(1) .S'm as a power. — For St. Paul here as throughout chapters 5. 6. 7 sin is personified as dis- tinct from the animal appetites, the physical im- pulses, and even the human will itself as dwelling in men and bringing men into bondage. It enters into the heart {'"■ -"), works on man, using the Law itself for its ends (vv.*- "), and enslaves him (66. n. 20). jn Christ he is freed from sin (vv.i«- ^2) and dies to it (vv.'- "). As freed from and dead to sin, the Christian is not to put his members at the service of sin (v.'^), and must not allow it to reign over him in his body (v.'^). Is this only personi- Hcation, or does St. Paul regard sin as a personal agent? As a Jew he believed in Satan and a host of evil spirits ; and probably, if pressed to ex- pl.ain the power of sin, he would have aj^pealed to this personal agency; but we must not assume that when he thus speaks of sin he is always thinking of Satan. Sin is for him an objective reality without being always identified with Satan (see Sanday-Headlara, ICC, 'Romans,' p. 145 f.). For us the personification is suggestive in so far as we must recognize that in customs, beliefs, rites, institutions, in human society generally, there is an influence for evil that hurtfully affects the individual — what Ritschl has callfed the Kingdom of sin as opjjosed to the Kingdom of God. ' The subject of sin, rather, is humanity as the sum of all individuals, in so far as the selfish action of each person, involving him as it does in illimitable interaction with all others, is directed in any degree whatsoever towards the opposite of the good, and leads to the association of individuals in common evil ' (Justification and Reconciliation, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1900, p. 335).
(2) The flesh as the seat and vehicle of sin. — As there is in tins Dictionary a separate article Flesh, the subject cannot here be fully discussed : a summary statement must suffice. The flesh is not identical with the body, animal appetite, or sensuous impulse ; it is man's whole nature, in so far as he disowns his dependence on God, opposes his will to God, and resists the influence of the Spirit of God. It is man in the aspect, not merely of creatureliness, but of wilfulness and godless- ness. It is as corrupted and perverted by sin that human nature lends itself as a channel to and an instrument of sin as a power dwelling in and ruling over man.
(3) The relation of the Law to sin. — The Law reveals sin, because it shows the opposition be- tween the will of God and the wishes of man (Ro 3-° 7'). The Law provokes rather than re- strains sin (7*- ' ; cf. 1 Co IS''") : the commandment is like a challenge, which sin at once accepts. This St. Paul represents not only as the human result, but as the Divine intention"(Ro 5=", Gal 3"), in order that a full exposure might be made of what sin in its very nature is (Ro 7"), so that men might be made fully aware of their need of deliverance from it (IP-). The Law fails to restrain, because of its inherent impotence (t6 yap aSufaTor toD v6/j.ov, Ro 8'), as letter and not spirit (2 Co 3'^), as written on tables of stone and not on tables that are hearts of .flesh (v.' ; cf. Jer 31^). Thus sin as a power, finding its seat and vehicle in the flesh, not re-
strained but provoked by the law in the individual, brings a bondage from which the gospel otters deliverance, even as it sets a universal grace of God over against the universal sin of mankind.
(c) The origin of sin. — What explanation can be offered of the fact of the universality of sin ? llow has man's nature become so corrupted and per- verted as to be described by the term ' flesh ' ? How can sin be represented as a power dwelling in, ruling over, man, and bringing him into bondage? While St. Paul does not in Ro 5'''- ■' formally ofier this explanation, the passage being introduced into the argument for another purpose — to prove the greater efficacy of grace than of sin, by as much as Christ is greater than Adam — yet, as he is there dealing with his view of the introduction of sin into the world, we must regard that passage as his explanation both of sin as a power in humanity and of the flesh ; for it is not likely that he would leave sin in the race and sin in the individual unconnected. In the art. Fall the subject has already been discussed ; here only the considera- tions bearing immediately on tlie subject of sin need be mentioned. The relation of the race to Adam may be conceived as two-fold : (1) a partici- pation in guilt ; (2) an inheritance of a sinful dis- position.
(1) Participation in guilt. — St. Paul teaches that all men are involved in the penalty of Adam's transgression, for ' death passed unto all men ' (v. '2), but he does not teach that all men are held guilty of Adam's transgression ; for (a) by a sur- prising change of construction and discontinuity of thought he affirms as the reason for the univer- sality of death the actual transgression of all men 'for that all sinned,' and (b) he guards himself against the charge of imputing guilt when there is no conscious and voluntary transgression, by affirming that ' sin is not imputed when there is no law' (v.'^).