(6) What appears at first sight an echo of Rab- binic teaching in 2'°, that stumbling in one point makes a man 'guilty of all the law, proves on closer scrutiny entirely Christian. The law is not the Mosaic Law, but ' the perfect law,' ' the law of liberty ' (1^), and the 'royal law' is, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself '(2*) ; and as- suredly the respect of persons condemned is en- tirely inconsistent with that law. Stumbling in such a point is a violation of the principle of the law. As has often been pointed out, Jewish as St. James is, no other NT writer has so completely assimilated the teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount ; and it is from the inwardness of Jesus' standpoint, and not the externality of Rabbinism, that such a saying is to be judged.
(c) In one respect St. James does not, however, closely follow the teaching of Jesus. He assumes the probability of a connexion between sickness and sin (5''), and enjoins not only prayer and anoint- ing with oil in the name of tlie Lord for the heal- ing of the disease, but also personal confession and mutual intercession for the forgiveness of the sin (yy_i4-i6j_ YoT sin involves Divine judgment (4'^ 5». i2)_ There is a friendship witli the world which is enmity against God (4''). As for the other NT writers, there is in the background of St. James's thought about sin the belief in Satan and demons (3'»).
i. Teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews. — (a) The standpoint of Hebrews must be understood if the teaching on sin is to be understood. The Epistle is primarily concerned with man's access to God, and sin, as guilt involving God's judgment, bars man's approach.
In the New Covenant there is no more conscience of sins, for the worshippers have been once cleansed, as they could not be by the sacrifices of the Law (lO'-^). While the Law failed to take away sins (v."), and could not, as touching the conscience, make the worshippers perfect (9'), the blood of Jesus, the new and living Way, gives boldness to enter the holy place of fellowship with God (10-"), ' having obtained for us eternal redemption ' (9'^). On account of this sacrifice offered once for all, there is remission of sins (10'*) and believers are sanctified (not in the sense of being made holy, but as set apart for God's service, 10'"). This guilt, which Christ by His atonement removes as all the propitiatory rites of the Old Covenant had failed to do, involves man in the fear of death
with consequent bondage (2") and an evil con- science (10--), by which is meant the sense of guilt. The writer is thus concerned not with the subjective aspect of sin as individual bondage to the power of sin, as is St. Paul in Ro 7''-°, but with the objective aspect of God's judgment on sin, and the echo of that judgment in man's sense of guilt and fear of death.
(6) The sin which he especially warns against is the rejection of this Divine provision for the re- moval of sin in Christ. ' How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?' (2*). There are two passages of very solemn warning, of even terrible severity (6^'* 10""- -"). Those who have been guilty of apostasy, having yielded to ' an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God' (3'-), cannot be renewed ' unto repentance,' as they have crucitied ' to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame ' (6°) : for them ' there remaineth no more a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgement,' because they have ' trodden under foot the Son of God, and have counted the blood of tlie covenant ... an unholy thing, and have done despite unto the Spirit of grace' (10-"-="). G. B. Stevens' inter]. re- lation of the two passages may be added : ' If a man deliberately and wilfully deserts Christ, he will find no other Saviour ; there remains no sacri- fice for sins (x. 26) except that which Christ has made. The Old Testament offerings are powerless to save ; one who refuses to be saved by Christ refuses to be saved at all. For him who turns away from Clirist and determines to seek salvation elsewhere, there can be only disappointment and failure. While such an attitude of refusal and contempt lasts, there is no possibility of recovery for those who assume it. But this impossibility is not an absolute but a relative one ; it is an im- possibility which lies within the limits of the sup- position made in the context, namely, that of a renunciation of Christ. Nothing is said against the possibility of recovery to God's favor when- ever one ceases from such a contempt of Christ and returns to him as tlie one only Saviour' {'/'he Theology of the NT, Edinburgh, 1899, pp. 521-5--'_').
(c) Unlike St. James, the author of this Epistle does not connect suffering with sin as its penalty, but urges his readers to regard their afflictions as fatherly chastisement (12'- '^), for Christ Himself was perfected by suffering (vv.''* ; cf. 2'" 4'^).
5. St. Peter's teaching. — There is nothing dis- tinctive about the teaching of St. Peter in the First Epistle. He warns his readers, ' as sojourners and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul ' (2"). He describes the Christian redemption as from the ' vain manner of life handed down from your fathers ' (1"). Christ's atonement for sin by substitution is distinctly taught : ' he bare our sins in his body upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness ' (2='') ; and he ' sufl'ered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God' (3'*). In sin he sees a personal agency, ' Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour ' (5*).