Luke 12:47, 48—“shall be beaten with many stripes ... shall be beaten with few stripes”; Rom. 2:6—“who will render to every man according to his works.” See also John 19:11—“he that delivered me unto thee hath greater sin”; Heb. 2:2, 3—if “every transgression ... received a just recompense of reward; how shall we escape, if we neglect so great a salvation?” 10:28, 29—“A man that hath set at nought Moses' law dieth without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, think ye, shall he be judged worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God?”
Casuistry, however, has drawn many distinctions which lack Scriptural foundation. Such is the distinction between venial sins and mortal sins in the Roman Catholic Church,—every sin unpardoned being mortal, and all sins being venial, since Christ has died for all. Nor is the common distinction between sins of omission and sins of commission more valid, since the very omission is an act of commission.
Mat. 25:45—“Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of these least”; James 4:17—“To him therefore that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” John Ruskin: “The condemnation given from the Judgment Throne—most solemnly described—is for all the ‘undones’ and not the ‘dones.’ People are perpetually afraid of doing wrong; but unless they are doing its reverse energetically, they do it all day long, and the degree does not matter.” The Roman Catholic Church proceeds upon the supposition that she can determine the precise malignity of every offence, and assign its proper penance at the confessional. Thornwell, Theology, 1:424-441, says that “all sins are venial but one—for there is a sin against the Holy Ghost,” yet “not one is venial in itself—for the least proceeds from an apostate state and nature.” We shall see, however, that the hindrance to pardon, in the case of the sin against the Holy Spirit, is subjective rather than objective.
J. Spencer Kennard: “Roman Catholicism in Italy presents the spectacle of the authoritative representatives and teachers of morals and religion themselves living in all forms of deceit, corruption, and tyranny; and, on the other hand, discriminating between venial and mortal sin, classing as venial sins lying, fraud, fornication, marital infidelity, and even murder, all of which may be atoned for and forgiven or even permitted by the mere payment of money; and at the same time classing as mortal sins disrespect and disobedience to the church.”
The following distinctions are indicated in Scripture as involving different degrees of guilt:
A. Sin of nature, and personal transgression.
Sin of nature involves guilt, yet there is greater guilt when this sin of nature reasserts itself in personal transgression; for, while this latter includes in itself the former, it also adds to the former a new element, namely, the conscious exercise of the individual and personal will, by virtue of which a new decision is made against God, special evil habit is induced, and the total condition of the soul is made more depraved. Although we have emphasized the guilt of inborn sin, because this truth is most contested, it is to be remembered that men reach a conviction of their native depravity only through a conviction of their personal transgressions. For this reason, by far the larger part of our preaching upon sin should consist in applications of the law of God to the acts and dispositions of men's lives.
Mat. 19:14—“to such belongeth the kingdom of heaven”—relative innocence of childhood; 23:32—“Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers”—personal transgression added to inherited depravity. In preaching, we should first treat individual transgressions, and thence proceed to [pg 649]heart-sin, and race-sin. Man is not wholly a spontaneous development of inborn tendencies, a manifestation of original sin. Motives do not determine but they persuadethe will, and every man is guilty of conscious personal transgressions which may, with the help of the Holy Spirit, be brought under the condemning judgment of conscience. Birks, Difficulties of Belief, 169-174—“Original sin does not do away with the significance of personal transgression. Adam was pardoned: but some of his descendants are unpardonable. The second death is referred, in Scripture, to our own personal guilt.”
This is not to say that original sin does not involve as great sin as that of Adam in the first transgression, for original sin is the sin of the first transgression; it is only to say that personal transgression is original sin plus the conscious ratification of Adam's act by the individual. “We are guilty for what we are, as much as for what we do. Our sin is not simply the sum total of all our sins. There is a sinfulness which is the common denominator of all our sins.” It is customary to speak lightly of original sin, as if personal sins were all for which man is accountable. But it is only in the light of original sin that personal sins can be explained. Prov. 14:9, marg.—“Fools make a mock at sin.”Simon, Reconciliation, 122—“The sinfulness of individual men varies; the sinfulness of humanity is a constant quantity.” Robert Browning, Ferishtah's Fancies: “Man lumps his kind i' the mass. God singles thence unit by unit. Thou and God exist—So think! for certain: Think the mass—mankind—Disparts, disperses, leaves thyself alone! Ask thy lone soul what laws are plain to thee,—Thou and no other, stand or fall by them! That is the part for thee.”
B. Sins of ignorance, and sins of knowledge.