Arthur W. Pink

What is sin? Ah, what man is capable of supplying an adequate answer: “Who can understand his errors?” (Psa 19:12). A volume might be written thereon and still much be left unsaid. Only the One against Whom it is committed can fully understand its nature or measure its enormity. And yet, from the light that God has furnished us, a partial answer at least can be gathered. For example, we read in 1 John 3:4, “Sin is the transgression of the law”; and that such transgression is not confined to the outward act is clear from “the thought of foolishness is sin” (Pro 24:9). But what is meant by “sin is the transgression of the law”? It means that sin is a trampling upon God’s holy commandment. It is an act of defiance against the Lawgiver. [Because] the Law [is] “holy, and just, and good” (Rom 7:12), it follows that any breach of it is an evil and enormity¹ that God alone is capable of estimating.

All sin is a breach of the eternal standard of equity.² But it is more than that: it reveals an inward enmity that gives rise to the outward transgression. It is the bursting forth of that pride and the self-will that resents restraint, that repudiates control, that refuses to be under authority, that resists rule. Against the righteous restraint of law, Satan opposed a false idea of “liberty” to our first parents: “Ye shall be as gods” (Gen 3:5). And he is still plying the same argument and employing the same bait. The Christian must meet it by asking, “Is the disciple to be above his Master, the servant superior to his Lord?” Christ was “made under the law” (Gal 4:4), lived in perfect submission thereto, and has left us an example that we should follow His steps…

Sin, then, is an inward state that precedes the evil deeds. It is a state of heart that refuses to be in subjection to God. It is a casting off the divine Law and setting up self-will and self-pleasing in its stead.

From The Doctrine of Sanctification
_______
1. enormity – extreme or monstrous wickedness.
2. eternal…equity – that is, God’s Law is the eternal standard of what is fair and right.

Arthur W. Pink (1886-1952): Pastor, itinerate Bible teacher, author; born in Nottingham, England, UK.

Courtesy of Chapel Library