Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mailrus!iuvax!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu (David M Tate) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: sin Message-ID: Date: 17 Dec 89 07:08:51 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh, Comp & Info Services Lines: 30 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu [David Tate originally said >make this a passage about relative "badness" of sins, you need the highly >suspect additional assumption that "sin" is simply action which is not in >accordance with the Law. This message is a response to Dave Mielke's reply: >God Himself defines sin as a breaking of His law. 1 John 3:4 says >"Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the >transgression of the law.". --clh] Absolutely, for the law says "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy sould and with all thy strength and with all thy mind." The sinful man, try as he might, does not. He thus breaks the Law. Sin is the transgression of the law not because that's the definition of sin, but because only the sinful transgress, and all the sinful transgress. The two are not identical, but they are equivalent. If sin were merely the breaking of some commandment, that would mean that Jesus differed from other men only in that he didn't happen to break any Laws. Not quite my idea of a "sacrifice without blemish" for such a magnficent ransom. (The irreverent might even hint that He cheated, only sticking around for 30 years to make it easier :-) ). I prefer to see Jesus's sinlessness as a more fundamental attribute. Jesus was Unfallen Man paying for the sinfulness of Fallen Man. -- David M. Tate | DISCLAIMER: dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu | "Hey, that's *my* dis!" _____________________________________________________________________________ Statistics is the science of inferring the obvious and the false.