's will, while the threatenings of His wrath hang over all who defy His law. Amid the tide of misery a few preserve the knowledge of God unsullied amid moral degeneracy, while the many prefer sin and transgression rather than repentance and obedience relying by faith upon the merits of the offered sacrifice, though that sacrifice is of infinite value to save the whole world and makes a man who avails himself of it more precious than fine gold, and Christ still invites feeble, degenerate humanity to come to Him to have weakness covered and every need supplied. Christ's death as the sinner's substitute, taking the guilt of the transgressor and suffering the penalty of disobedience in his stead to make it possible for every penitent sinner to make peace with God, proves the law is changeless and its claims will not be released even in the slightest degree, for not one precept could be altered to meet man in his fallen condition and death was not necessary to abolish the law.
God does not excuse guilt if a person continues to transgress, yet He can be just and still pardon because the justice, holiness, and truth of Christ are vindicated in the law, so mercy can pardon freely, take away sin, and impute Christ's righteousness. Christ died to make reconciliation and paid all that man owes to God, and by His complete and active obedience brings in everlasting righteousness and clothes the believer with His righteousness so that he shall not continue in sin but perfect a character after Christ's likeness and become a channel to share pardoning love with others. Those who refuse to forsake sin, forgiveness, and grace suffer sin's sure consequence: the unrepentant are destroyed, ending in the destruction of soul and body of every unrepentant sinner. Their experience and destruction are represented as chains of darkness, the undying worm, and unquenched fire, which is unquenchable fire bringing remorse, despair, and hatred. Those grafted into Satan the first transgressor by cherishing sinful attributes will too late see what sin is and realize transgression cut them off from God, and when men stand face to face with eternity with the whole life presented just as it has been, worldly pleasures, riches, and honors will not seem important and the righteousness they despised will be seen as alone of value. They will see that under Satan's deceptive allurements they fashioned their characters and that the garments they chose are the badge of allegiance to the first great apostate, with the truth that sin is transgression brought vividly before sinners as God's judgments fall upon a disobedient world in the short time before Christ's coming and wrongdoers feel the consequences as a living reality.
Sabbath Prophecy and Obedience
Sin is breaking God's law, so breaking the fourth commandment by working on the Sabbath for worldly profit is sin even when circumstances make it seem convenient or beneficial. Refusing to keep the Sabbath breaks the law and puts salvation in question, for the written commands still define sin and must be believed just as they read, including the Sabbath command. Setting aside God's sanctified seventh-day Sabbath, His memorial of making the world in six days and resting the seventh, and putting a rival spurious sabbath in its place is breaking the law and therefore sin, a sacrilegious work of Satan carried out through the papal power. That power is the man of sin, and whoever commits such sin is of the devil who sins from the beginning, while Christ was manifested to take away sins and to destroy the works of the devil, and in Him is no sin. Babylon's denounced guilt is lawbreaking, specifically disregarding the only commandment that points out the true God and tearing down the Sabbath, God's memorial of creation sanctified and set apart as holy.
Thinking to change times and laws by placing the first day where the seventh should be, accepting a spurious rest day, giving sanction to a false Sabbath and trampling the Sabbath of the Lord, exalting human laws above God's law, and compelling others to work on the seventh and rest on the first are transgression that makes partakers of her sins, causes sins to reach unto heaven, and brings the wine of the wrath of God. Compelling people to obey human laws that conflict with God's law is therefore sin, in particular replacing the seventh-day Sabbath sanctified as a sign between God and His people with Sunday, which is where the man of sin finds his place in prophecy. People sin when they use freedom to choose Satan's path of self-gratification instead of obeying God, bringing the stated penalty, rejecting God's commandments, bringing unrighteousness into the world, and upholding Satan's principles. The law binds every person, and the Sabbath is a sign of God's government, so keeping the day God sanctified in Eden identifies a person with God's kingdom, while replacing it with a spurious sabbath bears the mark of rebellion. Careful study of God's word shows that accepting the first day of the week as the Sabbath is a mistake.
The man of sin lives out transgression by exalting himself above all that is called God or worshiped, sitting in the temple of God and displaying himself as God. The same transgression was in Satan, who said in his heart he would ascend into heaven, exalt his throne above the stars of God, and be like the Most High, and who will be brought down to hell to the sides of the pit. This revealing is now taking place as the great controversy grows stronger near the close of this earth's history, when Christians must show their colors and show they are on the Lord's side. Breaking the law by working contrary to God's commandments is following Satan instead of God, exalting Satan's principles above the principles that rule in heaven, uniting with the great deceiver, abusing freedom, and bringing unrighteousness into the world under plainly stated penalty. In these last days, when Daniel is unsealed and the first, second, and third angels' messages are proclaimed, those in the denominational churches who will not accept the light in regard to the law of God remain in transgression and therefore do not understand, fulfilling that many shall be purified and made white and tried, but the wicked shall do wickedly and none of the wicked shall understand.
The Bible's only definition of sin as transgression of the law means refraining from sin is keeping the commandments. This life is probationary time for waiting to receive His commandments and preparing for a higher school, so that when Christ comes He can call His children to come up higher. Christ came to redeem from the curse of the law and to rescue the world from the consequence of sin, drawing it back into harmony with God and reuniting it with heaven, making man His co-laborer by keeping the commandments. The third chapter is a Sabbath message for believers including those keeping their first Sabbath, holding intense interest, teaching the love of God and the need to know whether one stands on the adversary's side or on the side of Christ who kept His Father's commandments, a decision sealed in baptism. Those living in the great antitypical Day of Atonement must cease to sin and put sin away, with special preparation to have sins taken away through humility, confessing sins so they may go beforehand to judgment, drawing nearer to God, and clinging to Christ who is able to cleanse from all unrighteousness and wash away every stain of sin, so pardon is written against the name without giving way to discouragement.
To renounce sin is to forsake sin and bring the life into conformity with the law in perfect obedience, in harmony with the mind and will of Christ. This requires entire surrender to God, for when that surrender is not made sin is not forsaken, appetites and passions strive for mastery, temptations confuse the senses, and true conversion does not take place. Conformity to the law that follows real renunciation is the work of the Holy Spirit, so candidates for baptism need much more thorough preparation to see the necessity of entire surrender. Transgression must be plainly shown to God's professed people, calling for entire consecration and deep, vital, practical godliness instead of worldly compromise and conformity. At a time when Satan is transformed into an angel of light and the path of duty is obscured, when professed Christians bear only the name with slightest resemblance to self-denying, cross-lifting, Christ-following Christians, God's watchmen must cry aloud, spare not, and lift up the voice like a trumpet to show His people their transgressions and sins.
Rebellion against God's precepts and laws is apostasy and disloyalty to God, putting rebels under Satan's banner as enemies of God's government. Jesus as Restorer came to lift men from depths of woe and misery and did not intend His purchased people to live and die in their sins, for He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Because many professing Christians work with the great apostate and let Satan plan for them, few are reached and saved, laying severe taxing labor on the true Christian who must convince the transgressor that he is a sinner by showing his conduct breaks the law. Ministers must explain that sin is transgression and where there is no law there is no transgression, and must clearly show what sin is and what conversion from sin means. A living connection with Jesus leads to salvation, for by faith sinners take Him as personal Saviour and entrust sins to Him the Sin-bearer who takes them away, with the convicted breaker of God's law exercising repentance toward God for breaking His law and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ.
Those who preach the gospel must do their duty by living as examples to the flock and lifting voices like a trumpet to show people their law-breaking, distinctly defining what sin is and what turning from sin is. The law is the ancient law of Jehovah as old as the world, the law of the ten commandments with its requirements and prohibitions, still binding in this dispensation and not arbitrary and severe. To represent the law as nonbinding gives sinners license to overstep God's law, opens a life of freedom in violation of God's commandments after the manner of the great adversary, removes moral responsibility, closes avenues of the soul to truth with its practical bearings, and leaves intemperance, licentiousness, avarice, thefts, perjuries and crimes of every description carried on under the cloak of Christianity. The rescued and outcasts must be taught the meaning of sin to stand against appetite, and sinners pointed to Christ as the only remedy. A person who serves God strives to obey His commandments, and obedience shows whose cause that person stands for.
Sin does not mean giving up hope in Christ or stopping trying to obey, for Satan tempts to sin and then urges despair of keeping the commandments. With the strength God gives, people can obey all His commandments, which are not burdensome, and obedience brings happiness. The third chapter is to be studied by youth, students in schools and sanitariums, workers in printing offices, instructors, and those in charge of publishing houses, to be believed and practiced, holding before youth the possibility of becoming sons and daughters of God and walking uprightly in a crooked and perverse generation, showing the contrast between Christ's principles and Satan's. Its teaching calls for learning meekness and lowliness from Christ, speaking as Christ spoke without harsh, passionate, rash words, keeping hereditary and cultivated tendencies under control, and having character daily refined, sanctified, and purified while living under the Saviour's keeping power in faithful service. Persisting in repining, discontent, faultfinding, murmuring, quarreling and disagreeable words is sin that bars entrance to heaven.
The hope of being called sons of God and made like Christ when He appears requires purifying oneself even as Christ is pure by putting away past imperfections, striving for unity and love, laying hold on faithful daily service, reflecting the divine image in words and works, following the self-denying Redeemer in meekness and lowliness, and rejoicing always with thankful praise. Christ was manifested to take away sins, abiding in Him means not sinning, and doing righteousness means being righteous as He is righteous, which makes possible securing the life that measures with the life of God and having a foretaste of heaven here. The law has not been abolished or altered but remains the standard of righteousness and guide for forming character, without which there would be no standard to identify sin or show God's righteous claims. The definition applies to family life, for parents and children are responsible for obeying God's law including honoring parents, and parents must teach obedience by example as well as instruction, with health reform, brotherly love, and unity belonging to obedience. Whoever abides in Christ does not continue in sin, whoever continues in sin has not seen or known Him, and doing righteousness shows righteousness like Christ's, requiring pressing forward from past mistakes, putting away disputing and fault-finding, and cultivating sanctified aspirations, since no fault-finding spirit will enter heaven.
Sin is the transgression, breaking, and violation of God's law. This is the Bible's only definition of sin, given in plain and decided language. The law meant is God's great moral standard of righteousness, holy, just, good and exceeding broad, summed in supreme love to God and love to neighbor as self. It is unchangeable, immutable and eternal, still alive and binding, and John wrote the definition after Christ's crucifixion, proving the Ten Commandments were not abolished at the cross. As a mirror and perfect standard it exposes guilt and gives the knowledge of sin, but it cannot pardon or save, driving the repentant sinner to faith in Christ's atoning sacrifice for pardon, cleansing, and power to cease transgressing and keep the law.
What Sin Is
Sin is the transgression, breaking, and violation of God's law. This is the Bible's only definition of sin, given in plain and decided language. To know sin is to know this definition and to feel oneself a transgressor of that law, for without the law people cannot know what sin is. Treating sin merely as crimes or failures of honor and patriotism misses this definition, and dealing plainly with sin by it is not contrary to Christian charity.
Even a single instance counts, and transgression in the smallest particular is sin deserving punishment. Departing from God's expressed will is sin even in the least particular, regardless of how small the act seems. Willful violation by thought, word, and deed is sin, and any departure from truthfulness and rectitude is transgression whether small or great and whether committed by rich or poor. Imperfection of character and any variance from God's expressed will are included, and repeated wrongdoing may become habitual without habit lessening its seriousness, for God's principles are immutable.
The law broken is particularly the moral law, yet it also includes every law the Creator established to govern human conduct. God's law includes both natural and spiritual law, both the Ten Commandments and the laws of our being that govern physical life and health. Needless violation of the laws established in the human body is virtually a violation of God's law and is as great a sin as breaking the Ten Commandments, just as much sin as breaking one of the Ten Commandments. Breaking nature's laws is breaking the law of God, so indulgence of appetite and passion, luxurious living, intemperance, and continual violation of natural law are continual transgression, bringing disease and suffering and accounting for accumulated misery, deformity, decrepitude, disease, imbecility, and feebleness in mental, moral, and physical power. The body belongs to its Creator and cannot rightly be treated as one's own to use as one pleases, and ignorance where light is available is itself sin, leaving men responsible to cherish light and learn what is in their highest earthly interest.
Sin is disloyalty to God, disobedience to His commandments, and rebellion against Him. It steps over the boundary from obedience to disobedience and sets the perverse will of man in opposition to the will of his Maker. Rebellion against God's precepts and laws is apostasy and disloyalty, putting rebels under Satan's banner as enemies of God's government, in the ranks of the powers of darkness in the company of the first great apostate who led part of heaven's family into disobedience. Such disobedience denies God's authority and rebels against His government, while obedience to His law protects human happiness and is for man's best interest in this world and surely for his eternal interest. Disregard for His requirements shows failure to respect His authority, and of all creatures on earth man alone is rebellious though he alone possesses reasoning powers to understand the claims of the divine law and a conscience to feel the guilt of transgression and the peace and joy of obedience.
The Law Described
The law in view is God's great moral standard of righteousness, His holy law, exceeding broad and prohibiting every evil thing. It expresses the whole duty of humanity, summed in supreme love to the Lord with all heart and soul and mind and strength and love to neighbor as self. It is a divine standard, not a human standard of comparison with other people, and failure to meet it is sin even when human measures are satisfied. Knowing its far-reaching principles is needful for present and eternal interest, and calling attention to its righteousness barricades the soul against deception.
It is the royal law, lasting as long as God's own throne, distinct from the law of types and shadows. It is the ancient law of Jehovah as old as the world, the old commandment from the beginning, existing at creation and spoken again on Mount Sinai and written on stone as the Ten Commandments with their requirements and prohibitions. Its principles bind angels and all human intelligences, and it demands perfect obedience from rich and poor, high and low. It is not arbitrary and severe, and it remains binding in this dispensation.
John wrote this definition after the crucifixion of Christ, which proves the law was not abolished at the cross. What ceased at His death, when type met antitype, was sacrificial offerings and the ceremonial law of types and shadows. By the crucifixion the law of Ten Commandments was established, and the gospel has not abrogated it nor taken one tittle from its claims, still demanding holiness in every part. To teach that Christ's death ended the royal law is a fatal deception that puts its teachers on the side of war against God's government, and denying that God has a law to govern angels and people denies the very standard whose transgression is sin. Abiding in Christ, who was manifested to take away sin and is without sin, is therefore incompatible with continuing to transgress, and righteousness is shown by doing righteousness.
The law is still alive and binding, unchangeable, immutable, eternal, pure, changeless and perfect, the great moral standard for every created intelligence, written on stone after the fall. Christ's death exalts the law and makes it honorable and testifies to its immutability, for had the law been changeable He need not have suffered on Calvary but took human nature and suffered and died that the transgressor might be pardoned, have another trial, leave rebellion and return to loyalty. To teach that the law is dead or abrogated is a bewitching delusion to immortalize sin, making it appear a virtue to trample God's law and hindering conversion, for if the law were dead sin would become universal and hell would triumph. To represent it as nonbinding gives sinners license to overstep its limits and live in freedom in violation of the commandments, removes the basis of moral responsibility, closes the soul against truth and its practical bearing on the heart, and leaves intemperance, licentiousness, avarice, thefts, perjuries and crimes of every description carried on under the cloak of Christianity. Grace does not set the law aside, and to profess love for Christ while rejecting His law and refusing obedience is opposition to God with a dead faith unsupported by good works.
Where there is no law there is no transgression, and without law there would be no sin. Where there is no breaking of the law there would be no sin and no death, for sin is what brought death into the world. Those who claim the law is abolished live in keeping with that claim by falling into lawlessness, and a lawless people cannot enter heaven to establish another world of the same kind. If the law were abolished, sin and transgression would have no meaning, and there would be no need for the gospel or a Saviour. Christ died as the sinner's substitute, taking the guilt of the transgressor and suffering the penalty of disobedience to bring transgressors back to loyalty and make peace with God possible for every penitent sinner, not to leave them continuing in sin, and His death proves the law changeless, since not one precept could be altered to meet man in his fallen condition.
Setting in First John
John's definition stands with the call to behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed in making sinners sons of God. They are sons now, with a future not yet revealed when they shall be like Christ at His appearing because they shall see Him as He is. That sonship is written in the Lamb's book of life without pride of appearance or outward display, holding before all the possibility of becoming sons and daughters of God and walking uprightly in a crooked and perverse generation. The world does not know them because it did not know Christ, regarding them as degraded, for Christ's deportment and character were different from the worldly standard and beyond its comprehension. The world cannot discern spiritual things, so its estimate of Christian life and virtue is false, and it does not notice even a life sacrificed to uplift fellow men from degradation and make them what God designed them to be.
The verse stands between the hope of seeing Christ as He is and being like Him when He appears, and the truth that Christ was manifested to take away sins. Everyone who has this hope purifies himself from all transgression even as Christ is pure, in contrast to committing sin which is transgressing the law. Having Christ abide in the heart requires constantly beholding Him, not merely thinking of Jesus and speaking of Him occasionally. The definition was written so that none will carelessly continue in sin, proving it is possible to live without sin and calling all to walk in the light of the living God.
It stands with the truth that Christ was manifested to take away sins and not to take away the law that defines sin, and that in Him is no sin and no transgression of the law. Whoever abides in Him constantly does not sin, for abiding means abiding constantly, while whoever sins has not seen Him, has not known Him, and has not accepted Him as personal Saviour. He removes sin when the transgressor confesses sin and purifies himself, making it possible for guilty believing rebels to keep His holy law and practice His righteousness. Claiming sanctification while breaking that law is therefore a deception, for abiding in Him is incompatible with continuing to transgress the law.
It stands with doing righteousness as the mark of being righteous even as He is righteous, while whoever commits sin is of the devil who sins from the beginning. The Son was manifested to take away sins and to destroy the works of the devil, and doing righteousness is keeping the commandments of God. Those who claim to be Christians yet live in sin work against Christ, misrepresent Him, are liars in whom the truth is not, are in terrible deception as blasphemers of God, and unless they cease sinning will be treated as servants of Satan in bondage to sin and without the truth, placed by God in the ranks of the powers of darkness in the company of the first great apostate. True Christians receive the gospel to work righteousness, have free access to God as Father, and love as brethren, for the children of God are manifest by doing righteousness and loving the brother and not following Cain whose works were evil while his brother's were righteous. Passing from death to life is known by loving the brethren, while hating the brother is murder with no eternal life abiding in him, and the love of God perceived because He laid down His life requires laying down lives for the brethren, not shutting up compassion from a brother in need, but loving in deed and in truth by keeping His commandments and believing on the name of Jesus Christ.
The chapter as a whole calls for manliness and firmness in Christian character, for a cheap Christian character works more harm in the world than the character of a worldling when professed Christians mislead others by professing to represent Him whose name they assume without representing Him. Its promises are joined to conditions to be met in the present now, cleansing from all defilement of flesh and spirit and perfecting holiness in reverence and fear of God, because tomorrow is not ours and now is the accepted time and now is the day of salvation. Every soul who has decided to take the name of Christian is under obligation to answer the character of excellence in humanity and reveal Christ's character in works as His chosen representatives to an apostate world, not receiving the grace of God in vain. This requires pressing forward from past mistakes to glorious things ahead, putting away discontent, murmuring, disagreeable words, disputing, quarreling, and a spirit of fault-finding, and cultivating sanctified refined aspirations and worthy ambitions. Its teaching shows the contrast between the principles of Christ and the principles of Satan, calling for learning meekness and lowliness from Christ, speaking as Christ spoke without harsh, passionate, rash words, keeping hereditary and cultivated tendencies under control, having the character daily refined, sanctified, and purified while living under the Saviour's keeping power in faithful service to God, and demonstrating the principles of the perfection of Christ's character in life as a foretaste of heaven, since no fault-finding spirit will enter heaven.
Law Reveals and Judges
The law is God's great moral standard of righteousness, holy and perfect, and sin is known only by testing character against it. It acts as a mirror that shows the perfection of a righteous character and enables the sinner to discern the defects, frailty, depravity, guilt, and exceeding sinfulness in his own. Looking into that divine mirror reveals human defects and the character that must be met, so that a person sees he is a sinner in its light. Until that is seen the need to be free from sin is not felt, and the spirit opposes being led in the way of the Lord. Through faith the truth is then accepted in the heart for purifying and cleansing, and divinity combined with humanity is shown to make it possible to partake of the divine nature, escape corruption through lust, and cease transgressing.
Conviction produced by that knowledge is the first step in being made right with God, in reconciliation, genuine conversion, and true repentance. Sinners must know what sin is before they can desire to be rid of it, for to continue in it is at peril of the soul. The far-reaching principles of the law summed in love to God with all heart, soul, strength, and mind and love to neighbor as self must therefore be properly understood and presented in simplicity so conscience is enlightened and a sense of sin is felt. A sinner must know what the law requires in order to understand what to repent of, and those who have received light about the commandments are not saved while knowingly transgressing them.
The law exposes sin but provides no cure, for there is no saving quality in it to pardon transgression, save, cleanse, or remove its consequences. While it promises life to the obedient it marks death as the portion of the disobedient. Contempt for that moral standard and enmity toward it proves a person does not know what it means to be saved, and those with no respect for the law of the universe cannot be taken to heaven. Godly sorrow under its exposure therefore drives the guilty in repentance toward God whose law was broken and in faith toward Christ and His atoning sacrifice and gospel. Freedom from condemnation and defilement comes only that way, bringing pardon for past sins even the deepest, adoption as a child of God, a new birth that brings the heart into harmony with God and accord with His law, and a passage from death to life, from sin to holiness, and from rebellion to obedience and loyalty.
That same just and holy law is the perfect rule of life by which character is measured and by which all will be judged in the last great day. Each must examine thoughts, words, and works by it as in a mirror and ask whether he is making it void or standing in its vindication. Building character upon that rock by complying with its requirements will stand the close test of judgment for eternity, while erecting a standard of one's own, casting aside the immutable law, and claiming to be perfect is building on sand and will end in loss at the bar of God. The definition is given so sin can be known and put away in order to gain heaven and its joy, with loyalty and walking in its light restoring what was lost through Adam by disobedience. Keeping the commandments remains as necessary now as in Eden and is the condition of eternal life, the tree of life, and entrance through the gates into the city, while no transgressor continuing in sin will enter heaven.
Christ Saves From Sin
Christ was without sin because He obeyed every requirement of the law, kept His Father's commandments with the law in His heart, and never violated even its smallest precept. That sinless obedience qualified Him to become the Sin-bearer of the race, taking human guilt as substitute and surety. His righteousness is imputed to believers because He both died and obeyed every requirement, imparted through faith since none can overcome by own strength, and the law being a transcript of His character, to disregard it is to disregard Him. His perfect obedience makes it possible for those who submit to Him to obey, so that heart, will, mind and thoughts united with Him live His life, clothed with the garment of His righteousness which is perfect obedience covering defilement and deformity so God sees Christ's law-keeping rather than nakedness. He took human nature and suffered and died that lawbreakers might be pardoned, have another trial, leave the banner of rebellion and return to loyalty under the Prince of light, for transgression brought loss of Eden and continuing in it means loss of heaven.
His suffering and death were required because the holy law was broken and could not be set aside, abolished, weakened, or changed in even the smallest item to meet fallen man, but was maintained in all its sacred dignity. He bore the sins of the world as substitute and surety, taking guilt upon Himself, suffering the penalty, curse and wrath of disobedience in His own body to ransom the transgressor, satisfy the demands of justice, and reconcile God to man and man to God. Non-execution of sin's penalty would be a crime in the divine administration, for God as Judge and avenger cannot dispense with His law to pardon sin, since His justice is His holiness in relation to sin, and its rectitude and moral excellence must be maintained and vindicated before the heavenly universe and unfallen worlds. Looking to the cross arouses conscience to see the majesty of the law, the holiness of God, and personal unlikeness to His character, proving the law changeless and revealing both sin's heinousness and God's love in giving Himself to save from eternal ruin all who would believe. He exalted the law and made it honorable by perfect obedience, refusing to permit it to be changed to save the perishing, so that it stands firm, unimpeached, pure, changeless, perfect and immutable as the great moral standard for every created intelligence.
Conviction that sin is breaking God's law is the first step in being made right with God, as the sinner tests character by that great standard as a mirror showing perfection and exposing defects. The law exposes and convicts but has no saving quality to pardon, cleanse or cure; while promising life to the obedient it marks death as the portion of the disobedient, so freedom comes only through the gospel by repentance toward God whose law was broken and faith in Christ as the atoning sacrifice. Through His blood the repentant receive pardon for past sins, washing of defiled character to whiteness, cleansing from even the deepest transgression, adoption as children of God, new birth bringing the heart into harmony with God and accord with His law, passing from death to life, from sin to holiness, and from rebellion to obedience and loyalty. The sinner confesses lawbreaking, rolls the broken law off at the foot of the cross where mercy and truth meet and righteousness and peace kiss, and when accused answers by looking to the Lamb, believing God forgives and takes away unrighteousness, rejoicing with a new song. Law without faith in the gospel cannot save, and gospel without law is inefficient and powerless, so the two must be presented together as a perfect whole.
Grace makes it possible to cease transgressing, keep the law, and with strength God gives obey all His commandments without despair, for they are not burdensome and obedience brings happiness and life without sin in full surrender. Abiding in Christ means not willfully breaking the law by thought, word and deed, for He was manifested to take away sin and in Him is no sin, and doing righteousness by keeping the commandments is being righteous as He is righteous. To profess sanctification, holiness, sinlessness or knowledge of God while openly despising the law, breaking it, and teaching others they may break it without consequence is deception, falsehood and blasphemy; such claimants do not know Christ, have not seen Him, truth is not in them, and whoever breaks the law is of the devil in the ranks of darkness with the first great apostate. The New Testament has not changed God's law and the Sabbath remains binding, so dealing plainly with sin is not contrary to Christian charity and charity does not excuse unconfessed sin.
No sinner can be saved in his sins while knowingly continuing in transgression after light has come revealing what sin is, for there is no excuse to remain in slavery since Christ suffered to redeem from it, and probation is opportunity to return to allegiance. Repentance means turning from breaking the royal law which lasts as long as God's throne, not the law of types and shadows that ended at Christ's death, and to teach that His death ended the royal law is fatal deception siding with Satan's war against God's government. Conversion is turning from transgression to obedience through repentance toward God for His law transgressed and faith toward Jesus as Advocate who pays the penalty incurred and removes stains by His blood, saving from sins not in them, and to tell the disloyal he is guiltless or can be saved continuing in transgression leaves him unconverted. The true believer abhors sin because it caused his Redeemer's suffering, will not continue that grace may abound, casts it away and wars against natural inclinations, with faith not abstract but acting in obedience, walking by faith, Christ living in him, eating and drinking and doing all to God's glory with Christ first and last and best. Without such repentance, claimants to childhood will stand in final judgment no higher than those making no claim, and those refusing self-denial for worldly gain reject self-sacrifice and risk eternal life.
Sin Origin and Consequences
Sin entered existence through rebellion against God's law in heaven, where Satan as the first great apostate disobeyed and drew part of heaven's family with him into disobedience until he and all united with him were cast out of God's presence and paradise. That same transgression lives in the man of sin who exalts himself above all that is called God or worshiped, sits in the temple of God showing himself as God, and speaks as Satan spoke in his heart of ascending into heaven, exalting his throne above the stars of God, and becoming like the Most High, only to be brought down to hell to the sides of the pit. The revealing of that power is now taking place as the great controversy grows stronger near the close of earth's history, calling Christians to show their colors and stand on the Lord's side. On earth sin was first displayed when Adam and Eve broke God's command by listening to flattery and doing what God told them not to do, opening suffering upon the world and bringing disorder, rebellion, and death.
Forgiveness through the promised seed of the woman who would crush the serpent does not make lawbreaking less hateful to God, nor does it remove the terrible end for those who keep breaking the law without repentance. Death stands as the penalty for breaking the law, and Christ met it by becoming substitute, surety, Redeemer, and Intercessor, giving fallen people a second probation with privilege and power to form character like God's. Christ as surety does not weaken or remove obligation to the law, for to change the law would grant Satan's demands and bring God, Christ, and the universe under his claims, and God will still judge the world by Christ to whom all judgment is given. Breaking the law originated with Satan, the prince of evil, who became an apostate in the heavenly courts for a reason God does not reveal, and breaking it brings the curse and stains a character God made untainted. Every man, woman, and child who knowingly breaks the law helps Satan and his evil angels in their warfare against good, is taken captive and chained in bondage to Satan's will, and is used to win others to his side, while Satan still works to tear down God's holy standard of righteousness by misrepresenting God's character, throwing his shadow between man and God to hide God's loveliness, and trampling God's commands underfoot.
Sin is an intruder for whose existence no reason exists, mysterious and unaccountable, impossible to explain and without any cause that can be given for it. It is the outworking of a principle opposed to and at war with the law of love, which is the foundation of God's government. To excuse sin is to defend it, for if sin could be excused and a cause justifying its existence shown, it would cease to be sin. God was in no way responsible for its entrance, with no arbitrary withdrawal of divine grace and no deficiency in the divine government giving occasion for rebellion.
Sin as transgression alienates people from God, separates and cuts off the soul from Him, and leaves His wrath resting upon the sinner. It forfeits the soul and cannot be afforded, so joined to the hope of seeing Christ, every person is called to purify himself as God is pure and to do something to prepare for future immortal life. Disobedience sets the perverse will of man in opposition to the will of his Maker, and its penalty is death; where there is no breaking of the law there would be no sin and no death. If sin had never entered there would have been no misery among His creatures and no discord in heaven or in earth, but disobedience has brought all of it, with guilt, defilement, crime, violence, and iniquity steadily increasing from Eden to the flood and onward. Yielding to strong natural inclination to transgress brings the curse of God more heavily upon mankind, cattle, and earth, with moral, mental, and physical degeneracy until the world is filled with misery of every type, the days of man shortened by his own course, the race depreciated, enfeebled, almost valueless, and generally unable to appreciate Calvary.
To sin against God is no light matter, while to obey His commandments is for man's best interest even in this world and surely for his eternal interest to submit to God and be at peace with Him. Of all creatures God made on earth, man alone is rebellious, though he alone possesses reasoning powers to understand the claims of the divine law and a conscience to feel the guilt of transgression and the peace and joy of obedience, made a free moral agent to obey or disobey while beasts of the field, the proud ocean, and the planets in perfect order obey the laws established for them. Human beings are therefore responsible for their choice, and the reward of everlasting life, an eternal weight of glory, is promised to those who do God's will, while the threatenings of His wrath hang over all who defy His law. Amid the tide of misery a few preserve the knowledge of God unsullied amid moral degeneracy, while the many prefer sin and transgression rather than repentance and obedience relying by faith upon the merits of the offered sacrifice, though that sacrifice is of infinite value to save the whole world and makes a man who avails himself of it more precious than fine gold, and Christ still invites feeble, degenerate humanity to come to Him to have weakness covered and every need supplied. Christ's death as the sinner's substitute, taking the guilt of the transgressor and suffering the penalty of disobedience in his stead to make it possible for every penitent sinner to make peace with God, proves the law is changeless and its claims will not be released even in the slightest degree, for not one precept could be altered to meet man in his fallen condition and death was not necessary to abolish the law.
God does not excuse guilt if a person continues to transgress, yet He can be just and still pardon because the justice, holiness, and truth of Christ are vindicated in the law, so mercy can pardon freely, take away sin, and impute Christ's righteousness. Christ died to make reconciliation and paid all that man owes to God, and by His complete and active obedience brings in everlasting righteousness and clothes the believer with His righteousness so that he shall not continue in sin but perfect a character after Christ's likeness and become a channel to share pardoning love with others. Those who refuse to forsake sin, forgiveness, and grace suffer sin's sure consequence: the unrepentant are destroyed, ending in the destruction of soul and body of every unrepentant sinner. Their experience and destruction are represented as chains of darkness, the undying worm, and unquenched fire, which is unquenchable fire bringing remorse, despair, and hatred. Those grafted into Satan the first transgressor by cherishing sinful attributes will too late see what sin is and realize transgression cut them off from God, and when men stand face to face with eternity with the whole life presented just as it has been, worldly pleasures, riches, and honors will not seem important and the righteousness they despised will be seen as alone of value. They will see that under Satan's deceptive allurements they fashioned their characters and that the garments they chose are the badge of allegiance to the first great apostate, with the truth that sin is transgression brought vividly before sinners as God's judgments fall upon a disobedient world in the short time before Christ's coming and wrongdoers feel the consequences as a living reality.
Sabbath Prophecy and Obedience
Sin is breaking God's law, so breaking the fourth commandment by working on the Sabbath for worldly profit is sin even when circumstances make it seem convenient or beneficial. Refusing to keep the Sabbath breaks the law and puts salvation in question, for the written commands still define sin and must be believed just as they read, including the Sabbath command. Setting aside God's sanctified seventh-day Sabbath, His memorial of making the world in six days and resting the seventh, and putting a rival spurious sabbath in its place is breaking the law and therefore sin, a sacrilegious work of Satan carried out through the papal power. That power is the man of sin, and whoever commits such sin is of the devil who sins from the beginning, while Christ was manifested to take away sins and to destroy the works of the devil, and in Him is no sin. Babylon's denounced guilt is lawbreaking, specifically disregarding the only commandment that points out the true God and tearing down the Sabbath, God's memorial of creation sanctified and set apart as holy.
Thinking to change times and laws by placing the first day where the seventh should be, accepting a spurious rest day, giving sanction to a false Sabbath and trampling the Sabbath of the Lord, exalting human laws above God's law, and compelling others to work on the seventh and rest on the first are transgression that makes partakers of her sins, causes sins to reach unto heaven, and brings the wine of the wrath of God. Compelling people to obey human laws that conflict with God's law is therefore sin, in particular replacing the seventh-day Sabbath sanctified as a sign between God and His people with Sunday, which is where the man of sin finds his place in prophecy. People sin when they use freedom to choose Satan's path of self-gratification instead of obeying God, bringing the stated penalty, rejecting God's commandments, bringing unrighteousness into the world, and upholding Satan's principles. The law binds every person, and the Sabbath is a sign of God's government, so keeping the day God sanctified in Eden identifies a person with God's kingdom, while replacing it with a spurious sabbath bears the mark of rebellion. Careful study of God's word shows that accepting the first day of the week as the Sabbath is a mistake.
The man of sin lives out transgression by exalting himself above all that is called God or worshiped, sitting in the temple of God and displaying himself as God. The same transgression was in Satan, who said in his heart he would ascend into heaven, exalt his throne above the stars of God, and be like the Most High, and who will be brought down to hell to the sides of the pit. This revealing is now taking place as the great controversy grows stronger near the close of this earth's history, when Christians must show their colors and show they are on the Lord's side. Breaking the law by working contrary to God's commandments is following Satan instead of God, exalting Satan's principles above the principles that rule in heaven, uniting with the great deceiver, abusing freedom, and bringing unrighteousness into the world under plainly stated penalty. In these last days, when Daniel is unsealed and the first, second, and third angels' messages are proclaimed, those in the denominational churches who will not accept the light in regard to the law of God remain in transgression and therefore do not understand, fulfilling that many shall be purified and made white and tried, but the wicked shall do wickedly and none of the wicked shall understand.
The Bible's only definition of sin as transgression of the law means refraining from sin is keeping the commandments. This life is probationary time for waiting to receive His commandments and preparing for a higher school, so that when Christ comes He can call His children to come up higher. Christ came to redeem from the curse of the law and to rescue the world from the consequence of sin, drawing it back into harmony with God and reuniting it with heaven, making man His co-laborer by keeping the commandments. The third chapter is a Sabbath message for believers including those keeping their first Sabbath, holding intense interest, teaching the love of God and the need to know whether one stands on the adversary's side or on the side of Christ who kept His Father's commandments, a decision sealed in baptism. Those living in the great antitypical Day of Atonement must cease to sin and put sin away, with special preparation to have sins taken away through humility, confessing sins so they may go beforehand to judgment, drawing nearer to God, and clinging to Christ who is able to cleanse from all unrighteousness and wash away every stain of sin, so pardon is written against the name without giving way to discouragement.
To renounce sin is to forsake sin and bring the life into conformity with the law in perfect obedience, in harmony with the mind and will of Christ. This requires entire surrender to God, for when that surrender is not made sin is not forsaken, appetites and passions strive for mastery, temptations confuse the senses, and true conversion does not take place. Conformity to the law that follows real renunciation is the work of the Holy Spirit, so candidates for baptism need much more thorough preparation to see the necessity of entire surrender. Transgression must be plainly shown to God's professed people, calling for entire consecration and deep, vital, practical godliness instead of worldly compromise and conformity. At a time when Satan is transformed into an angel of light and the path of duty is obscured, when professed Christians bear only the name with slightest resemblance to self-denying, cross-lifting, Christ-following Christians, God's watchmen must cry aloud, spare not, and lift up the voice like a trumpet to show His people their transgressions and sins.
Rebellion against God's precepts and laws is apostasy and disloyalty to God, putting rebels under Satan's banner as enemies of God's government. Jesus as Restorer came to lift men from depths of woe and misery and did not intend His purchased people to live and die in their sins, for He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Because many professing Christians work with the great apostate and let Satan plan for them, few are reached and saved, laying severe taxing labor on the true Christian who must convince the transgressor that he is a sinner by showing his conduct breaks the law. Ministers must explain that sin is transgression and where there is no law there is no transgression, and must clearly show what sin is and what conversion from sin means. A living connection with Jesus leads to salvation, for by faith sinners take Him as personal Saviour and entrust sins to Him the Sin-bearer who takes them away, with the convicted breaker of God's law exercising repentance toward God for breaking His law and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ.
Those who preach the gospel must do their duty by living as examples to the flock and lifting voices like a trumpet to show people their law-breaking, distinctly defining what sin is and what turning from sin is. The law is the ancient law of Jehovah as old as the world, the law of the ten commandments with its requirements and prohibitions, still binding in this dispensation and not arbitrary and severe. To represent the law as nonbinding gives sinners license to overstep God's law, opens a life of freedom in violation of God's commandments after the manner of the great adversary, removes moral responsibility, closes avenues of the soul to truth with its practical bearings, and leaves intemperance, licentiousness, avarice, thefts, perjuries and crimes of every description carried on under the cloak of Christianity. The rescued and outcasts must be taught the meaning of sin to stand against appetite, and sinners pointed to Christ as the only remedy. A person who serves God strives to obey His commandments, and obedience shows whose cause that person stands for.
Sin does not mean giving up hope in Christ or stopping trying to obey, for Satan tempts to sin and then urges despair of keeping the commandments. With the strength God gives, people can obey all His commandments, which are not burdensome, and obedience brings happiness. The third chapter is to be studied by youth, students in schools and sanitariums, workers in printing offices, instructors, and those in charge of publishing houses, to be believed and practiced, holding before youth the possibility of becoming sons and daughters of God and walking uprightly in a crooked and perverse generation, showing the contrast between Christ's principles and Satan's. Its teaching calls for learning meekness and lowliness from Christ, speaking as Christ spoke without harsh, passionate, rash words, keeping hereditary and cultivated tendencies under control, and having character daily refined, sanctified, and purified while living under the Saviour's keeping power in faithful service. Persisting in repining, discontent, faultfinding, murmuring, quarreling and disagreeable words is sin that bars entrance to heaven.
The hope of being called sons of God and made like Christ when He appears requires purifying oneself even as Christ is pure by putting away past imperfections, striving for unity and love, laying hold on faithful daily service, reflecting the divine image in words and works, following the self-denying Redeemer in meekness and lowliness, and rejoicing always with thankful praise. Christ was manifested to take away sins, abiding in Him means not sinning, and doing righteousness means being righteous as He is righteous, which makes possible securing the life that measures with the life of God and having a foretaste of heaven here. The law has not been abolished or altered but remains the standard of righteousness and guide for forming character, without which there would be no standard to identify sin or show God's righteous claims. The definition applies to family life, for parents and children are responsible for obeying God's law including honoring parents, and parents must teach obedience by example as well as instruction, with health reform, brotherly love, and unity belonging to obedience. Whoever abides in Christ does not continue in sin, whoever continues in sin has not seen or known Him, and doing righteousness shows righteousness like Christ's, requiring pressing forward from past mistakes, putting away disputing and fault-finding, and cultivating sanctified aspirations, since no fault-finding spirit will enter heaven.