What is It "to have Sin"?

  SUPPLEMENTARY STUDIES IN THE FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN - Part 3. 

 What is it to have sin?

We have examined the historical setting of this Epistle, and have shown it is aimed to refute an error destructive of both the spiritual life and the moral principles of Christians. We have shown from the opening words of the Epistle that John designed the extinction of this Gnostic error. We are now prepared to examine the text most frequently urged against the doctrine of perfect holiness in this life. "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us " (i. 8). 

What class of people does John have in mind? When he says "we," does he mean all Christians, including himself, as some expositors say, Christians just described as walking in the light, and by the blood of Christ cleansed from all sin? Dean Alford answers this question thus, 

"St. John is writing to persons whose sins have been forgiven them (ii. 12), and, therefore, necessarily the present tense, 'we have,' refers not to any previous state of sinful life before conversion, but to their now existing state, and the sins to which they are liable in that state." 

But the answer is not satisfactory. It implies that "we have sins " which we have not committed, sins to which we are only "liable." It accuses every angel in Heaven, while keeping his first or probationary state, and Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, before their first sinful volition, of having sin, because they were liable to sin. It asserts a palpable contradiction, that persons cleansed from sin still "have sin." It makes the beloved apostle stultify himself by such a self-contradiction and absurdity. Again he perpetrates the same paradox: "This state of needing cleansing from all present sin is veritably that of all of us, and our recognition and confession of it is the very first essential of walking in light." I can get no other meaning out of these words than that sin "is the very first essential" of holy living, for walking in the light is walking in holiness.

Scriptural Proof that the Saved can be Lost

QUESTION: What do you regard as the strongest Scriptural proof that a person who has been truly converted may be finally and eternally lost?

ANSWER: The words of Christ in John 15:1, 6 can have no other meaning. A person who is "a branch in me" (Christ) may become fruitless and "withered" and "cast forth as a branch," and "gathered" and "cast into the fire," and "burned." If this figurative language is not a solemn, deliberate and graphic declaration of the possible perdition of a soul once regenerated and savingly united with Christ, then it is impossible to express this idea in human language. These words should lead every professor of Christ to ask himself daily, am I bringing forth such fruit as Jesus Christ is looking for, (1) the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22) and (2) the fruit of saved souls (John 4:36) "How a man can be 'in Christ,'" says Bishop Westcott, "and yet afterwards separate himself from him, is a mystery neither greater nor less than that involved in the fall of a creature created innocent." The scholarly bishop must have forgotten that the fall of a Christian under the assaults of the devil is less mysterious than the fall of the angels who fell without temptation.

— Steele's Answers pp. 197, 198.

Would the Incarnation Have Happened Apart From Human Sin?

QUESTION: If sin had not come into our world, would the Son of God have been incarnate? 

ANSWER: All along down the Christian ages there have been some theologians who have given an affirmative answer. They say that the incarnation was not con­tingent upon man's sin, but that it was the original pur­pose of God for the exaltation of the human race, pro­moting their highest spirituality and felicity. They, moreover, dislike the doctrine expressed by the "felix culpa" ("blessed be the sin") which brought God into man and man into God. To the writer the idea is very distasteful and repugnant, that sin has been beneficial to our race. Those interested in this question should read Bishop Westcott's essay, "The Gospel of Creation," in his commentary on the Epistles of St. John; 87 pages.

— Steele's Answers pp. 121, 122.