Sheshbazzar

The thing often overlooked when discussing 'sin' and mankind's weaknesses in regard to committing 'sin', -and least anyone forget exactly what 'sin' is;
'Sin IS the transgression of The LAW'.

And this is the harshness of The LAW; 'Cursed is the one who does not confirm the words of this LAW by observing them.'

'You shall therefore keep the Commandments, and the Statutes, and the Judgments, which I command thee this day, TO DO Them'.

NO exceptions. NO excuses.

The LAWS of that Covenant delivered by Moses are no longer kept and done by any man, no not even the very strictest of Judaisms practitioners.

ALL persons under the terms of that Covenant live in transgression of its terms. ALL are guilty, all are in sin, from the greatest to the least;
'Every one of them has turned aside; They have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one.'

How then shall a man deliver himself from this condition when there is no way in his hand to be able to keep and to DO the words of The LAW?

Surprisingly the answer is really quite simple; To humble one's self, confess the weakness and the transgressions, and throw one's self upon the mercy of That Judge that holds the power to grant His clemency, forgiveness, and His full pardon to LAW breaking sinners.
Easy to do. but man lives in the flesh and in the world, and before the day is out will be found again in further trespasses of The LAW and again in guilt.

How then to escape this condition? 'As long as a man lives he is under The LAW' , and therefore remains under the curse of The LAW.'
But a dead man is no longer subject to The LAW.
It is therefore good that a man should die, and be laid into the grave, and no longer to be found living in his constant transgressions and sins.

But who wishes for an early and untimely death? and not see to their children and grandchildren come and grow, nor be there to care for their loved ones, and to reap of the fruits of their labors?

Cut to the chase. Thus for the satisfaction of The Law, 'Baptism' is accounted a watery 'grave' and they that are laid into it are thenceforth accounted of as being both dead and buried.
The dead do not sin. Those so dead can no longer sin, Their acts are no longer counted as being acts of the living. Those who are so dead cannot commit sin.
When death has claimed as person, they are no longer subject to the strictures of The Law, and thus forever freed from 'sin'.

Yet you say; 'Yet it is evident that they come up out of that water continue to live as they formerly did!' and so can find fault, and can lay against them many charges and heaping accusations.

But what says the Scripture? 'Blessed is that man to whom Yahweh accounts no guilt'. (There is only One Way to attain that state)

That is what is so often overlooked;

This Judge holds the absolute power and authority to totally ABSOLVE and to render a verdict of guiltless to anyone He will, of anything He will.
When The Chief Judge in His mercy, decrees the accused ABSOLVED and innocent, That is the verdict that stands. And cannot be reversed by any other.
No matter how much The Adversary and his Law firm may protest.

Midarash






Disclaimer;
This is presented only as an explanation of the thought processes involved in the Bible's teaching justification by faith and Divine mercy.

I do not believe in any living literal 'God', 'Yahweh' or 'Elohim'.
I do not believe that The Torah is an accurate account of actual history.
I do not believe that the Torah was given by any God or 'Yahweh', to any historical Moses.
I do not believe or accept that there was ever any living man of the Jews named 'Jesus of Nazareth',- nor any Hebrew variant of that name.

I regard all of this as being ancient cultural religious and ethical mythology, and religious/political propaganda fiction.

sotto voce

So there was no sin before Moses?

Sheshbazzar

Certainly there was sin before Moses. Every 'sin' that existed before Moses is recognized and codified in The Law of Moses.

There would never have been any 'Law of Moses' except that sin had existed and Law was needed to counteract the detrimental social effects of sin.

sotto voce

So how did people then know that they were sinning?

Sheshbazzar

Results. The painful fruit of one's actions.


The Hebrew words for 'sin', 'evil', 'offense', 'to miss the mark', to be 'perverse', 'crooked', 'rebellious', and 'perverted' were known to men by the consequences of their acts from the beginning.
Adam and Eve learned the hard way what 'sin' was in the breaking of their single 'Thou shall not' commandment. So did their son Cain, and every man since.

The written Torah -from Genesis 1:1 forward- brought the meanings of these already well known ancient terms into sharp focus,
and specified the punishments to be meted out for those who engaged in these various forms of 'sinful' acts and behavior.

To be clear. The writers of the Torah were familiar with these terms, and the terms were familiar and understood to those to whom they were addressed.
If anything was not understood, the language existed for those in authority to fully explain and expound it it. Their authority to do so was also specified in the Law.
That was why the Law set them in authority.

sotto voce

Quite so. This is natural law, the law of the conscience, that comes to every gurgling mother's child, because of nerve endings. That is where commandments are really written; in ganglia and neurons. This law was in existence long before Moses or Abram. Natural law gives rise to civil and criminal law, and there are records of these that date back to earliest civilisation, and, it must be presumed, to pre-historic man, whose societies must have been governed by rules.

So it cannot be true to say that sin is the transgression of only Mosaic Law, even in terms of chronology. There is geography to consider, too. When Moses climbed Sinai, everyone in the whole world, from Chile to China, obeyed, and disobeyed conscience. When Moses came down Sinai with written Law, everyone in the world but a few children of Israel obeyed natural law, as Israel had done, as his father Isaac had done, and as his father Abram had done, when he lived in Ur, and later, when he had moved to Canaan and was called Abraham. If God made law, he made it by dint of creation, not by writing. And law always condemns. The conscience cannot remain intact, because people do what they know they should not do, and fail to do what they know they should do. That's what sin is.

The Bible contains record of provision of relief to consciences. Not by applying more law, though. Written Law only makes things worse. The Bible indicates that faith is the solution to the unquiet conscience. The faith of Abraham was so pleasing to deity that it was equivalent to keeping "my charge, my commandments, my statutes and my laws"— every requirement that life on this planet entailed on him, and entails on all people now, by virtue of drawing breath.

Sheshbazzar

Nicely expressed sotto.

Iskander

The great Jewish Torah Sage Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki (Rashi) says that the Lord counted it to Abraham for righteousness.
http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_...showrashi/true


The Chabad website and the Artscroll Stone Edition , both translate v, 6 as, and he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him as righteousness.


Nahum M. Sarna in his “Understanding Genesis” page 123, Schocken books. New York.1966.ISBN 0805202536 writes:

The great Jewish Torah Sage, the Rambam ( Maimonides), writes
(Pg. 519 pdf online, the guide for the perplexed by Moses Maimonides, translated from the original Arabic text, by m. Friedlander, PhD. Second edition revised throughout 1904)

Bingo the Clown-O

Thanks for sharing that with us. But I’m having trouble understanding how any of that relates to the point that I was trying to make.

What is your point?

spin

I doubt that it relates to your point at all, so don't worry. It is a brief catalog of significant analyses of the verse in question, as a general addition to the thread.