Additional Note F: SIN
Additional Note F: SIN
“Nowhere do we see more clearly the difference between paganism and Christianity than in the conception of sin.”176 These words highlight an important point, for in the ancient world generally sin was not thought of as a very serious matter, certainly not nearly as serious as it was in the Christian understanding of things. We do not always realize how distinctive of Christianity was its attitude towards evil of every kind.
In the New Testament no one takes sin as seriously as does Paul, and nowhere does he treat it as fully as in Romans, especially chapters 5–7. The noun ἁμαρτία occurs 173 times in the New Testament, of which 64 are in Paul and no less than 48 in Romans. This is far and away the largest number in any one book, the next most frequent being Hebrews with 25. Paul similarly has a preponderance of the occurrences of the verb ἁμαρτάνω, with 17 (seven in Romans) out of 42 (1 John has it ten times); he has ἁμάρτημα twice (out of five). Paul sees all people as sinners; that is the thrust of his sustained argument from 1:18 to 3:20. He points out that the Gentiles (who do not have God’s law as revealed to Moses) are sinners, but so are the Jews (who have that law and break it). Universal sinfulness is the subject of an explicit statement in 3:23 as well as being implicit in many places. Sin is our basic problem, for it pervades our members (6:19; 7:23); it affects our thinking (1:21; Eph. 4:17–18); it is a ruling power (5:21) tyrannizing people as its slaves (6:20; 7:14, 23, 25). People may will the good but find evil at hand (7:21); they may will, but not to do the good (7:18). Sin is allied to death (5:21; 6:23; 8:10; 1 Cor. 15:56; Eph. 2:1), and indeed it kills people (7:11). It is linked, surprisingly, to law (7:8). It is also linked to flesh (7:25), which is important because “the mind of the flesh is enmity against God” (8:7). The connection between sin and flesh is emphasized in Paul’s list of the “works of the flesh” (Gal. 5:19–21; notice that the list includes sins like selfishness as well as more gross sins like fornication). Paul can use “sin” of a particular act (2 Cor. 11:7), but he is much more likely to use it of the general principle, the power that does us so much harm.
He sees the origin of sin in Adam, and in 5:12–19 he has a strong argument that Adam’s sin infected the whole race and brought death in its train. The result is that man is a sinner “not only because of what he does, but also because of what he is”.177 He has inherited from Adam a sinful nature (5:12). Sin lives in people (7:17, 20), and people live in sin (7:25). They are “by nature” children of wrath (Eph. 2:3). Paul insists that God is active in punishing sin, and he has a good deal to say about the wrath of God, which, of course, is directed at sinners. In Romans 1 he tells his readers three times that God gave sinners up to the punishment of their sin (1:24; 26, 28).
But Paul’s really great thought about sin is that Christ has overcome it. Christ died for our sins (1 Cor. 15:3; Gal. 1:4); and, in a difficult expression, God made him sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21).178 Because of Christ’s death sin no longer reigns (Rom. 6:12, 14); believers are free (6:18, 22; 8:2). Christ’s death once and for all avails for sin (6:10; cf. 1 Cor. 15:3; Gal. 1:4). This is the heart of the gospel that Paul gave himself over to proclaiming. It would seem that in his early life as “a Hebrew of the Hebrews” Paul did not see sin in quite the same way as he later came to view it. He could think of himself then as “blameless” (Phil. 3:6). But the cross changed all that. The cross shows the love of God for what it is, but also the evil of sin for what it is. Sin must be a very horrible thing indeed if it took the death of the Son of God to put it away. Grundmann sees Paul’s view of sin as “orientated to the revelation of God in Christ. Hence it is not an empirical doctrine of sin based on pessimism.” He goes on to sum up Paul’s view in two propositions: “1. The Christ event comes upon man in a specific reality, i.e., his reality as a sinner. 2. It comes upon him in any event which rescues him from this reality and reconstitutes him” (TDNT, I, p. 308).
This means more than forgiveness. The “righteous ordinance of the law” is fulfilled in Christians (8:4); believers are new creatures (2 Cor. 5:17; cf. Col. 1:13). They have died to an entire way of life and risen to a new one (6:2–11). They are transformed and their mind is renewed (12:2; cf. Col. 1:13). As those who have been bought at a great price, they are to glorify God in their bodies (1 Cor. 6:19–20). So it is that while the preaching of the cross seems folly to perishing sinners, those being saved find it “the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:23–24).
A tension arises from all this, for the believer is both delivered from sin and at war with sin: “if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness” (8:10). Christians do not lead defeated lives, constantly at the mercy of every temptation. They are liberated, triumphant. But that does not mean a life of ease, free from all temptation. The decisive victory has been won, but the war still drags on. Temptations still come, and evil must be defeated every day. Yet Paul sees final victory as assured and knows that in due course the fulness of glory will be revealed (8:18, 30). But for now the Christian must be on guard, knowing what victory is like but still waging the war.179