What is a sinner?

"Whosoever doeth sin doeth also lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness" (ver. 4). "Committing sin" is generally used for a particular act, as when one says that a man has committed a sin. But "doing sin" as here means that it is both the principle of the man and his practice too; for there is nothing else really but the man's doing sin. It is his nature. Of whom does he speak? Of every man naturally. This is exactly what man does as in God's sight. It is not merely the Gentile but the Jew; for in that light there was no difference, though they might ever so much oppose one another, and habitually indulge in mutual hate and scorn. Before God fully revealed in Christ what possible room for any thought of pride? Man's place is in the dust as a sinner.

Who then is the sinner but every man as such in his natural state? Was not this your life and mine before we learned Christ? God was unknown to our souls except in a certain dread of Him — a fear that He would cast us into hell some day. If God was not in our thoughts, sin was. What is its true character then? Lawlessness, the principle of self-will and of total independence of God. Man finds it not so easy now to be independent of his fellow; he has no difficulty in being thoroughly indifferent to God. How mad, wicked, awful a state! God is in none of his thoughts; this is sin. The moment you bring in such a definition of sin as is here revealed, it applies to everybody whether Jew or Gentile. The Jew had a claim of righteousness, because he was under law; but the consequence if he sinned was the additional guilt of breaking a known law, and that law the law of God. He was therefore a "transgressor," which the Gentile could not be, because the Gentile knew nothing about the law as a general rule; most of them had not even heard of it. it would be therefore quite a misapplication of terms to talk about the Gentiles as if they were transgressors. Scripture never does so speak, but calls them lawless or sinners; as for instance Gal. 2:15 says, "sinners of the Gentiles."

But the Christian is not only justified, he is also sanctified; he is a saint (mind, Scripture does not say, as men do, that a few dead Christians are saints, but it says on the contrary that all living Christians are saints). This may startle some who are accustomed to the usual theological expression, that justification is an act done at once, and that sanctification is gradual and progressive. It is not of course denied that there is such a thing as gradual sanctification, i.e. increasing holiness of walk in him, who by abiding in the Son, grows from a little child into a young man and from a young man into a father in the family of God (see 1 John 2:13; Eph. 5:26). This growth is a matter of deep importance, and God forbid that we should make light of it. Nevertheless, it is boldly stated that the Christian is said to be in Scripture, according to the ordinary use of the term, a sanctified one, or saint: by which is meant, not one especially holy in walk, but one set apart for God, by the call of God. The Apostle Paul, after enumerating a terrible list of sins, goes on to say: "And such were some of you; but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." (1 Cor. 6:11.) In the second verse of the Epistle he writes to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints. This last expression is not quite clear in English. In the Greek it is plain enough "saints by calling"; i.e. by the call of God. In Heb. 10:10 it is written: "By the which will" (viz. the will of God) "we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." The Apostle Jude also speaks of believers as "sanctified by God the Father" (verse 1). And it must be borne in mind, that Jesus Christ is our Sanctification, as well as our Righteousness. (1 Cor. 1:30.) This sanctification will be better understood by our Lord's words: "For their sakes I sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified through the truth." (John 17:19.) It is evident that the Lord could not be made holy, for He ever was holy; but He was set apart as the Holy One for a special purpose: and so believers are set apart as sanctified ones, or saints; not by holiness of walk, but by the call and will of God, though the result of this sanctification should be, indeed must be, holiness of walk. Any one, who will take a concordance, and look up the word "saints," will find that in the Acts and the Epistles, believers are called saints more than fifty times, and that the word is always applied to all believers, and never to certain special believers, whose walk was more holy than that of others. Moreover, God never calls believers sinners. On the contrary Scripture says: "When we were yet sinners" (Rom. 5:8); plainly implying that we are not so now. The passage in 2 Timothy 1:15, which is sometimes referred to, is spoken by the Apostle Paul of himself and in it he refers to what he did in his unconverted state. It is therefore very evident that God's people are sanctified ones or saints, and not sinners in His sight.

Objectors will assuredly say: "Then you make out that you saints never sin?" Not so. The common definition of a sinner is one who sometimes sins; and if so, then it is naturally assumed that a saint is one, who never sins. But, according to God, a sinner is not one who sometimes sins, but one who always sins, who never does anything but sin, for he is an enemy of God and an unbeliever, and as such, reprobate unto every good work. (Titus 1:16.) He is not reconciled to God, and therefore all that he does is sin (see Prov. 15:8; Prov. 20:4, 27). The saint on the contrary is reconciled, and can please God (see 1 Thess. 4:1), though, alas! he does not always do so; for in many things we offend all. (James 3:2.) Thus we have seen on the unmistakable testimony of Scripture that all real Christians are justified or accounted righteous, and made meet for glory; they are also sanctified, or made saints, by the will of God, through the offering of Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit.

Some people talk of "a believing sinner," or speak of the worship offered to God by "poor sinners." Many hymns indeed never bring the soul beyond this condition. But what is meant by "sinner" in the word of God is a soul altogether without peace, a soul which may perhaps feel its want of Christ, being quickened by the Spirit, but without the knowledge of redemption. It is not truthfulness to deny what saints are in the sight of God. If I have failed in anything, will taking the ground of a poor sinner make the sin to be less, or give me to feel it more? No! If I am a saint, blessed with God in His beloved Son, made one with Christ, and the Holy Ghost given to dwell in me, then I say, What a shame, if I have failed, and broken down, and dishonoured the Lord, and been indifferent to His glory! But if I feel my own coldness and indifference, it is to be treated as baseness, and to be hated as sin. Whereas, to take the ground of a poor sinner, is really, though it may not be intended, to make excuses for evil. Which of the two ways would act most powerfully upon the conscience? which humbles man and exalts God most? Clearly the more that you realize what God has given you, and made you in Christ — if you are walking inconsistently with it — the more you feel the sin and dishonour of your course. Whereas, if you keep speaking about yourself merely as a sinner, it may seem lowly to the superficial, but it only becomes a kind of palliative of your evil, which in this case never humbles so thoroughly as God looks for in the child of faith.

II. Man as born into the world is also a sinner as to his nature, and every default of his debt to God is a committed sin; accordingly by nature and by practice we are sinners and sinful.

Now, where an individual is not in this position, it is just to be under all his trespasses and sins - to have them upon himself. He is a sinner, as all are; but he is nothing else than a sinner in thought, principle, affection, and standing; all that he is, and he is nothing else. Perhaps he may not outwardly have manifested as much sin as others. He may have been restrained by regard to decorum; he may not have been placed in such circumstances as to draw it out equally with others. He may not have had the opportunity as others of appearing as great a sinner, but still he is a sinner, and nothing else. If he has committed, in thought, word, or act, one sin that is the evidence that he is a sinner, as one bad fruit evidences the unsoundness of the tree. Where did he get the inclination to transgress? No union of outward circumstances could have brought forth what was not within.

The fulfilling His will is obedience, the exercise of our own independent will is lawlessness, which is sin. Every defaulting debtor to God is undoubtedly a sinner, and every sinner has put himself under the penalty attached to his sin. To speak precisely, a debt to God is not in its nature a sin, nor is a debtor to God necessarily a sinner, because, as before remarked, men and angels are thus debtors simply because God has given to them His commands, whether they be broken or fulfilled. A defaulted debt becomes a sin, and a defaulting debtor a sinner, when God is the Creditor. Being by nature and by practice hopelessly sinners and irretrievably guilty, we are lost.

Now I maintain, not only that the word (ἀνομία) will not bear such a meaning, but that it is altogether foreign to the scope of the passage and the drift of the apostle's reasoning. He is not speaking of particular acts, but about nature manifesting itself in our ways. "Every one that committeth sin committeth also lawlessness." A man who sins shows his will alienated from God — an evil nature derived from him who fell through Satan. Here the apostle regards man as doing nothing else but his own will, which is exactly what the natural man does. He acts independently of God, and, as far as he is concerned, never does anything but his own will. John is not speaking of positive overt acts, but of the man's habitual bent and character — his life and nature. The sinner, then, sins, and in this merely shows out his state and the moral roots of his nature as a sinner (namely, lawlessness). He has neither heart nor conscience towards God: he does what he likes as far as he can. He practises lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.

First, "sin entered into the world," and "many became sinners": this is the depravation of nature, which is the sad heirloom of succeeding generations.

We are by nature sinners:

By one man's disobedience mankind came to be sinners. Adam overstepped the boundary of obedience. He hearkened not to the direct command, and we, as his children, have his nature, and are sinners. It is as when a man is sold into slavery, not only has he become a slave, but the children he begets are also bondsmen, and grow up into slavery, with the thoughts and feelings natural to the slave. In spite of himself, he sins. He commits the crimes he resolved to shun. Whatever man may do he cannot change his nature. The brand, sinner, is upon his brow, as the spots are upon the leopard's skin. He can no more forsake being a sinner than a fish could become a bird, neither has he in him the instinct after divine liberty. An entire change must occur, a radical change the root is in fault, and cannot be transplanted into God's presence to blossom there. Now what God does is not to help man to become righteous in himself by works, nor to assist man to repair the old garment of unrighteousness by adding thereto a little of the new cloth of righteousness, but what God does is to bring in

But is peace enjoyed? All is clear on God's side but we have to learn this. We tread the path of faith and the matter of sin is raised. It is not now a question of sins but of sin. The difference is this: sin is that principle in the world which renders it opposed to God, and it is present in the nature of every person in it. Sins are wilful acts done in defiance of God's sovereign authority. Sins are the corrupt fruit of the corrupt tree of sin. This is how the doctrine is unfolded in Romans chapter 5:12 through chapters 6 and 7. It is not only that we have committed sins, but we have to learn the deeper lesson that we are sinners by nature. This is our second "cameo" and the path to it is not a pleasant one.