《The Biblical Illustrator – Romans (Ch. 6b~8a)》

V. The same doctrine arises and receives new force from a general view of the world and of its establishments. Mankind are collected everywhere into societies; these societies are bound by laws and united under distinct governments. What, then, is the great object of laws and of society itself? To protect from injury, or, in other words, to restrain vice. The different establishments of religion have the same object.

VI. The malignity of vice will be made manifest from a view of the effects which, notwithstanding all the precautions we can take, it has produced and is producing daily among mankind. The earthquakes which overturn the cities are not more fatal than the extensive and continued movements with which it agitates our system. No barriers avail, no defences are found sufficient. Though mankind are everywhere arrayed against it, yet it breaks in and spreads misery and destruction round it. The happiness of individuals, the peace of families, the order of society, and the harmony of nations are swept before it. In private and public life what disorders and distress does it accumulate! It produces want, infamy, and death. But the effects of it in private life, amazing as they are, fall vastly short, both in number and extent of mischief, of its effects in public. Here it acts upon a larger theatre, and displays itself more fully as it acts without restraint.

VII. It will complete this argument to observe that revelation agrees perfectly with reason in her views of vice and holds it out as the same malignant and fatal enemy. On the other hand, representing vice as the source of misery, Scripture discovers the Supreme Being, the wise and benevolent Parent of His creation, as obstructing its progress; extracting, in the first instance, all the good possible from it; and, in the last, taking the strongest measures to defeat and expel it finally from the system. (J. Mackenzie, D. D.)

The monster dragged to light

I. To many men sin does not appear sin.

1. In all men there is an ignorance of what sin is. Man will not come to the light lest he should know more than he wishes to know: Moreover, such is the power of self-esteem that the sinner seldom dreams that he has committed anything worse than little faults.

2. This is due--

3. Thus you see a few of the reasons why sin cheats impenitent and self-righteous minds. This is one of the most deplorable results of sin. It injures us most by taking from us the capacity to know how much we are injured. Sin, like the deadly frost, benumbs its victim ere it slays him. Man is so diseased that he fancies his disease to be health, and judges healthy men to be under wild delusions. He loves the enemy which destroys him, and warms at his bosom the viper. The most unhappy thing that can happen to a man is for him to be sinful and to judge his sinfulness to be righteousness. The persecutor hounded his fellow creature to prison and to death, but he thought he verily did God service. With the ungodly this pestilential influence is very powerful, leading them to cry “peace, peace,” where there is no peace. And also even John Newton, in the slave trade, never seemed to have felt that there was any wrong; nor Whitefield in accepting slaves for his orphanage in Georgia.

4. Before we can be restored to the image of Christ, we must be taught to know sin to be sin; and we must have a restoration of the tenderness of conscience which would have been ours had we never fallen. A measure of this discernment and tenderness of judgment is given to us at conversion; for conversion, apart from it, would be impossible. Unless sin is seen to be sin, grace will never be seen to be grace, nor Jesus to be a Saviour.

II. Where sin is most clearly seen, it appears to be sin.

1. There is a depth of meaning in the expression, “Sin, that it might appear sin”--as if the apostle could find no other word so terribly descriptive of sin as its own name.

2. Sin must appear to be sin against God; we must say with David, “Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned,” and with the prodigal, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before Thee.” Think how odious a thing sin is.

3. It would appear that Paul made the discovery of sin as sin through the light of one of the commands (verse 7).

III. The sinfulness of sin is most clearly seen in its perverting the rest of things to deadly purposes. “Working death in me by that which is good.” God’s law, which ordained to life, for “He that doeth these things shall live in them,” is wilfully disobeyed, and so, sin turns the law into an instrument of death. It does worse still. It is a strange propensity of our nature, that there are many things which we lust after as soon as they are forbidden.

1. How many there are who turn the abounding mercy of God, as proclaimed in the gospel, into a reason for further sin!

2. There are individuals who have greatly sinned, and escaped the natural consequences. God has been very longsuffering; and therefore they defy Him again, and return presumptuously to their former habits.

3. Look again at thousands of prosperous sinners whose riches are their means of sinning. They have all that heart can wish, and instead of being doubly grateful to God they are proud and thoughtless, and deny themselves none of the pleasures of sin.

4. The same evil is manifested when the Lord threatens.

5. We have known persons in adversity who ought to have been led to God by their sorrow, but instead have become careless of all religion, and east off all fear of God.

6. Familiarity with death and the grave often hardens the heart, and none become more callous than grave diggers and those who carry dead men to their graves.

7. Some transgress all the more because they have been placed under the happy restraints of godliness. As gnats fly at a candle as soon as ever they catch sight of it, so do these infatuated ones dash into evil. The younger son had the best of fathers, and yet he could never be quiet till he had gained his independence, and had brought himself to beggary in a far country.

8. Men who live in times when zealous and holy Christians abound, are often the worse for it. When the Church is asleep the world says, “Ah, we do not believe your religion, for you do not act as if you believed it yourselves,” but the moment the Church bestirs herself, the world cries, “They are a set of fanatics; who can put up with their ravings?” Sin is thus seen to be exceeding sinful. The Lord brings good out of evil, but sin brings evil out of good. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

That sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.--

Sin established by the law

1. In the natural world there are several elements that are generally beneficent, notwithstanding that certain combinations among them are pernicious. But in the moral world there is an element which is wholly and always bad, viz., evil or sin. This is a mighty and permanent reality, and is perceived in some degree by all, however dull their apprehension. But to apprehend, in any due measure, its extreme malignity is a rare attainment; for it infects the very judgment which is to estimate it.

2. But nothing is more necessary than that there should be a clear understanding of the quality of sin, and a strong impression of it, because fatal consequences are involved in insensibility. The man, not aware what a dreadful serpent he has to deal with, being easy in its presence, playing with it, will certainly be destroyed.

3. In what way are men to be apprised of the quality of sin? All men, indeed, are in some general manner apprised of it, by seeing what dreadful mischief it does; but this gives but a crude and limited apprehension of it. It is the Divine law spiritually apprehended that must expose the essential nature of “that abominable thing.”

4. As the Maker of creatures who are to be wholly dependent on Him, God must necessarily have them under His sovereign authority. He must have a will with respect to the state of their dispositions and the order of their actions. And He must perfectly know what is right for them. He would therefore prescribe a law unless He should will to constitute His creatures such that they must necessarily act right, leaving no possibility of their going wrong. In that case, there would be no need of a formal law. But the Almighty did not so constitute any natures that we know of. Even angels could err and fall. Therefore a law is appointed. And proceeding from a perfectly holy Being, it could not do less than prescribe a perfect holiness in all things; for a law not requiring perfect rectitude would give a sanction to sin. And again, a law from such an Author cannot accommodate itself to an imperfect and fallen state of those on whom it is imposed; for this would allow all the vast amount of unholiness beyond. The economy of mercy is quite another matter. That reveals a possibility of pardon to the creature’s failure of conformity to the Divine law; but it pardons the failure as guilt. And look into the sacred volume, and see whether the Jaw has been accommodated to man’s imperfection. Can we conceive how law could be more high and comprehensive than as there set forth? (J. Foster.)

The sinfulness of sin

(Children’s Sermon):--The course usually taken to explain the meaning of words is to use other words. We do not say that laziness is lazy, that goodness is good, that cowardice is cowardly. We try to exhibit in different words what these things mean. And yet Paul, when he tells us what sin really is, can call it by no worse name than its own. Notice the things to which the Bible likens sin--darkness, scarlet and crimson, filth, chains of slavery, incurable disease, gall of bitterness, poison, the sting of an adder, the burning of fire, death. And we obtain the proper idea of sin when we place it beside the holy law. Put coal beside a diamond, and it will seem all the blacker. Look up at the clouds some stormy day, when the sun breaks out for a moment between them, and they appear the darker and mere dismal. So God would have us look at sin in close comparison with His holy law, so that we may see how exceeding sinful it is.

I. It is deceitful (verse 11). It makes many fair promises, but always breaks them. It holds out many joys, but gives much sorrow. There once sailed from New Orleans a steamer laden with cotton, which, while being taken aboard, became slightly moistened by rain. During the first part of the voyage all went well, but one day there was a cry of “Fire!” and in a few moments the ship was enveloped in flames. The damp and closely packed cotton had become heated; it smouldered away, until at last it burst out into flame, and nothing could stop it. Now, that is like sin in the heart. All the while it is working away, but no one perceives it, until, in an unexpected moment, it breaks out into some awful deed of wickedness. Beware, then, of this fatal cheat. “Take heed lest any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”

II. It makes unclean. It puts a soil upon us which all the soap and water in the world cannot wash away. It defiles and pollutes the whole soul, and is likened in the Bible to leprosy.

III. It is ruinous. Sin is a master who always pays with death. Years ago a young man went to Mexico. The war which broke out not long after put an end to the business of all Americans residing there, and to his among the rest. When the war closed he presented to the Government a claim for the loss of a silver mine, which he said he owned in Mexico, and was paid £84,000. He dashed about for a time in great style. But, suspicions being aroused, gentlemen were sent to Mexico to ascertain the truth. The whole thing proved a fraud, and the young man was sentenced to solitary confinement for ten years. Unable to bear his shameful fate, he poisoned himself, thus fulfilling that passage: “Be that pursueth evil, pursueth it to his own death.” Another young man, an Englishman, related to persons of high rank, having committed forgery in order to keep up a dissipated life, was sentenced to be hung. While in prison a minister went to see him, and urged him to repent of his sins, and trust in Jesus, who was able to save to the uttermost. He listened with much impatience, and then said: “Sir, I honour your motives. I am not ignorant of the truths you have been stating. But I am not so mean and cowardly as to cry for mercy, when I know it cannot be shown me. I cannot feel, and I will not pray.” Then, pointing to the pavement on which he stood, he continued, “You see that stone: it is an image of my heart, insensible to all the impressions you are striving to make.” Is not the way of the transgressor hard? Some of the heathen, to please their gods, go out in a little boat, with a vessel in their hand to fill it with water. By degrees the boat becomes fuller and fuller, sinks to its edge, trembles for an instant, and then goes down with its occupant. And this is just what is continually going on with every sinner.

IV. It is hateful. It is hateful on all the accounts we have just noticed, because it is deceitful, defiling, and ruinous. And it is hateful in its own nature, because it is directly opposed to the holy God. There are three solemn scenes in the Bible which lead us to determine that sin must be unspeakably hateful in the sight of God. The drowning waters of the Deluge, the crucifixion of God’s beloved Son, and the devouring fires of hell, are all most certain witnesses of the exceeding sinfulness of sin. (E. Woods.)

The sinfulness of sin

I. There is a great deal of evil and sinfulness in sin.

1. In the general. This may appear--

(a) Separation from God the chief good (Isaiah 59:2).

(b) Union to Satan (John 8:44). Sin makes us the children of the devil.

(c) The death of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 2:24).

(d) A general curse upon the whole creation (Genesis 3:17).

(e) The soiling and staining of all our glory, and the image of God in us (Romans 3:23).

(f) Horror of conscience.

(g) Sin is that brimstone that hell fire feeds upon to all eternity.

2. More particularly--

(a) That leprosy is worst which is most universal and over-spreading. Now sin spreads over all our faculties: our understanding, reason, will, affections.

(b) That disease is worst which is most incurable; and no human remedy has been found for sin.

(c) That is most formidable which is most unwearied, and sin is as unwearied as the fountain in sending up water.

(a) Sin under the gospel is sinning against the remedy, and against the greatest obligations. By our sinning under the gospel we sin against mercy and grace, and thereby engage God, our greatest friend, to become our greatest adversary.

(b) The more repugnancy there is betwixt the sin and the sinner the greater is the sin. Now, there is a special repugnancy betwixt the gospel and a man that sins under the gospel; for he professes the contrary, and therefore sin there is the greater.

(c) The more hurtful any sin is the greater is that sin: sinning under the gospel is very hurtful to ourselves; as poison taken in something that is warm is the most venomous, so sin under the gospel is the deadliest poison, because it is warmed with gospel heat; and it is hurtful to others, because they are hardened.

(d) The more that a man casts contempt upon the great things of God by his sin the greater and worse is his sin. Sins under the gospel cast contempt upon the glory of God, the glorious offer of His grace.

(e) The more costly and chargeable any sin is the worse it is. Now, a man that sins under the gospel cannot sin at so cheap a rate as another (Luke 12:47).

II. Though there be thus much evil in sin, this doth not appear to man until he turns unto God: till then his sin is dead, but then it is revived.

1. For--

2. But you will say, How comes this to pass?

III. When a man turns unto the Lord, then sin appears in its sinfulness. For then--

1. He is weary and heavy laden under the burden of his sin; the more weary he is the more sin appears evil (Matthew 11:28).

2. Then he sees God, and not till then; the more a man sees the glory, goodness, wisdom, and holiness of God the more sin appears in its sinfulness (Isaiah 6:5; Job 42:5-6).

3. Then a man sees Christ crucified, and not till then; and there is nothing can give us such a sight of sin as that (Romans 3:20).

4. When a man hath got the true prospect of hell, and of the wrath of God, then sin appears sinful.

5. When a man’s heart is filled with the love of God, and possessed with the Holy Ghost, then sin appears to him to be very sinful (John 16:8). (W. Bridge, M. A.)

The exceeding sinfulness of sin

I. As to the sin itself. It is a sin which is inward in the heart, not outward in the life (verse 17). A sin which gives being to all other sins, and gives strength for the performance. A sin which dwelleth in us (verse 17), is ever present with us (verse 21), an inherent, deceitful, tyrannical evil (verses 11, 20, 23), is ever presenting occasion of sinning, and pushing on the soul to acts of sin. What can this be but the sin of our nature, or that perverse propensity to sin which is derived as a punishment of the first man’s first offence!

1. It is a plague which has infected the whole man. The understanding, what is it but the seat of darkness, misapprehension, and error? (Romans 3:11). What is the will bat enmity and rebellion against God (John 5:40)? The affections, which are as wings to raise the soul to God and heavenly things, are turned quite downwards, being set on things on the earth. Conscience itself is become defiled by this sinful sin, so that it neither witnesses, reproves, or judges, according to God’s direction, but becomes first easy, then remiss, next hardened and feared. Yea, our very memories are drawn over to the corrupt part; like leaky vessels, whatever is good and pure they let out, and keep in little but what is filthy and evil. Yea, these very bodies of ours are become vile bodies, through sin that dwelleth in us; subject to diseases and corruptions, and are tempters of the soul to sin, and servants of it in all outward acts of sinning (verse 5).

2. It is the cause of all those sins which are in the life (James 1:14). This is the fountain, particular sins are but the streams.

3. This sin of our nature is, virtually, all sin. Sin in the gross, in all the seeds of it; the combustible matter which only waits for outward occasions and temptations to blow it into a flame; it is a body which hath many members, and it is working in order to make provision for them all.

4. It is more durable and abiding than all other sins, therefore more exceedingly sinful. It may change its course in a natural man, but it never loses its power.

5. It is exceeding sinful sin, because it is ever encompassing and warring against the soul, in whom it dwells. It envenoms every action, every thought and duty, which proceed from the regenerate themselves.

6. It is an hereditary evil; all men are defiled with it, therefore all are concerned in it (1 Corinthians 15:22).

II. How, or by what means, the exceeding sinfulness of this sin appears. “That sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.”

1. By the commandment, therefore, we are in understand the whole moral law which the Spirit of God has given on purpose, and which He ever makes use of to convince of sin.

2. How sin is made by the commandment to appear exceeding sinful?

III. Why is it that God suffers the motions of sin, in such whom He knows to be His own, to be so exceeding violent and dreadful? In general it is that the sin of our nature might always appear sin.

1. Therefore such a fight as this sets and keeps open a spring of repentance towards God always. The sin of our nature is what we are to be humbled for, and to repent of, every day we live (Ezekiel 16:61).

2. Another use of the prevalency of corrupt nature in the saints is to divorce them from their own righteousness, and to slay carnal confidence in them all their life long.

3. It is to show the suitableness of Christ as the believer’s surety, and to stir us up unto more earnest believing every day.

4. These workings of sin are of use to make us very watchful in our Christian walk. Where there is godly mourning there will be godly fear; both are where there is a due apprehension of the sinfulness of that sin that dwelleth in us.

Uses:

1. Is there so much sin in us? Let this silence all murmurings against God under the burden of our afflictions.

2. Is the sin of our nature so exceeding sinful? Then let the youngest lay it to heart.

3. Does sin by the law become exceeding sinful? Then the law is a blessing as well as the gospel. The one shows what the disease is, the other directs to the only remedy.

4. See the wisdom of God in making the greatest contraries work together for His people’s good. Even the working of sin in the regenerate is a means of quickening their trust upon Christ and their life in Him. (John Hill.)

The sinfulness of sin

We can best estimate the extent of any good by filling our minds with the vastness of the evil which that good was destined to take away. If I were standing upon the margin of the sea, and pondered the greatness of its capacity, and, as I thought, some vast mountain were to roll itself into its bosom and disappear, would not the thought help me to the exceeding depth of those mighty waters? So, by God’s grace, the contemplation of the enormity of my “sin” will assist me to some measure of that love in which that enormity has been absorbed.

I. What is “sin”?

1. The transgression of the law. Our first parents had a law--“Thou shalt not eat of it.” They transgressed that one law, and it was “sin.” We have one law--love. We transgress it, and it is “sin.”

2. Rebellion--the resistance of a human mind against the sovereignty of its Creator. It little matters in comparison what may be the act: the fact is the important thing. Man measures “sin” by the injury it inflicts upon society, or upon the sinner. God measures it by the degree of its rebellion against Himself.

3. No “sin” is single. You commit some offence, and it breaks all God’s laws. “Whosoever shall offend in one point is guilty of all.”

II. What does sin do?

1. Any sin occupies a certain space, and there is a certain period of sinning. The spot and the period may be very small; nevertheless, that was God’s place, and “sin” had no right to be there. Therefore that sin was a trespasser. It came wrongfully upon God’s territory.

2. It did much more than “trespass.” By your sin you have taken a jewel out of the crown of God. Therefore I charge upon every sin with robbery.