Romans 5:12-21 Why, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed on all men, for that all have sinned:… 1. "The traits of greatness and of misery in man are so clear," says Pascal, "that it is absolutely necessary that the true religion should teach us that there is in him some great principle of greatness, and at the same time some great principle of misery." 2. In Genesis 3 we see the beginning of all that dreary, mean, disfiguring misery that rudely clashes with the honour of humanity, as the heir of a great house entering upon his envied heritage is saddened for life as he is told the secret of some shameful cloud upon the name he boasts, some taint of dishonour or wretchedness that is in his veins — so we learn the great blot on our scutcheon: how it is that we can be so noble and so base — it is because "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin." I. LET US TRY TO SEE HOW NATURALLY FAITH MAY LINK THE RECORD OF THE FALL WITH THE FACTS OF OUR PRESENT STATE. 1. There is a clear and familiar analogy between our childhood and the childhood of our race. We look back, and in both cases the utmost effort of our thought fails long before it draws near to the first dawn of life and consciousness; in both cases there is much that we most take on trust, here relying upon the words of earthly parents, there upon the Word of God. And we then come to find, in both cases, that life itself is a verification of that which we have thus received by faith. (1) For as we try to recall the first years of our own lives, the lines which we can retrace through our school days grow faint and uncertain as they enter the furthest past, till in the far distance of childhood only a few points of quivering light appear, like the scattered lamps of a straggling suburb, and then the tracks of consciousness are utterly lost in impenetrable haze. It is from others that we learn the story of those earliest days. It is faith in others, the evidence of things not seen, which links our present and our past. But then, as we go on living by this faith, accepting the manifold conditions of the state assigned to us, the witness of experience day by day confirms our trust. (2) Now, is it not even exactly thus with the dim childhood of mankind? We travel back along the centuries towards the beginning of our race; presently the guidance of history falters and then stops; then tradition fails us long before we get to the boyhood of humanity; at last even science is irresolute, and only offers us hypothesis. Natural reason tells us as little of the childhood of humanity as memory can tell us of our own. But then, from behind the veil, there comes the voice of the Father of Spirits, whose eyes did see our substance yet being imperfect, and He alone tells us how man first became a living soul, and what were the conditions of his dawning thought; from Him we learn how our new life was lifted up by the inward strength of His own holiness, by the unchecked fulness of His grace; He teaches us what was the trial of those early years, and what choice first called our freedom into exercise. And then He shows us the beginning of our sin and all its devastating work. All that wondrous vision of man's infancy He offers to our faith. But here again Faith is not left to stand alone. By experience we find ourselves to be just what that strange revelation would lead us to expect: confused, uncertain of our proper place, bewildered between our ideal and our caricature, contented neither with virtue nor with vice; we have forces striving in us which are and are not ourselves, we have desires from which we recoil, and aversions for which we long, so that sometimes it almost seems as though man might have called himself fallen, even if God had never told him how he fell. II. Yes, it is true indeed that, as Pascal says, "THE MYSTERY OF THE FALL AND OF THE TRANSMISSION OF ORIGINAL SIN IS A MYSTERY AT ONCE MOST REMOTE FROM OUR KNOWLEDGE AND MOST ESSENTIAL TO ALL KNOWLEDGE OF OURSELVES." "It is, indeed, itself incomprehensible, but without it we are incomprehensible." 1. The facts of life force our thoughts to the recognition of the fall, just as the attractions and repulsions of the heavenly bodies guide the astronomer to believe in the existence of an undiscovered star. And so it has come to pass that the doctrine of the fall has been at once the most scornfully rejected and the most generally acknowledged truth in all the Christian faith. Surely it is both true and strange that a belief which seems at first so hard to realise, which is often thrust away with a confident impatience, can yet appeal to a vast army of witnesses, often unconscious, sometimes incredulous, of that which they have attested. 2. Plato compares the soul in its present plight to the form of the god Glaueus, immortal and miserable, crippled and battered by the waves, disfigured by the clinging growth of shells and seaweed, so that the fishermen as they catch sight of him can hardly recognise his ancient nature. However it may be misnamed, however the moral sense may be crushed down to die under fatalism and despair, still there is the witness to a corruption, a perversion of humanity, wide as the world and deep as life. The witness of all our experience, of all current language, all common expectations, about the ways of man; the witness of daily life, of our journals with their columns full of ceaseless news about the fruits of sin; the witness, interpreting all else, of our own hearts, all converge upon the truth of a worldwide disfigurement of human life, a pervading taint through all our history, a sense of something wrong in the ethical basis of our nature, thrust into every movement of the will. 3. And then, it may be, our minds will stagger and our hearts begin to sink at the dreary vision of that vast desolating gloom: "there is none good, then, no, not one." There be many that say, "Who will show us any good?" The lies of the cynic and the pessimist claim kindred with our thoughts. "Yes," they say, "all this is true, and we had better simply acquiesce in it. What have we to do with those vague ideals which have made so many restless and miserable? When will men frankly recognise their proper level, and live there, and renounce those fruitless, wasteful hopes." III. Oh, then, if that worst of all infidelity, the disbelief in goodness, the despair of holiness, begins to creep about your souls, then turn and gaze, where through the rent cloud the pure white light of God Himself has broken through. One break there is in that uniform tenor of our history, even the surpassing miracle of a sinless life. IV. WE CAN AFFORD TO REALISE AND FACE THE SIN OF THE WORLD, THE SINFULNESS OF OUR OWN HEARTS; we can bear to know the worst because we know the best, because the darkness is past, and the true Light now shineth, BECAUSE WE CAN TURN FROM THE GLOOM OF SINFUL HISTORY TO THE PERFECT GLORY OF THE HOLINESS OF CHRIST. "In Him is no sin," "the Life was manifested, and we have seen it, and shew unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us." "The Word was God," "and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father." (F. Paget, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: |
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