01.13. Sin and Death.

13. Sin and Death.

Already Genesis 3:1-24 tells us of man’s fall and disobedience. It was probably not long after his creation that he was guilty of violating the divine commandment. Creation and fall do not coincide and must not be equated; they are distinct in nature and essence, but in terms of time they are not far apart. This was the case with mankind, and it has probably also been the case with the world of angels. The Scriptures do not give us a detailed account of the creation and fall of the angels; they only tell us what we need to know to understand mankind and his fall, but they refrain from all further discussion and do not for a moment seek to satisfy our curiosity. But we do know that there are angels, that a great many of them have fallen, and that this fall also took place at the beginning of the world. Some have placed the creation and fall of the angels much more forward, in the time preceding Genesis 1:1, but Scripture gives no basis for this. In Genesis 1:1 falls the beginning of the whole work of creation, and in Genesis 1:31 it is perhaps still said of the whole work of creation, and not only of the earth, that God saw all the work that He had made, and saw that it was very good. In this case the rebellion and disobedience of the angels must have taken place after the sixth day of creation. On the other hand, it is certain that the fall of the angels preceded that of man. Sin did not break out first on earth, but in heaven, in the immediate vicinity of God, at the foot of His throne. The thought, the desire, the will to resist God first arose in the hearts of angels; perhaps pride was the first sin and thus the beginning and the principle of their fall. In 1 Timothy 3:6 Paul advises not to immediately elect someone who has only been a member of the congregation for a short time, because then he becomes easily inflated and falls into the devil’s judgment. If, as the Cantonese note says, the judgment of the devil is meant, the judgment into which the devil fell when he exalted himself against God because of his wisdom, then we have a clue here that the devil’s sin began with self-exaltation and pride.

However, the fall of the angels preceded that of man. For man did not come to transgress God’s commandment all by himself, without any external cause, but the woman, being deceived and seduced by the serpent, transgressed, 2 Corinthians 11:3, 1 Timothy 2:14. With the serpent we are certainly not dealing with a symbolic embellishment, but with a real serpent, for it is expressly said that it was more cunning, more shrewd than all the beasts of the field, Genesis 3:1, Matt. 10:16. But just as certainly does the further development of revelation give us to understand that a demonic power used the serpent to deceive and mislead mankind. Already in the Old Testament Satan is mentioned several times as an accuser and seducer of mankind, Job 1:1-22, Chron. 21: 1, Zechariah 3:1-10. But the terrible power of darkness is only revealed when the divine, heavenly light has risen over the world in Christ. Then it appears that there is another sinful world than the one here on earth. There is a spiritual realm of evil, of which countless daemons, evil, impure spirits, one worse than the other, Matthew 12:45, are the subjects, and of which Satan is the head; and this Satan is called by various names. He is not only called Satan, that is adversary, but also the devil, that is the slanderer, Matthew 13:39, the enemy, Matthew 13:39, Luke 10:19, the wicked one, Matthew 6:13, Matthew 13:19, the accuser, Revelation 12:10, the solicitor, Matthew 4:3, Belial, that is, wickedness, nothingness, 2 Corinthians 6:15, beëlzebul, or beëlzebub, which originally meant the god of flies worshipped in Ekron, 2 Kings 1:2, Matthew 10:25, the ruler of the devils, Matthew 9:34, the ruler of the power of the air, Ephesians 2:2, the ruler of the world, John 12:31, the god of this age, 2 Corinthians 4:4, the great dragon and the old serpent, Revelation 12:9. This kingdom of darkness did not exist from the beginning of creation, but came into being through the apostasy of Satan and his angels. Peter says in general that the angels have sinned and therefore are punished by God, 2 Peter 2:4, but Jude also indicates in Jude 1:6 the nature of their sin and says that they have not kept their own principle, that is, the dominion given to them by God, but have left their own dwelling place in heaven; they were not satisfied with the state in which God had placed them, and desired something else. And this rebellion took place from the very beginning, for the devil sins from the beginning, 1 John 3:8, and from the beginning he also set out to destroy mankind; for Jesus says expressly that he was a murderer of man from the beginning, and that from the beginning he did not stand in the truth, because not the truth, but the lie dwells in him, John 8:44. From him emanated the temptation of man, and he tied it to the commandment that God had given ׳not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The apostle James testifies that God is above all temptation, and never tempts anyone, James 1:13. Of course this is not meant to mean that God never tests or trials anyone; after all, Scripture tells of this many times, with Abraham, with Moses, with Job, with Christ Himself and also right from the very first man. But if someone fails the test, he immediately tends to blame God for his fall and to say that God tempted him, that is, tested him in order for him to fall, or put him to a test in order for him to fail.

We see that after the fall Adam immediately proceeded in this way; and this is the secret desire of mankind. It is against this that James argues, and he opposes it as emphatically and strongly as possible, that God Himself is above all temptation and never tempts anyone. He never tries someone with the intention of making him fall, and He also never tries beyond his ability, 1 Corinthians 10:13. The trial offer, given to Adam, had the purpose to make his obedience come to light, and it did not exceed his powers at all; humanly speaking, Adam could very easily have kept it, because it was a light prohibition and did not compare with everything that was given and allowed to him. But what God thinks is for the good, Satan always thinks is for the bad. He misuses the trial commandment as a temptation, as a secret attack on the obedience of the first man, and he evidently means to use it to bring about man’s downfall. First, therefore, the prohibition given by God is presented as an arbitrarily imposed burden, as an unfounded restriction of man’s freedom, and thus the seed of doubt is sown in Eve’s soul as to the Divine origin and legitimacy of the prohibition. Next, that doubt is transformed into disbelief, the thought that God had only issued the prohibition out of fear that men would become like Him and also know good and evil as He does. This unbelief, in turn, stimulates the imagination and makes the violation of the prohibition appear to be a way that does not lead to death, but to true life, to equality with God. The imagination then exerts its influence on mankind’s inclination and striving, so that the forbidden tree is seen in a different light, becomes a joy to the eyes and a desire to the heart. And the desire, having thus received, drives the will and gives birth to the sinful deed; Eve took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave her husband with it and he ate, Genesis 3:1-6. In this simple, but profoundly philosophical manner Scripture relates the history of the fall and the origin of sin. That is how sin still originates; it begins with the darkening of the mind, continues in the excitement of the imagination, arouses desire in the heart, and finishes in the act of will. It is true that there is a very great difference between the origin of the first and the origin of all later sins. While all later sins presuppose a sinful nature in mankind and find a point of attachment in it, there was no question of this with Adam and Eve, because they were created in God’s image. But we must bear in mind that, for all their perfection, they were created in such a way that they could fall, and we must also remember that sin, by its very nature, always has a character of unreason and arbitrariness. When someone has sinned, he always tries to excuse or justify himself, but he never succeeds; there is never any reasonable ground for sin; its existence is and always will be unlawful. Likewise, nowadays people try to argue that a criminal is forced to commit a sinful act by circumstances or by his own inclination, but this external or internal necessity is forced upon the criminal and he finds the strongest contradiction in his own conscience. Neither reasonably nor emotionally can sin be reduced to a disposition and an action that has reason and right to exist. In the strongest degree this applies to the first sin, which was committed in the Papacy. For at present there are often still extenuating circumstances, which do not make the sin right, but still limit the measure of its guilt. But in the case of the sin of the first pair of men there is not a single mitigating circumstance to be pleaded; on the contrary, everything that can be added, the special revelation that made the trial commandment known to them, the contents of the trial commandment, which demanded so little renunciation, the severity of the threat attached to the transgression, the awfulness of the consequences, the holiness of their nature, all these circumstances serve only to aggravate their guilt. The possibility of the fall can be highlighted, but the transition to reality remains shrouded in darkness. Scripture makes no attempt to make this transition intelligible to us. But in so doing it also leaves sin unmolested in its sinful character; sin is there, but it was and is not allowed to be: it was and it is and it remains forever in conflict with God’s law and with the testimony of our conscience. By linking these two things together, that is to say, by giving on the one hand an insight into the origin of sin, the truth of which is felt in our own lives every moment, and on the other hand by allowing sin to stand fully in its unreasonable and unknowing nature, the account of the fall in Genesis 3:1-24 is elevated to a height above all that the wisdom of mankind has thought out in the course of centuries concerning the origin of evil. That there is sin and that there is misery, we know not only from Scripture, but it is preached to us daily and every moment by the whole suffering creature; the whole world is marked by the fall. And even if the world around us did not proclaim it to us, it is nevertheless reminded to us internally from hour to hour by the voice of conscience, which continually accuses us, and by the poverty of the heart, which testifies of endless woe. That is why everywhere and at all times the question is forced upon mankind: whence comes this evil, the evil of sin and the evil of misery? That is the mystery which, even more than the mystery of the origin of being, has occupied mankind’s thoughts and filled their heads and hearts hour after hour. But now compare the solutions which this human wisdom has tried with the simple answer which Scripture gives! Of course, these solutions are by no means identical, but they do show affinity and can be arranged accordingly. The most common opinion is that sin does not dwell in man and originate from him, but attaches itself to him from without, as it were; man is good by nature, his heart is undefiled; evil lies only in the circumstances, in the environment, in the society into which man is born and brought up. Take away the wrongs, reform society, introduce equal distribution of goods, for example, and man will automatically become good; all reason for him to do evil will be lost! This idea of the origin and nature of sin has always found many supporters, because man is always inclined to blame circumstances for all his sins; but it found particular favour when, since the eighteenth century, eyes were opened to the political and social decay and a radical transformation of state and society was advocated as the only remedy for all ills. But the nineteenth century has brought some disillusionment with regard to the natural goodness of mankind; and the number of those who call mankind radically evil by nature and who despair of his redemption is not small.

Thus was honored that explanation which had traditionally sought the origin of sin in man’s sensual nature. Man has a soul, but he also has a body; he is spirit, but also flesh. And this flesh always has of itself sensual inclinations, more or less impure desires, low passions, and therefore naturally opposes the spirit with its ideas, thoughts and ideals. Since man now lives only a vegetable and animal life when he is born, and for many years in succession remains a child who lives in sensual contemplation, it goes without saying that for many years in succession the flesh of man dominates and imprisons the spirit. Only very slowly does the spirit wrestle itself from the power of the flesh, but nevertheless mankind and the individual human being steadily develop.

Thinkers and philosophers have repeatedly spoken of the "origin" of sin, but in recent times they have received strong support from the doctrine that mankind is descended from animals and is actually still an animal at heart.

Some conclude from this that man will remain an animal forever, but others cherish the hope that, where man has already advanced so far, he will make much more progress in the future and perhaps even become an angel one day. Be that as it may, man’s animal descent seemed to offer an excellent solution to the problem of sin. If mankind is descended from an animal, it is perfectly natural and it is not at all surprising that that animal continues to work in him and repeatedly breaks the reins of decency.

Therefore, according to many people, sin is nothing but an after-effect and a remnant of the former animal state; lust, fornication, theft, robbery, murder, etc. are habits which were common to the oldest people as well as to animals, and which now reappear again and again in backward individuals, in the so-called criminals. But these people, who fall back into the old and original habits, are actually not criminals, but backward, weak, sick, more or less insane beings, who should not be punished in a prison, but nursed in a hospital. What the wound is to the body, the criminal is to society. Sin is a disease which man brings with him from his animal state and which he only slowly overcomes.

If one extends this line of thought and thinks through the explanation of sin from sensuality, from the flesh, from animals, one automatically arrives at the doctrine, often proclaimed before, that sin has its origin in matter, or, to put it more generally, in the finite existence of all creatures. This idea was very popular in antiquity. Spirit and matter, like light and darkness, are eternally opposed and can never achieve true and complete communion. Matter was not created and could not have been created by the God of light, but it existed from eternity beside God, formless, dark, devoid of all light and life. Even if it was later formulated by God and used for building up this world, it still remains unable to absorb and express the fullness of the spiritual idea; dark within itself, it does not let the light of the idea through.

Sometimes, then, this dark matter is further reduced to its own divine origin; two Gods then stand side by side from eternity, a God of light and a God of darkness, a good and an evil God. Or one tries to reduce both these eternal principles of good and evil to one Godhead, and then makes God a double being; in Him there is an unconscious, dark, hidden ground, from which a conscious, clear nature of light rises to the surface; this is the deepest origin of the darkness and evil in the world, and this is the source of all life and light.

If one proceeds one step further, one arrives at the doctrine, preached again by some philosophers in recent times, that God in himself is nothing but a dark nature, a blind urge, an eternal hunger, an unreasonable will, which only comes to consciousness and becomes light in mankind. This is the direct opposite of the revelation of Scripture. It says that God is pure light without any darkness, and that in the beginning all things were made by the Word. But the philosophy of the new age says that God in himself is darkness, nature, abyss, and that the light for him rises first in the world and in mankind. Man, then, is not blameless and does not need to be redeemed by God, but God is the blameless one and has his redemption to await from mankind. This extreme conclusion is not pronounced so bluntly and so directly by many, but it is nevertheless the end of the road on which all the above-mentioned considerations of the origin of sin move. However different they may be, they all have this in common: they do not seek the origin and source of sin in the will of the creature, but in the existence and nature of things, and therefore in the Creator, who is the cause of that existence and nature. If sin lies in circumstances, in society, in the senses, in the flesh, in matter, then it is on account of Him, who is the Creator and Sustainer of all things, and man is free. Then sin did not begin with the fall, but dates from the moment of creation; creation and fall are then one; being, existence, is then sin; moral imperfection coincides with finitude. And salvation is then either utterly impossible, or it ends in destruction of the existing, in nirvana.

High above this thought of mankind rises the wisdom of God. The former denounces God and excuses man; the latter justifies God and blames man. Scripture is the book which, from beginning to end, vindicates God and wrongs man; it is one great and powerful theodicy, a vindication of God, of all His virtues and all His works, and it holds in its hand the testimony of the conscience of all men. The fall did not take place without His foreknowledge, His counsel and His will, and the whole development and history of sin is guided by Him and remains bound to His government to the end. Sin does not make God unguarded or powerless; also toward it He remains God, unblemished in wisdom, goodness and power.

Yes, He is so wise and good and powerful that He can make good things come out of evil and force sin, against its own nature, to cooperate with the glorification of His name and the establishment of His kingdom. But sin nevertheless retains its sinful character. If, in a certain sense, it can be said that God willed sin, because nothing can ever come into being or exist without His will, then it should never be forgotten that He always willed it to be sin, as something that should not be there and therefore always exists unlawfully, in violation of His command.

Thus justifying God, Scripture at the same time maintains the nature of sin. If sin has its origin not in the will of the creature, but in the being which precedes the will, it immediately loses its ethical and moral character, and becomes a physical, a natural, an evil inseparable from the existence and nature of things. Sin then becomes an independent being, an original principle, a kind of evil substance, just as disease was regarded in earlier days. But Scripture teaches us that sin is not and cannot be that. For God is the Creator of all things, even of matter; and when the work of creation was finished, He looked upon His creation, and behold, it was very good.

Sin, therefore, does not belong to the nature of things; it is not part of being, but it is a phenomenon of a moral nature, it belongs to the domain of morality, and it exists in deviation from the moral law which God gave to the rational creature and laid down for his will. The first sin was the violation of the precept and therein of the whole moral law, which rests with the precept in the same divine authority. The many names by which the Holy Scriptures describe sin, transgression, disobedience, iniquity, wickedness, enmity against God, etc., all point in the same direction. Paul says explicitly that through the law is the knowledge of sin, Romans 3:20, and John declares that all sin, both the smallest and the greatest, is iniquity, lawlessness, unlawfulness, 1 John 3:4.

Now if transgression is the nature of sin, it cannot lie in the essence, in the being of things, whether material or spiritual, for things owe their essence and being to God alone, who is the fountain of all good. Evil, then, can only come after good, can only exist through and on the good, and can also lie in nothing but the corruption of good. Even the evil angels, although sin has corrupted their whole nature, are and remain good creatures. Also, the good, insofar as it lies in the nature and being of things, is not destroyed by sin, but it is steered in a different direction, and used for a different purpose. Man has not lost his essence, his human nature, through sin; he still has a soul and a body, a mind and a will, and all his affections. But all these gifts, good in themselves and coming down from the Father of lights, are now used by man as weapons against God and in the service of iniquity. Sin, therefore, is not a bare loss, nor is it merely the loss of what man originally possessed, as, for example, a man who was rich and then became poor suffers a loss and has to do without much of what he used to enjoy. But sin is a deprivation of that which man, to be truly man, must possess; and at the same time it is the introduction of a defect which man was not meant to have.

According to present-day science, disease is not a special substance, but a life in changed circumstances, in such a way that the laws of life remain the same as in the healthy body, but the organs and functions of that life are disturbed in their normal functioning. Even in the dead body the workings do not cease, but the workings that then come into play are of a destructive, dissolving nature. In the same way, sin is not a substance, but is such a disturbance of all the gifts and powers that have been given to man that they now work in a different direction, not towards God but away from God. Reason, will, affections, disorders, passions, soul faculties and bodily forces, they were originally weapons of righteousness, but now, by the mysterious power of sin, they have all been transformed into weapons of iniquity. The image of God, which man received at his creation, was not a substance, but was nevertheless so intrinsic to his nature that, losing it, he was completely deformed, disfigured.

Whoever could see man internally and externally as he really is, would discover traits in his being that make him look more like Satan than like God, John 8:44. Spiritual health was replaced by spiritual sickness and death. But like that, it is not a constituent part of his being. When Scripture upholds the moral nature of sin, it upholds man’s capacity for salvation.

Sin is not part of the nature of the world, but was introduced into it by man; therefore it can be removed from it by the power of divine grace, which is stronger than all creation. The first sin of which man was guilty did not remain in itself; it was not an act which man, having committed it, could shake off; he could not thereafter behave as if nothing had happened. At the same moment that man gave a place to sin in his thoughts and imagination, in his desires and will, a startling change took place in him. This is shown by the fact that immediately after the fall Adam and Eve sought to hide from God and from each other. Both their eyes were opened and they realized that they were naked. They saw each other as they had never seen each other before; they dared and could no longer look each other in the eye freely and without fear; they felt guilty and unclean and they attached fig leaves to each other in order to cover themselves with them. But they were still in one piece and felt themselves to be one, that they feared together and hid themselves from the face of God in the midst of the trees of the garden. With the leaves of a fig tree they could partly hide their shame and embarrassment from one another, but with these they could not exist before God, and so they fled away, deep into the midst of the trees of the garden. Shame and fear had taken possession of them, because they had lost the image of God and felt guilty and unclean before Him. And that is always the consequence of sin; we lose that inner, spiritual confidence before God, ourselves and our fellowmen, which only the consciousness of innocence can produce in our hearts. But the terribleness of the first sin becomes even more apparent in that it spreads from the first pair of human beings to the whole of mankind. The first step in the wrong direction has been taken, and all the descendants of Adam and Eve follow in their footsteps. The universality of sin is a fact which forces itself upon everyone’s consciousness, and which is indisputably established both by the testimony of experience and according to the teaching of the Holy Scriptures.

It would take little effort to collect testimonies from all parts and times of the world which express this universality of sin. The simplest and most learned people agree. No one, it is said, is born without sin; everyone has his or her weaknesses and failings; the ills of sterile man include the darkness of reason, and not only the necessity to err, but also the love of error; no one is free in his or her conscience, conscience makes cowards of us all; the heaviest burden humanity has to bear is guilt. This is what we hear from all sides of the history of mankind in various tones; even those who start from the natural goodness of man are compelled at the end of their investigations to acknowledge that the seeds of all sin and crime are hidden in every man’s heart; and philosophers have complained that all men are by nature radically evil.

Scripture confirms this judgment which mankind pronounces upon itself. After recounting the fall in the third chapter of Genesis, it goes on in the following chapters to examine how sin spread and increased in the human race, and finally reached such a height that the judgment of the flood became necessary. Of the generation before the flood it is testified that the wickedness of man was manifold upon the earth, and all the thoughts of his heart were always evil; that the earth was filled with wrath by man, and was corrupt before God. But the flood makes no change in the heart of man; also after it God pronounces upon the new mankind, which will come forth from Noah’s family, the judgment that the pattern of man’s heart is evil from his youth, Genesis 8:21.

All the pious men of the Old Covenant concur with this divine testimony. No one, complains Job, can give a clean man from the unclean man, Job 14:4. There is no man," Solomon confesses in his prayer at the dedication of the temple, "there is no man who does not sin. When the Lord, as we read in Psalms 14:1-7 and Psalms 53:1-6, looks down from heaven upon the children of men to see if any of them are wise, seeking God, His eye sees nothing but waste and iniquity; they have all gone astray, together they have become stinking; there is no one who does good, not even one. No one therefore can exist before the Lord, for no one who lives is righteous before Him, Psalms 103:3, Psalms 143:2. Who can also say: I have purified my heart, I am clean from my sin? Proverbs 20:9. In a word, there is no righteous man on earth, who does good and does not sin, Ecclesiastes 7:20.

All these statements are so general that they do not allow any exception. They do not flow from the lips of the ungodly, who often do not care at all about their own or other people’s sins, but they flow from the hearts of the pious, who have learned to know themselves as sinners before the face of God. And they do not pass this judgment only and not primarily on others, on those who live in public sin or, as the pagans, are deprived of the knowledge of God; but they begin with themselves and with their own people.

Scripture does not describe the pious as people who have lived in perfect holiness on earth, but it portrays them as sinners who have sometimes been guilty of very serious offences. It is precisely the pious who, although they remain conscious of the righteousness of their case, feel their guilt the most deeply and appear before the Lord with humble confession (Psalms 6:1-10, Psalms 25:1-22, Psalms 32:11, Psalms 38:1-22, Psalms 51:1-19, Psalms 130:1-8, Psalms 143:1-12). Even then, when they act against the people and bring their apostasy and unfaithfulness to their notice, they nevertheless finally assemble with that people and make the joint confession: we lie in our shame and our disgrace covers us, because we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our fathers, from our youth to this day, Jeremiah 3:15, Isaiah 6:5, Isaiah 53:4-6, Psalms 64:6, Daniel 9:5 ff, Psalms 106:6.

Also the New Testament does not leave the slightest doubt about this sinful condition of the whole human race; the whole preaching of the Gospel is built on this assumption. When John announces the proximity of the kingdom of heaven, he demands repentance and baptism, for circumcision, sacrifice and the observance of the law have not been able to give the people of Israel the righteousness they need to enter the kingdom of God; so Jerusalem and all the Jewish nation came to him, and all were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Christ appeared with the same preaching of the kingdom of God, and He too testifies that only regeneration, faith and conversion open the way to that kingdom, Mark 1:15, Mark 6:12, John 3:3.

It is true that Jesus says in Matthew 9:12-13, that those who are healthy do not need the ministries, and that He did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. But the connection shows that Jesus, with the sent ones and the righteous ones, is thinking of the Pharisees, who reproached Him for sitting down with the tax collectors and sinners, who exalted themselves above them, and who in their imagined righteousness felt no need for the searching love of Jesus.

Besides, in Matthew 9:13 Jesus says explicitly that if the Pharisees understood that God in His law does not require external sacrifices, but internal, spiritual mercy, they would come to the conviction that they too, just like the tax collectors and sinners, were guilty and unclean and needed conversion in His name. Christ himself limits his work to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, Matthew 15:24, but after his resurrection he gives his disciples the task of going out into all the world and preaching the gospel to all mankind, because salvation for all mankind is bound up with faith in his name, Mark 16:15-16. In accordance with this, the apostle Paul begins his letter to the Romans with a detailed argument that the whole world is damnable before God and that therefore no flesh shall be justified by the works of the law, Romans 3:19-20, Romans 1:18-32, but also the Jews, who boast of their privileges, but are basically guilty of the same sins, Romans 2:1-29, Romans 3:1-20, they are all bound together by sin, Romans 3:9, Romans 11:32, Galatians 3:22, so that all mouths may be stopped and in their salvation only the mercy of God may be glorified.

Yes, so much is this general sinfulness in the N. Testament the basis of the preaching of the Gospel, that the word world acquires a very unfavorable meaning. Seen in itself, the world and all that it contains were created by God, John 1:3, Colossians 1:16, Hebrews 1:2; but through sin it has been so corrupted that it now stands as a hostile power against God.

2: 15; he who wants to be a friend of the world is made an enemy of God, James 4:4. This terrible state in which mankind and the world find themselves raises the question as to its origin and cause. Whence not only the first sin, but also the general sinfulness, whence the guilt and depravity of the whole human race, to which every one is subject from birth, with the exception of Christ alone? Is there a connection between the first sin, committed in Paradise, and the stream of iniquity which has since poured out over the whole earth? And if so, of what kind is this connection?

There are those who, with Pelagius, categorically deny such a connection. According to them, every sinful act is an act which is completely unrelated to itself, does not bring about any change in human nature at all, and can therefore be replaced the next moment by a good, excellent act. After Adam had broken God’s commandment, his inner nature, his disposition and his will remained exactly the same; and so also all the children who are born of the first human couple are born with exactly the same innocent and indifferent nature which Adam had from his origin.

There is no sinful nature, no sinful disposition or disposition, for all nature is created by God and remains good, but there are only sinful deeds, which do not form a continuous, coherent series, but which can be alternated with good deeds, and are connected with the person himself only by a completely free choice of will. The only influence these sinful acts have on the person himself or on others around him is that of the evil example. If we have committed a sinful act once, we do it again and others follow suit. The general sinfulness of the human race must therefore be explained in this way, from imitation. There is no question of original sin; every human being is born innocent; but the bad example that people usually set has a bad influence on contemporary and descendant. The bad influence on contemporary and descendant. Out of habit and routine all walk in the same sinful path, although it is not impossible, nor improbable, that here and there a few have resisted the power of habit, have gone their own way and have lived perfectly holy on earth. This attempt, however, to explain general sinfulness is not only contrary to the Scriptures on every point, but it is also so superficial and inadequate that, at least in theory, it is seldom fully and completely protected. It is refuted by facts from our own experience and life. We all know from experience that an act of sin is not outside of us and cannot, like an unclean garment, be taken off by us; but it is closely connected with our inner nature and leaves an indelible mark there; we are not the same after every act of sin as we were before it; It deprives us of peace of mind, is followed by remorse and repentance, strengthens our inclination to evil, and finally makes us unable to resist the power of sin at all and to resist even the slightest temptation.

It is also contrary to all experience that sin should only take hold in man from without. Certainly, the evil example can have a powerful influence; we see it in the children who are born of evil parents and grow up in an environment devoid of Godliness and vice versa; and conversely, the birth of pious parents and upbringing in a religious-moral environment is a blessing that cannot be overestimated. But that is only one side of the matter. The bad environment would not be able to exert such an evil influence on the child if he himself did not have such a tendency to evil in his heart; and the good environment would not often be completely powerless against a child, if he himself had received a pure heart in his birth that was receptive to all that is good. But we all know better than that; the environment is only the trigger for sin to develop in us; the root of sin lies deeper and lurks in our hearts. From within From within a man’s heart, as Jesus said, come evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, homicides and all kinds of other iniquities. Mark 7:21. And this word is confirmed by everyone’s experience; almost without our knowing it or wanting to, impure thoughts and images rise up in our consciousness; on certain occasions, when we encounter adversity or opposition, the evil that is deeply hidden in our hearts comes out; sometimes it frightens us and we want to escape ourselves. The heart is evil, more than any thing, yea, it is deadly; who shall know it? Jeremiah 17:9.

Finally, if following the example of evil were the only cause of sin in mankind, its complete generality would be inexplicable. Pelagius therefore said that here and there sinless men had certainly lived. But this only exposed the ’ untenability of the explanation all the more clearly. For, with the exception of Christ, there has not been one human being on earth who has been free from all sin.

We need by no means know all men head by head in order to pronounce this judgment. For the Scriptures speak unambiguously in this spirit; the whole history of mankind is proof of this; and our own hearts are the key to understanding the hearts that dwell in other men. For we are all of like mind and form not only a natural but also a moral unity. There is a human nature that is common to all human beings; and this nature is guilty and impure. The evil tree is not from the evil fruits, but the evil fruits are from the evil tree.

Others have recognized the correctness of these objections and have modified Pelagius’ teaching accordingly. They admit that the absolute generality of sin cannot be inferred merely from following the evil example, and that moral decay does not enter man merely from without, and they are forced to confess that sin inhabits man from his conception and birth; he himself brings his corrupt nature from his parents. But they also maintain that this moral depravity, which is peculiar to man by nature, is not yet a real sin, which bears the character of guilt, and therefore does not yet deserve punishment. This moral depravity becomes sinful, guilty and worthy of punishment only when man freely admits it when he is growing up, takes it on his own account, as it were, and converts it into sinful acts through his own free will. This semi-Pelagian conception may make an important concession, but on reflection it proves to be very inadequate. For sin always consists in unlawfulness, in transgression and in deviation from the law which God has laid down for the reasonable and moral creature. This deviation from the law may occur in man’s actions, but also in his dispositions and affections, in the nature which he brings with him at ׳his conception and birth. Semi-Pelagianism recognizes this and speaks of a moral depravity which precedes man’s acts of will. But if one takes this seriously, one cannot avoid the conclusion that the moral corruption which is now characteristic of human nature is also really sin and guilt, and therefore worthy of punishment. One of the two possibilities: either man’s nature conforms to God’s law and is as it should be, in which case it is not morally defective; or it is morally defective, in which case it does not conform to God’s law either, is unlawful and unjust, and consequently makes man guilty and punishable.

Certainly there is little to be said against this rigorous reasoning; but many nevertheless try to free themselves from its constraint by using the ambiguous term ’desire’ to describe the moral corruption which man brings with him at birth. Of course, the use of this word is not in itself wrong; the Scriptures also make frequent use of it, Romans 1:24, Romans 2:7, Romans 13:14, Galatians 5:16, James 1:14, 1 Peter 1:14, 1 John 2:16, etc., but under the influence of the asceticism of the world, it is not so wrong. But under the influence of the ascetic tendency which gradually developed in the Christian Church, theology often interpreted this word in a very limited sense; it thought almost exclusively of man’s procreative urge, and thus arrived at the idea that, since this was given to man in creation, it was not in itself sinful, but nevertheless gave him a very easy reason for sinning.

It was Calvin who opposed this idea. He did not object to calling the moral depravity into which man is born "lust". But then this word had to be understood in a good sense. For this purpose it was necessary, in the first place, to make a distinction between desire and lust. Desires in themselves are not sinful, and were instilled by God Himself at creation; because man is a limited, finite, dependent creature, he has countless needs and therefore also countless desires. When he is hungry, he longs for food; when he is thirsty, he longs for water; when he is tired, he longs for rest. And so also in the spiritual: man’s mind is created in such a way that it craves the truth, and man’s will by virtue of his God-created nature has a desire for good. 11:28; when Solomon did not desire wealth, but wisdom, this was good in the eyes of the Lord, 1 Kings 3:5-14; and when the poet of Psalms 42:1-11 thirsted after God like a deer after the streams of water, this was a very good and precious desire.

Desires in themselves, therefore, are not sinful, but they, as well as the imagination and the will, have been corrupted by sin and therefore come into conflict with the Lord’s law. Not the strictly natural desires, but the desires corrupted by sin, uncontrolled, exaggerated and overstrained, are sinful. And here, in the second place, it should also be noted that desires are by no means only inherent in the sensual, physical, but also in the spiritual nature of mankind. The urge to procreate is not the only natural desire, but it is one among many; nor is it in itself sinful, for it was implanted in man at creation, nor is it the only one which has been corrupted by sin, but all natural, physical and spiritual desires have become unruly and unprincipled because of it. Man’s good desires have been transformed into evil desires.

If man’s moral corruption is called desire in this sense, then its sinful and guilty nature is beyond all doubt. It is this desire, which in the Law of the Lord in a special commandment, Exodus 20:17. And Paul says expressly that he would not have known lust as sin, if the law had not said: you shall not lust, Romans 7:7. When Paul came to know himself, and began to test not only his actions but also his inclinations and desires against God’s law, it became clear to him that these too were corrupt and impure and stretched towards what was forbidden. For Paul the Law of God is the only source and measure of sin, and it should be the same for us. No desires or imaginations determine what sin is, but only the law of God, which determines how mankind should stand before God externally and internally, physically and spiritually, in word and deed, in thought and inclination. Judged by that law, there is no doubt that man’s nature is also corrupt and his desires sinful. Man not only thinks and acts wrongly, but he is wrong from the moment he was conceived.

Besides, from the point of view of philosophy it is impossible to imagine that lust in itself is not sin, but that it only becomes sin through the will. For this idea is based on the absurd idea that the will of man stands neutral outside of and in opposition to that desire, that it itself has not yet been affected by sin, and that it can now freely decide whether or not it will grant the desire of its nature. Experience shows that in many cases it is certainly possible for man, on the basis of all kinds of considerations of health, decency, civil honour, etc., to use his reason and will to resist the sinful desires which well up in his heart and to prevent them from being converted into sinful deeds; there is also a struggle in a natural man between his desire and his duty, between his inclination and his conscience, between his desire and his reason. But this struggle is fundamentally different from that which is waged between flesh and spirit, between old and new man, in the newly born; it is only a struggle that is waged from outside, against the outburst of desire, but which does not penetrate into the heart of the fortress and does not attack the root of the evil. Therefore, this battle can bind and restrain the sinful desire, but cannot cleanse and renew it internally; the sinful character of the desire is not changed by it. And not only that; but even though reason and will can sometimes restrain desire, they in turn are often controlled and employed by that desire. They do not oppose it in principle, but take pleasure in it by nature; they feed, nurture, excuse and justify it. And not seldom do they allow themselves to be so carried away by lust that they rob man of all independence and make him a slave to his passions. Evil thoughts and evil desires arise from the heart, obscuring reason and corrupting the will. The heart is so suspicious that it deceives even the wisest head.

Both attempts to explain the general sinfulness of human beings come to the conclusion that they seek the cause in the fall of each individual human being. According to Pelagianism, every man falls for himself by voluntarily following the evil example of others; according to Semi-Pelagianism, every man falls for himself by voluntarily taking into his own will an innate but not sinful lust and converting it into a sinful act. Both, however, fail to recognize the moral facts which are certain for each person’s conscience, and both fail to explain how the absolutely universal sinfulness of the human race can arise from millions upon millions of accidental decisions of the will.

Nevertheless, in recent times these attempts have once again found acceptance among many, albeit in a different, unfamiliar form. In the past, there were some who believed in the pre-existence of man; but Buddhist influences have greatly expanded this belief in recent years. It is then held that all human beings have existed eternally, or at least centuries before their appearance on earth, or that, in a more philosophical form, the sensible-perceivable life of man on earth must be distinguished from his inconceivable, but nevertheless conceivable existence. And one further connects with this the idea that the people in this real or imaginary pre-existence have all fallen head for head and, as a punishment for this, must live here on earth in gross, material bodies, in order to prepare for another life hereafter, and there too receive a reward for their efforts. So there is only one law that governs all human life before, on and after this earth, and that is the law of retribution; everyone received, receives and will receive that which he has earned by his works; everyone sows what he has sown. This Indian conception is therefore remarkable, because it tacitly assumes the recognition that there is no place in this earthly life for a fall of an individual human being. But for the rest it gives no explanation of the general sinfulness, as does the Pelagian theory. For it merely shifts the difficulty from life here on earth to a pre-existence of which no one remembers anything, for which there is no basis, and which is merely a dream. Furthermore, the doctrine that there is only a law of retribution and that this law governs everything, for the poor and the sick, for the wretched and the needy, is a ruthless, hard doctrine which contrasts darkly with the splendor of divine grace, with which Scripture makes us acquainted. But - and this is the point which is most important - this Indian wisdom agrees fully with the doctrine of Pelagius in that it seeks the cause of the general sinfulness in the fall of each individual human being. Both ideas are based on the idea that mankind consists of an arbitrary heap of souls who have lived side by side for centuries, who have nothing to do with each other either in origin or in essence, and who each have to look after themselves. Each fell for himself, each receives his own deserved fate, and each tries as hard as he can to make the best of himself. What brings people together is really only the misery in which they all find themselves together, and compassion is therefore the most important virtue. But on closer consideration, it is even more obvious that those who lead happy lives here on earth "reward" themselves for their virtues according to the law of retribution and look down from on high upon the wretched, who after all received what they deserved according to that same law.

All this must be clearly understood in order to appreciate the Scriptures when they shed their light on the general sinfulness of the human race. It does not engage in idle contemplation, but recognizes and respects the facts which are clear to all our consciousness and conscience; it does not fantasize about a pre-existence of souls before they enter the earthly body, and it does not know of a fall which may have taken place in the life of each individual, either before or during earthly existence. Instead of the individualistic and atomistic view, she puts forward the organic view of the human race.

Humanity does not consist of a heap of souls who have come together from all sides by chance and who now, for better or worse, must find common ground through all sorts of contracts. But it is a unity, a body with many members, a tree with many branches, a kingdom with many citizens. And such a unity it will not become in the future, by external aggregation; but it was and it still is, despite all divisions and schisms, because it has one origin and one nature. Physically, humanity is one, because it springs from one blood; and judiciously and ethically it is one, because, on the basis of natural unity, it is subject to the same divine law, the law of the covenant of works. From this the Scriptures now deduce that mankind also remains one in her fall. In this manner she regards the human race, always, from its first to its last page. If there are distinctions among men in rank, position, office, honor, gifts, if Israel was elected to the Lord’s inheritance after passing other nations, it is due to God’s grace; He alone makes distinctions (1 Corinthians 4:17), but in themselves all men are alike before God, for they are all sinners, sharing in the same guilt, contaminated by the same impurity, subject to the same death, and in need of the same redemption. God has bound them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on them all, Romans 11:32. There is no reason for anyone to be proud; there is no reason for anyone to give in to despair. That this is the continuous consideration of the Scriptures concerning the human race needs no further demonstration; it appears sufficiently from what has been said above about general sinfulness. But this organic unity of the human race in a legal and moral sense finds in the Apostle Paul a deliberate and profound treatment. When in his letter to the Romans he has first exposed the damnability of the entire world before God, Romans 1:18-32, Romans 2:1-29, Romans 3:1-20, and then explained how all righteousness and the forgiveness of sins, all reconciliation and life are acquired by Christ and are present in Him for the believer, Romans 3:21-31, Romans 4:1-25, Romans 5:1-11, he summarizes at the end in Romans 5:12-21 (before describing the moral fruits of the righteousness of faith in Romans 6:1-23), he again briefly summarizes the entire salvation, which we owe to Christ, and thus places it, in a world-historical context, opposite all the guilt and misery, which came to us from Adam.

Sin entered the world through one man, and continued with death to all men. For the sin of which the first man was guilty was of a very special character; it is called an offense, different in character from the sins of men from Adam to Moses, Romans 5:12, a crime or misdemeanor, Romans 5:15 ff, a disobedience, Romans 5:19, and as such forms the sharpest contrast with the absolute and lifelong obedience of Christ, Romans 5:19. That is why sin, of which Adam was guilty, did not remain confined to his person; it worked its way through the whole human race. It was not only in his person that sin entered the world, but also in the world through one man, Romans 5:12, and as a consequence of that death, which passed upon all men and could justly continue, since all men sinned in that one man. That this is Paul’s thought is proved by the fact that he derives the death of those men who lived from Adam to Moses and who could not sin with an offense like Adam’s (because in those days there was no positive law, that is no law of covenant, to which a certain condition and threat was attached), precisely from Adam’s offense. But if Romans 5:12 f. still leaves any uncertainty in this respect, it is completely removed by what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:22.

Here we read that all men die, not in themselves, not in their parents or ancestors, but in Adam; that is to say, men are not subject to death first, because they themselves or their parents or ancestors are guilty; but they have all died in Adam; It was already decided in Adam that they would all die; the cause and the principle of their death can already be found in Adam; in him they did not merely become mortal, but in fact all died already in an objective sense; the sentence of death was already pronounced then, although its execution followed some time later. Now Paul knows of no other death in mankind than that which results from sin, Romans 6:23. If all men have died in Adam, then all have sinned in him. Sin and death could enter the world through Adam’s transgression and pass into all mankind, because that transgression had a special character, being the transgression of a special law, and was not committed by Adam exclusively as a person, but as the head of the human race.

Only when the Apostle’s thought in Romans 5:12-14 is understood in this way does everything come into focus that is said in the following verses about the consequences of Adam’s transgression; it is all the result of the same basic idea. The guilt (the judgment pronounced by God as judge) of one who sinned, became a condemning sentence, which extended to the entire human race, vs. 16; through the crime or misdemeanor of one man, death prevailed in the world over all men, Romans 5:17; through one crime, death came to all men, Romans 5:16; and through one man’s transgression, death came to all men, Romans 7:17; through one crime it came to a condemning judgment for all people, Romans 5:18; and then finally everything is summed up in this sentence: through the disobedience of one man the many (that is, all the descendants of Adam) were made sinners, they all came to stand before God as sinners, Romans 5:19. The seal on this interpretation of Paul’s train of thought is set by the comparison he draws between Adam and Christ. In the context of Romans 5:1-21, the Apostle is not talking about the origin of sin in Adam, but about the fullness of salvation acquired through Christ. In order to show this salvation in all its glory, he compares it with sin and death, which have spread from Adam through the human race. Adam serves here as an example, as a type, of the one who is to come, Romans 5:14. In the one Adam and by his one transgression the human race was condemned; in the one man Jesus Christ it is acquitted and justified by God’s one judicial sentence; through one man sin entered the world as a power and ruled over all men, and likewise one man has given to divine grace the dominion over mankind; Through one man death came into the world, as proof of the reign of sin; through one man, Christ Jesus our Lord, grace also began to reign in the way of a righteousness that leads to eternal life. The comparison between Adam and Christ is valid in all respects; there is only this difference: sin is powerful and strong, but grace far surpasses it in wealth and abundance. In the doctrine of original sin, Christian theology has summarized these thoughts of Scripture. It is possible to oppose and deny this doctrine, or even to mock it. But this does not silence the testimony of Scripture, nor does it destroy the facts on which this doctrine is based. For the whole history of the world is proof that mankind, in its entirety and therefore in all its members, stands guilty before God, is partakers of a morally corrupt nature, and is at all times subject to destruction and death. Original sin therefore includes original sin: in the first man, because of and for the sake of his disobedience, the many that came from him were made sinners by the just judgment of God, Romans 5:19.

Original sin is, secondly, original sin׳, all men are received in sin and born in iniquity, Psalms 51:7, are evil from their youth onwards, Genesis 6:5, Genesis 8:21, Psalms 25:7, because from uncleanè no pure and from flesh only flesh can be born Job 14:4, John 3:6; and this impurity not only extends to all mankind, but it also extends to the whole being of every man; it affects the heart, which is more deceitful than any thing, mortally wounded, never to be fathomed, Isaiah 17:9, and as the beginning of life, Proverbs 4:23, is also the source of all iniquity, Mark 7:22; and then - from this midpoint it darkens the mind, Romans 1:21, Ephesians 2:18, inclines the will to evil and makes it powerless to do true good, John 8:34, John 8:7, stains the conscience, Titus 1:15, and makes the body with all its members, eyes and ears, hands and feet, mouth and tongue, weapons of iniquity, Rom. And this sin makes every human being subject to perdition and death, not first through his own ״deliberate’ sins, but from the moment of his conception, Romans 5:14; all men have already died in Adam, 1 Corinthians 15:22.

However harsh this original sin may seem, it is based on a law that rules all human life, whose existence no one can deny and against which no one can raise a thought as long as it is to his advantage.

If parents have accumulated treasures for the children, the children never object to accepting these treasures at the death of the parents, even though they have not deserved them at all, yes or even though they are sometimes unworthy of them because of their shameful behaviour and spend them in injustice, living excessively. And if there are no children, the furthest relatives, second cousins and third cousins, show up to share, without any qualms of conscience, in the inheritance that unknown and neglected relatives have unexpectedly left them. This applies to material goods. But there are also spiritual goods, goods of rank and position, of honor and reputation, of science and art, which the children inherit from their parents, which they have not earned in any way, and yet they may accept without protest and also gratefully accept. Such a law of heredity now prevails everywhere, in families, in the lineages, in the peoples, in the state and society, in science and art, and in all mankind. The next generation lives off the goods that the generations before them have accumulated; the offspring enter into the work of their fathers in all walks of life; and there is no one who, as long as he benefits from it, will oppose this gracious act of God. But everything changes when this same law of inheritance is used to one’s disadvantage. When children are called upon to support their poor parents, they suddenly cut off all ties of community and refer them to the deaconry or the poorhouse. If relatives feel insulted, because one of them has married below his status or has committed an indecent act, they suddenly pull away from him and make him share in their disfavor. Every person has a stronger or weaker tendency to enjoy the pleasures of society, but to throw off its burdens. However, this inclination is itself a powerful proof that such a community of joys and burdens exists among people. There is a unity, a community, a solidarity whose existence and functioning no one can deny.

We do not know how it works, in what way and by what means it exerts its influence across the board or along the length, on people who live next to each other or with each other. The laws of heredity, for example, by which physical and mental properties pass from parents to children and grandchildren, are still completely unknown to us. We do not understand the secret of how an individual human being, born of a community and raised by it, later grows up to be independent and free again and assumes his own, sometimes very powerful and influential position in the community. We cannot indicate the boundary where the community ends and personal independence and individual responsibility begins. But none of this detracts from the fact that there is such a community, and that the people are bound together in solidarity, in smaller or larger circles. There are individuals, but there is also an unseen bond that binds family, relatives, gender, people, etc. together and makes them a powerful unit. There is an individual, but there is also, albeit metaphorically, a ״people’s soul’; there are personal, but there are also social characteristics that are peculiar to a certain circle; there are special, and there are general, sins of the people; there is an individual and there is a common debt. This solidarity, which exists between people in a thousandfold way, always and quite naturally involves the representation of the many by the few. We cannot be everywhere ourselves and not all do everything; people are spread over the whole earth and live at great distances from each other; they do not all live at the same time, but succeed each other in the generations; also they are by no means all equally clever and wise, but infinitely varied in gifts and powers. Thus, every moment a few are called to think and speak, to decide and act in the name and in the place of many. There is even no real community possible, without inequality in gifts and calling, without representation and substitution. There is no body possible unless there are many, distinct members, and unless all these members are governed by a head who thinks for all and makes decisions in the name of all. In the same way a father acts for his family, a director for his company, the board for his association, a general for his army, the parliament for his voters, the king for his empire; and the subordinates share in the consequences of the actions of their predecessors. But all this applies only to a small, limited circle of humanity. Here, too, a single person can be a blessing or a curse for many, but the effect of this is always confined within narrow limits. Even a powerful man like Napoleon, however great his rule and influence may have been, still occupies only a small and fleeting place in the history of the world. But the Scriptures tell us of two men who occupy a wholly unique position, who are both at the head of a mankind, whose power and influence extend not to a people or a group of people, not to a country or a continent, not to a single or a number of centuries, but extend to the whole of the world and for all eternity. Those two human beings are Adam and Christ; the one standing at the beginning, the other in the midst of history; the one the head of the old, the other the head of the new mankind; the one the origin of sin and death in the world, the other the sprinkling and fountain of righteousness and life.

Because of the unique place they occupy at the head of mankind, they can only be compared to each other. There are Analogies (similarities) of their place, significance and influence in all forms of solidarity, which occur among people in the family, household, nation, etc. And all these analogies can and may be compared to each other. And all these analogies can and may serve to clarify the effect that Adam and Christ have had on the whole human race; they can, to a certain extent, convince us that the law of heredity also applies in the highest, religious and moral life, because this law does not stand alone here but governs everywhere and is embedded in the organic existence of mankind. Nevertheless, Adam and Christ occupy a separate, entirely unique place; they have an importance for the human race which no one, no world conqueror or first-rate genius could ever attain. We are only fully reconciled to the fate that Adam shared with us through his transgression in Christ. For it is the same law that condemns us in the first man and acquits us in the second. If we could not partake of the damnation in Adam without knowing it, it would not be possible for us to be accepted into grace again in Christ in the same way. If we do not object to receive the good that is given to us through gift and inheritance without any merit on our part, we have lost the right to oppose this same law when it brings evil upon us. We accept good from God, should we not accept evil? Job 2:10. Therefore, let us not accuse Adam, but give thanks to Christ, who loved us so wonderfully. Let us not look back to paradise, but let us look forward to the Cross; behind that Cross hangs the unforgiving crown.

Original sin, into which mankind is received and born, is not a dormant, inoperative quality, but a root from which all kinds of sins spring, an unholy fountain from which sin continually gushes like surging water, a force that always drives man in the wrong direction of his heart, away from God and his community, towards his own destruction and ruin. From original sin, therefore, we distinguish those sins which were formerly known as intractable sins and which comprise all those violations of the divine law which are committed by man himself personally, with less or more consciousness, with weaker or stronger will and intention. All these personal sins have a communal origin; they come from the heart of man, Mark 7:22. And that heart is the same for all people in all places and in all times, as long as it has not been changed and renewed through rebirth. There is one human nature common to all of Adam’s descendants, and that nature is guilty and impure in all of them. Therefore, there is no reason for any human being to separate himself from all others and say: "Go away from me, I am holier than you". The pride of the self-righteous, the pride of the noble, the self-exaltation of the wise is, in view of the human nature that is inherent in all people, without foundation. Among the thousands of sins there is not one of which any man could say that he is foreign to it and has nothing to do with it. The seeds of all iniquity, even the most evil, lie in the heart that each one carries in his bosom. The criminals are not a special breed but come from the society of which we are all members; they only reveal what is going on, stirring and brewing in the hidden nature of every human being.

Because they arise from a common root, all the sins in the life of each individual human being and also in the life of a family, a family, a gender, a nation, a society and in the whole of humanity are organically connected with each other. The number of sins is immeasurably large, so that efforts have been made to classify and group them. They are referred to as the seven deadly sins (pride, avarice, intemperance, impudence, sloth, envy, wrath); or according to the instrument by which they are committed, as sins of the mind, words and works, as sins of the flesh and of the spirit; Or according to the commandments against which they are resisted, sins against the first and second tables, against God, neighbour and ourselves; or according to the form in which they occur, sins of omission or commission; or according to the degree in which they are distinguished, hidden and public, silent and calling, human and devilish sins, etc. But however different they may be, they never stand alone as mere random acts; they always hang together at the root and have a constant effect on each other. Just as in insanity the law of healthy life is preserved but is now at work to disrupt it, so the organic life of mankind and mankind also comes out in sin, but in such a way that through that sin it now develops in a direction which is diametrically opposed to its original purpose.

We all express this thought in the well-known proverb: sin is a slippery slope; one cannot go a long way and then stand still and turn around at an arbitrary point. A famous poet spoke more profoundly and poetically of the curse of the evil deed, which consists in constantly giving birth to evil. But Scripture again gives us full light on this. It describes in James 1:14-15 how man’s sinful act arises organically; if someone is tempted to evil, the cause is not in God, but in his own lust; this is the mother of sin. But this desire, without more, does not yet produce sin (the sinful act, whether of thought, word or deed). For this it is necessary that it first receives, impregnates and conceives. This happens when the mind and the will connect with it. When desire has been impregnated by the will, it gives birth to sinful acts; and when this sin lives out, develops and completes itself, it in turn gives birth to death.

Thus it is with every particular sin, but in a similar way the various sins are interrelated. The same apostle points this out when he says in James 2:10 that whoever keeps the whole law and fails in one (commandment) is guilty of all the commandments. For the same Lawgiver, who commanded the one commandment, has given them all; the transgressor attacks, in the one commandment, the Lawgiver of all commandments, and thus undermines the authority and force of all of them; the Law, by its origin and also by its essence, is one; it is an organic body which, when violated in one member, is completely disfigured; a chain, which, when one link is severed from it, falls to pieces. Man who transgresses one commandment in principle transgresses all the commandments, and thus goes from bad to worse; he becomes, as Jesus says, a servant, a slave of sin, John 8:34, or, as Paul expresses it, sold under the dominion of sin, so that he is as dependent on sin as a slave to the master who bought him, Romans 7:14. The same organic consideration applies also to the sins which are manifested in certain circles of human life. There are personal, individual sins, but there are also communal, social sins, sins of certain families, peoples, etc. Every class and position in society, and all the others, are subject to the same laws. Each class in society, each profession and business, each office and each job brings its own moral hazards and its own sins. The sins of city dwellers are different from those of village dwellers, the sins of farmers from those of merchants, the sins of the educated from those of the uneducated, the sins of the rich from those of the poor, the sins of children from those of adults. But this proves precisely that all these sins are interrelated in an oak tree. And statistics confirms this when they show that certain crimes occur with a certain rhythmic regularity in certain ages, seasons, sexes, positions and circles. Now we perceive only a very small part of this organic connection of sins with our own particular circle, and this on the surface. But if we were able to penetrate to the essence of appearances, and to trace the root of sin in the hearts of men, we should undoubtedly discover that in sin, too, there is unity, thought, plan, course; in a word, that in sin, too, there is a system.

Scripture lifts a corner of the veil when it links mankind’s sin, both as regards its origin and its development and completion, with the kingdom of Satan. Since Satan seduced man and overthrew him, John 8:44, he has become in a moral sense the ruler of the world and the god of this age, John 16:11, 2 Corinthians 4:4. Although condemned by Christ and cast out, John 12:31, John 16:11, and thus working primarily in the Hebrew world, Acts 26:18, Ephesians 2:2, he nevertheless constantly attacks the church from outside, which must wage war against him with its entire armor, Ephesians 6:12, and towards the end of the days he organizes his whole power once more for a last, decisive attack on Christ and his kingdom, Revelation 12:1-17 ff. but when we survey the whole realm of sin in mankind, in the light that Scripture sheds on it, we first understand what sin’s true nature and purpose are. In its principle and essence it is nothing less than enmity against God and a striving for supremacy in the world. Every sin, even the smallest, serves this end as a violation of the divine law, in the context of the whole. The history of the world is not a blindly evolving process, but a tremendous drama, a spiritual struggle that has lasted for centuries between the Spirit from above and the Spirit from below, between Christ and the Antichrist, between God and Satan.

However, although this fundamental consideration of sin must take precedence, it must not lead us to the one-sidedness of losing sight of all the distinctions that exist between different sins. It is true that sins, like virtues, are one and indivisible, so that he who has one, in principle has them all, James 2:10, but that is why not all sins are equal in measure and degree. There is a difference between sins committed by error and sins committed with a raised hand, Numbers 15:27, Numbers 15:30, between sins committed in ignorance and those committed with full knowledge and intention, Matthew 11:21, Luke 12:20, and the other sins committed with the full knowledge and intention of the sinner. Matthew 11:21, Luke 12:47, Luke 23:34, Acts 3:17, Acts 17:30, between sins against the first and against the second table, Matthew 22:37-38, between sensual and spiritual, human and devilish sins, etc. Since the commandments of the one law are different, and since their transgressions may be committed in very different circumstances and with more or less consent of conscience and will, not all sins are equally grievous or worthy of the same punishment. The sins committed against the moral law are more serious than those against the cereal commandments, for obedience is better than sacrifice, 1 Samuel 15:22; he who steals from poverty is much less guilty than he who does it from greed, Proverbs 6:30; there are degrees of wrath, Matthew 5:22; and though the desire of a married woman is already adultery in the heart, he who does not fight this desire but follows it, still commits adultery with the deed, Matthew 5:28.

If we misunderstood this distinction between the sins, we would come into serious conflict with Scripture and also with reality. For in a moral sense men are born equal; they bear the same guilt and are polluted by the same stain. But as they grow up, they are nevertheless far apart. The faithful sometimes fall into serious sin, constantly struggle against the old man, and here on earth only attain a small principle of perfect obedience. And among those who have not known the name of Christ or believed in Him there are many who give themselves over to every indulgence of wickedness and drink sin like water; but there are also many among them who distinguish themselves by a civilly honourable and high moral life and can even set an example of virtue for Christians. The seeds of all wickedness lie in every human heart; and the more we grow in self-knowledge, the more we recognize the truth of the confession that by nature we are inclined to hate God and our neighbor, that we are incapable of any good and are inclined to all evil. But this evil inclination does not lead to evil deeds in all people to the same extent; on the broad road all do not walk at the same speed and all do not make the same progress. The cause of this difference does not lie in man, but in the restraining grace of God. The heart is the same in all men; always, everywhere, and in all, the same evil thoughts and desires arise from it; the stuff of that heart is always evil from childhood. If God were to let man loose and give them over to the desires of their hearts, it would be hell on earth and no human society and no human history would be possible. But just as the fire in the earth is kept in check by the hard crust of the earth and only erupts from time to time and in some places in the volcanoes, so the evil thoughts and desires of the human heart are suppressed and stopped from all sides by society. God has not let man go, but restrains the wild animal that lives in him, so that He may maintain and carry out His counsel for the human race. He still maintains in mankind natural love and the craving for companionship, the consciousness of religion and morality, the conscience and the sense of justice, reason and the will; and He places him in the midst of a family, a society, a state, which with their public opinion, notions of decency, labour coercion, discipline, punishment, etc. restrain him and force him to a civil, honourable life and educate him.

Through all these manifold and powerful influences sinful man is enabled to accomplish much good. When the Heidelberger Catechism says that man is completely incapable of any good and inclined to all evil, then, as the Articles against the Remonstrants clearly state, this good must be understood to be the sanctifying good.

Man by nature is totally incapable of this beatific good; he cannot do any good that is internally and spiritually good, that is completely pure in the eyes of God, that searches the heart, that is fully in accordance both with the spiritual and literal sense of the law, and that therefore, according to the promise of this law, could earn eternal life and heavenly salvation. But this does not at all mean that man is not capable, through the general grace of God, of accomplishing many good things. In his personal life he can, by reason and will, subdue his evil thoughts and desires and conform to virtue; in his domestic life he can love his wife, his children, his parents, his brothers and sisters, and seek the good for them; in society he can honestly and faithfully fulfill his vocation and contribute to the increase of prosperity - and civilization, science and art. In a word, through all the powers with which God surrounds natural, sinful man, He still enables him to lead a human life here on earth. But all these powers are not capable of renewing man’s inner life, and in many cases they even prove to be inadequate to subdue iniquity. Here we need not even think of the world of criminals, which exists in every society and leads its own life. But during conquests, colonizations, religious and race wars, popular uprisings, state revolutions, scandal trials, etc., it is sometimes revealed what terrible injustice dwells in the hearts of men. The refinement of culture does not eradicate it, but encourages the shamelessness with which it is treated. On deeper examination, the seemingly noblest deeds often turn out to have been inspired by all sorts of sinful considerations of selfishness and imperiousness. He who understands something of the malice and deceitfulness of the human heart is not surprised that there is so much evil in the world, but he is surprised that there is still so much good in it; and he prays to the wisdom of God, who still knows how to do so much with such a human race. It is the goodness of the Lord that we are not destroyed, that His mercies have no end, Lamentations 3:22. There is a constant struggle between man’s sin, which seeks to break out, and the grace of God, which restrains it and makes human thought and action subservient to the execution of His counsel. This grace of God can lead mankind to humility, even if it is only in the sense of Ahab, 1 Kings 21:29, or of the inhabitants of Nineveh, Jonah 3:5 f., but he can also resist this grace permanently; and then that dreadful phenomenon sets in, which in Scripture is called hardening or forbearance, and of which Pharaoh is the typical example. It is true that it occurs with others in Scripture as well, but the nature and progress of the hardening are most clearly revealed with Pharaoh. He was a powerful ruler, standing at the head of a great empire, proud of his heart and unwilling to bow down to the signs of God’s power. These signs succeeded each other in a regular order, they increased in miraculous power and destructive effect; but in the same degree Pharaoh became angry with them; his urges to give in and bow down lost more and more of their sincerity; finally he walked toward his own destruction with his eyes wide open.

It is a tremendous drama of the soul that is enacted before our eyes in Pharaoh’s person and can be seen from both God’s and man’s sides. Sometimes it is said that the Lord hardens Pharaoh’s heart, Exodus 4:21, Exodus 7:3, Exodus 9:12, Exodus 10:20, Exodus 10:27, then again, that he hardens his own heart, Exodus 7:13, Exodus 7:22, Exodus 8:15, Exodus 8:19, Exodus 8:32, Exodus 9:34, or also that his heart is hardened, Exodus 7:1-14, Exodus 9:7, Exodus 9:35. In the hardening there is a divine and a human effect; an effect of divine grace, which more and more becomes a judgment, and an effect of human resistance, which more and more takes on the character of a conscious and determined enmity against God. And in the same way Scripture describes the hardening in other places: the Lord hardens, Deuteronomy 2:30, Joshua 11:20, Isaiah 63:17, and man hardens himself, 1 Samuel 6:6, 2 Chronicles 36:13, Psalms 95:8, Matthew 13:15, Acts 19:9, Romans 11:7, Romans 11:25; there is an interaction, a dispute, a struggle between the two, which is inseparable from the revelation of divine grace. Such an effect is attached to general grace, but special grace in particular has this characteristic, that it brings about a judgment, a division and separation among men, John 1:5, John 3:19, John 9:39. Christ is a fall and a resurrection, Luke 2:34; He is a rock of salvation or a stumbling block and a reproach, Matthew 21:44, Romans 9:32; the Gospel is to die or to live, 2 Corinthians 2:16; it hides itself from the wise and prudent, and reveals itself to the children, Matthew 11:25. And in all this the good pleasure of God is revealed, as well as the law of the religious-moral life. The sin of hardening ends in its ultimate consequence in blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Jesus speaks of this once in connection with a serious quarrel with the Pharisees. When He healed a man who was blind and dumb and possessed by the devil, the crowds were so amazed that they exclaimed, "Is this not the Son of David, the Messiah whom God promised to the fathers? But this homage to Christ aroused nothing but hatred and enmity among the Pharisees, who declared that Jesus cast out the devil through no one else but Beelzebul, the chief of the devils. So they stand on the opposite side; instead of recognizing Jesus as the Son of God, the Messiah who by the Spirit of God cast out the devils and established God’s kingdom on earth, they say that Jesus is an accomplice of Satan and his work is a devilish work. Jesus preserves His full dignity in the face of this terrible calumny; He even refutes it and demonstrates its incongruity, but in the end He adds this serious warning: all sin and calumny will be forgiven to mankind, but the calumny against the Lord will be forgiven to mankind. but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven to men, neither in this age nor in the age to come, Matthew 12:31-32. The words themselves and the context in which they occur clearly show that the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not committed at the beginning or in the middle, but at the end of the way of sin. It does not consist in doubting or disbelieving the truth which God has revealed, nor in resisting and distrusting the Holy Spirit, for these sins can be committed even by the faithful and are often committed by them. But blasphemy against the Holy Spirit can only take place when there has been such a rich revelation of God and such a powerful enlightenment of the Holy Spirit in the consciousness that man’s heart and conscience are fully convinced of the truth of divine revelation, Hebrews 6:4-8, Hebrews 10:25-29, Hebrews 12:15-17. And it consists in the fact that such a person, in spite of all personal revelation and subjective enlightenment, in spite of having recognized and experienced the truth as truth, nevertheless with full awareness and deliberate will declares it to be a lie with heart and mouth and blames Christ as an instrument of Satan. In it human sin passes into demonic sin; it does not exist in doubt and unbelief, but excludes these as well as all repentance and prayer altogether, 1 John 5: 16; it is far beyond all doubt and unbelief, beyond all repentance and prayer; notwithstanding the Holy Spirit is believed and recognized as the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, He is blasphemed in devilish evil. Sin becomes so ungodly insolent in its completion that it shakes off all shame, throws off all coverings, despises all pretence and out of pure lust for evil sets itself against God’s truth and grace. So it is a very serious warning which Jesus gives us in this teaching about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit; but one should not forget the consolation which it contains. For if this is the one unforgivable sin, then all other sins, even the greatest and most grievous, are forgivable; forgivable not by human penance, but by the riches of divine grace.

If sin can only be forgiven and erased by grace, it follows that it deserves punishment in itself. Scripture proceeds from this, when, before sin entered the world, it already threatens it with the punishment of death, Genesis 2:7, and repeatedly announces the judgment of God on sin, whether in this life, Exodus 20:5, or in the great day of judgment, Romans 2:5-10. For God is the Just and the Holy One, who hates all ungodliness, Job 34:10, Psalms 5:5, Psalms 45:8, does not hold the guilty man guiltless, Exodus 34:7, Numbers 14:18, but seeks all iniquity with His wrath, Romans 1:18, curse, Deuteronomy 27:26, Galatians 3:10, and vengeance, Nahum 1:2, 1 Thessalonians 4:6, and shall repay every one according to his works, Psalms 62:1-3, Job 34:11, Proverbs 24:12, Jeremiah 32:19, Ezekiel 33:20, Matthew 16:27, Romans 2:6, 2 Corinthians 5:10, 1 Peter 1:17, Revelation 22:12. The conscience bears witness to this in every man when it condemns him for his evil thoughts, words, and works, and often pursues him with consciousness of guilt, remorse, remorse, and fear of judgment. And the justice of all peoples is built on this premise of the punishability of sin. But the human heart always resists this strict judgment because it feels itself condemned by it. And science and philosophy have many times placed themselves in the service of this heart and have tried, for shining reasons, to separate the good from all reward and the evil from all punishment. Just as art must be practiced for its own sake, so in this view the good must be practiced for its own sake, and not out of hope of reward, and evil must be forsaken for its own sake, and not out of fear of punishment. Neither is there any reward for virtue, nor any punishment for sin; the only punishment for sin is the consequence which it brings about by its nature, with the necessity of a natural law. Just as the virtuous person has peace of mind, so the sinner is tormented by consciousness of guilt, fear and anxiety, and is also visited with those bodily ailments which result from many sins, such as drunkenness and lust. In recent times this philosophy of the sinful and erring heart has sought support in the theory of evolution, according to which man is descended from the animal, remains an animal at the core of his being, and is by necessity all that he is and all that he does. Just as there are flowers which give off a pleasant and an unpleasant scent; just as there are gentle and tearful animals, so there are people who are useful and those who are harmful to society. Society does have the right, out of self-preservation, to remove and imprison these harmful individuals, but this is not punishment. One person has no right to hold the court over another and condemn him. Criminals are not evil-doers either, but rather madmen who suffer from a hereditary defect or who have been bred and raised by society itself, and who therefore do not really belong in a prison but in a hospital or reformatory and are entitled to humane, professional or educational treatment. For the sake of fairness, it must be recognized that this new theory of criminal law is partly a reaction against another extreme to which people used to deviate. While nowadays criminals are seen as a kind of madmen, in the past the madmen and all kinds of other unfortunate people were often treated as criminals and people had the good sense to inflict the most horrible pains on people who were considered to be worthy of punishment, by means of all kinds of instruments of torture. But although this may be a justification, it does not make the new theory good itself; it is just as one-sided as the previous one, because it ignores the seriousness of sin, robs man of his moral freedom and reduces him to a machine, blames man’s moral nature on his conscience and guilt, and in principle undermines all basis for authority, government and justice.

Whatever efforts science may make to prove the natural necessity of sin, every man, whose conscience has not yet been scorched, feels obliged to do good and responsible for his evil deeds. Certainly the hope of reward is not the only and not the main motive for doing good, just as the fear of punishment may not be the only reason for not doing evil. But he who, for these secondary motives, does good and refrains from evil, even in an external sense, is still better off than he who, despising these motives, now starts living according to the lust of his heart. And then: not only as a result of an external calculation, but from the very beginning virtue and happiness, and sin and punishment, are inseparably connected in the moral consciousness. True love of the good, that is, full communion with God, implies that man is wholly and completely incorporated into that communion, both internally and externally; and sin, in its consummation, brings about the destruction of man both in body and soul. The punishment appointed by God for sin is death (Genesis 2:7), but this temporary, physical death is by no means an isolated event; it is preceded and followed by many other punishments. As soon as man had sinned, his eyes were opened; he was ashamed of his nakedness and hid himself for fear before God, Genesis 3:7-8. Shame and fear are inseparable from sin in man, because through sin he immediately feels guilty and unclean.

Guilt, which is a commitment to punishment, and impurity, which is moral depravity, are the consequences which occur immediately after the fall. But to these natural punishments God adds all kinds of stern punishments. The woman is punished as a wife and also as a mother; she shall bear children with pain, and yet her desire shall always be for the man, Genesis 3:16. And the man is punished in the vocation, which has been entrusted to him, in the cultivation of the earth, in the work of his hands, Genesis 3:17-19. It is true that death does not come suddenly after the offense; it is even postponed for hundreds of years, because God does not give up His intention for the human race. But the life that is now given to man becomes a life of suffering, full of trouble and sorrow, a preparation for death, a steady death. Through sin man has not only become mortal, but also dying; he is always dying, from the cradle to the grave. His life is nothing but a brief and vain struggle with death. This is expressed in the many complaints voiced in Scripture about the fragility, transience and vanity of human life. Man was dust, also before the fall; he was formed according to his body from the dust of the earth, and therefore earthly from the earth, a living soul, 1 Corinthians 15:45, 1 Corinthians 15:47. But the life of the first man was destined to be controlled, spiritualized and glorified by the spirit in the way of observing the divine law. Now, however, as a result of his transgression, the law comes into effect: "Of dust art thou, and unto dust shalt thou return" (Genesis 3:19).

Instead of spirit, he has become flesh through sin. And now his life is a shadow, a dream, a night-wake, a handbreadth, a footstep, a wave in the ocean that rises and breaks, a ray of light that shines and disappears, a flower that blooms and withers. It is actually not worthy of the full, glorious name of life, it is a continual death in sin, John 8:21, John 8:24, a death in sins and crimes, Ephesians 2:1. That is life seen from the inside, as it is corrupted, destroyed, dissolved and dissolved by sin. And from the outside it is constantly threatened from all sides. Immediately after the transition, man was driven out of paradise; he may not return there of his own accord, because he has forfeited the right to life and such a place of peace and quiet is no longer appropriate for a fallen man. He must go out into the world to earn his living and fulfill his vocation. The accidental man belongs in a paradise, the blessed live in heaven, but the sinful man, who is still susceptible to salvation, is given a dwelling place on earth that shares in his fall, that is cursed for his sake, and that is subject to vanity along with him, Romans 8:20. The earth on which we live is not heaven, but neither is it hell; it stands between the two and shares in both. We cannot point out in detail the connection that exists between the sins of men and the disasters of life. Jesus even warns against it, saying that the Galileans, whose blood Pilate mixed with their sacrifices, were not sinners above others, Luke 13:1-3, and that the son who was born blind was not punished for his own sins or the sins of his parents, but was visited in this way, That the works of God might be revealed in him, John 9:3. From the disasters or calamities that befall someone we may not conclude, like Job’s friends, that there is a special, personal guilt. But without doubt, according to the whole teaching of Scripture, there is a close connection between the fallen human race on the one hand and the fallen earth on the other. They were created in harmony with each other, were both cast down to vanity together, have both been redeemed in principle by Christ, and will one day be erected and glorified together. The present world is neither the best nor the worst possible, but it is a good world for fallen man; because it brings forth only thorns and thistles of its own accord, it compels man to work, preserves him from destruction, and keeps alive in his heart the unshakable hope of lasting good and eternal happiness. This hope makes him live, even if it is only a life, short of days and full of unrest. For all life, which is still part of man’s nature, perishes in death. If it is strong, it will last seventy or eighty years, but usually it is cut off much earlier, in the prime of youth, shortly after or even before birth. The Scriptures say that death is God’s judgment, a reward and punishment for sin (Genesis 2:17, Romans 5:12, Romans 6:23, 1 Corinthians 15:21, James 1:15), and thus resonate in the minds of mankind as a whole and of every special human being. Even the so-called natural nations start from the idea that man is immortal according to his nature, and that not immortality but death must be explained. Nevertheless, many people in past and present times have believed that death, namely not by external force but as an inner process of decomposition of life, is entirely natural and necessary; death in itself is not terrifying, but only appears that way to man because his instinct for life is opposed to it. As science advances with its victories, it will more and more limit untimely death and make natural death by decay the rule; and then mankind will die as calmly and peacefully as the plant that withers and the animal that lives out. But though there are some who speak in this way, there are others who sound a very different note. The men of science are also in complete disagreement about the causes and nature of death. Opposite the opinion of those who see death as a natural and necessary end to life, there are many who consider death an even greater mystery than life and who state flatly that there is no reason why living beings should die by virtue of their inner nature. They even say that the universe was originally an immense, living being, that death only came later and that there are still immortal animals. And this language is readily accepted by all those who today believe in a pre-existence of souls and who consider death to be a transformation which man undergoes in order to ascend to a higher life, just as the caterpillar changes into a butterfly. This contradiction of opinion proves in itself that science cannot penetrate to the deepest and last causes of the phenomena, nor can it explain death and life. Both remain a mystery to it. It says that life is original and eternal, but then faces the question of where death came from and dissolves it in appearance, in a simple transformation; or it tries to understand death as entirely natural, but then knows nothing about life and is forced to deny immortality. In both cases it erases the boundary between death and life, as well as between sin and holiness. The confession that death is the wages of sin is therefore not proved by science, nor is it overthrown; it is simply beyond its sphere and reach, and does not need its proof. For it rests in the divine testimony, and is confirmed from hour to hour by the fear of death, with which men, all their lives, are subject to servitude, Hebrews 2:15. Whatever may be argued in favour of its necessity and in defence of its right, death remains unnatural. It is so in view of man’s nature and destiny, in connection with his creation in God’s image, because communion with God is incompatible with death; God is not a God of the dead, but of the living, Matthew 22:32. On the other hand, it is perfectly natural for fallen man, because sin, being completed, gives birth to death, James 1:15. In the Scriptures death is not synonymous with destruction, nor is life synonymous with nothing more than bare existence. But life is enjoyment, bliss, abundance, and death is misery, poverty, hunger, discontent, unhappiness; death is dissolution, separation of what belongs together. Man, created in God’s image, belongs in God’s community, and then he lives, fully, eternally, blissfully. But if he breaks off that community, he dies ׳at that very moment and continues to die; his life is robbed of peace, joy, bliss, it has become a death in sin. And this spiritual death, separation between God and man, continues in the physical and ends in eternal death. For with the separation of soul and body, man’s fate is decided, but his existence does not end. It is set for man to die once and then the judgment, Hebrews 9:27. And who can exist in that judgment?