2. Degrees of guilt

The Scriptures recognize different degrees of guilt as attaching to different kinds of sin. The variety of sacrifices under the Mosaic law, and the variety of awards in the judgment, are to be explained upon this principle.

Luke 12:47, 48—“shall be beaten with many stripes … shall be beaten with few stripes”; Rom. 2:6—“who will render to every man according to his works.” See also John 19:11—“he that delivered me unto thee hath greater sin”; Heb. 2:2, 3—if “every transgression.… received a just recompense of reward; how shall we escape, if we neglect so great a salvation?” 10:28, 29—“A man that hath set at nought Moses’ law dieth without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, think ye, shall he be judged worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God?”

Casuistry, however, has drawn many distinctions which lack Scriptural foundation. Such is the distinction between venial sins and mortal sins in the Roman Catholic Church,—every sin unpardoned being mortal, and all sins being venial, since Christ has died for all. Nor is the common distinction between sins of omission and sins of commission more valid, since the very omission is an act of commission.

Mat. 25:45—“Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of these least”; James 4:17—“To him therefore that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin,” John Ruskin: “The condemnation given from the Judgment Throne—most solemnly described—is for all the ‘undones’ and not the ‘dones.’ People are perpetually afraid of doing wrong; but unless they are doing its reverse energetically, they do it all day long, and the degree does not matter.” The Roman Catholic Church proceeds upon the supposition that she can determine the precise malignity of every offence, and assign its proper penance at the confessional. Thornwell, Theology, 1:424–441, says that “all sins are venial but one—for there is a sin against the Holy Ghost,” yet “not one is venial in itself—for the least proceeds from an apostate state and nature.” We shall see, however, that the hindrance to pardon, in the case of the sin against the Holy Spirit, is subjective rather than objective.

J. Spencer Kennard: “Roman Catholicism in Italy presents the spectacle of the authoritative representatives and teachers of morals and religion themselves living in all forms of deceit, corruption, and tyranny; and, on the other hand, discriminating between venial and mortal sin, classing as venial sins lying, fraud, fornication, marital infidelity, and even murder, all of which may be atoned for and forgiven or even permitted by the mere payment of money; and at the same time classing as mortal sins disrespect and disobedience to the church.”

The following distinctions are indicated in Scripture as involving different degrees of guilt:

A. Sin of nature, and personal transgression.

Sin of nature involves guilt, yet there is greater guilt when this sin of nature reässerts itself in personal transgression; for, while this latter includes in itself the former, it also adds to the former a new element, namely, the conscious exercise of the individual and personal will, by virtue of which a new decision is made against God, special evil habit is induced, and the total condition of the soul is made more depraved. Although we have emphasized the guilt of inborn sin, because this truth is most contested, it is to be remembered that men reach a conviction of their native depravity only through a conviction of their personal transgressions. For this reason, by far the larger part of our preaching upon sin should consist in applications of the law of God to the acts and dispositions of men’s lives.

Mat. 19:14—“to such belongeth the kingdom of heaven” = relative innocence of childhood; 23:32—“Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers” = personal transgression added to inherited depravity. In preaching, we should first treat individual transgressions, and thence proceed to heart-sin and race-sin. Man is not wholly a spontaneous development of inborn tendencies, a manifestation of original sin. Motives do not determine but they persuade the will, and every man is guilty of conscious personal trangressions which may, with the help of the Holy Spirit, be brought under the condemning judgment of conscience. Birks, Diffculties of Belief, 169–174—“Original sin does not do away with the significance of personal transgression. Adam was pardoned; but some of his descendants are unpardonable. The second death is referred, in Scripture, to our own personal guilt.”

This is not to say that original sin does not involve as great sin as that of Adam in the first transgression, for original sin is the sin of the first transgression; it is only to say that personal transgression is original sin plus the conscious ratification of Adam’s act by the individual. “We are guilty for what we are, as much as for what we do. Our sin is not simply the sum total of all our sins. There is a sinfulness which is the common denominator of all our sins.” It is customary to speak lightly of original sin, as if personal sins were all for which man is accountable. But it is only in the light of original sin that personal sins can be explained. Prov. 14:9, marg.—“Fools make a mock at sin.” Simon, Reconciliation, 122—“The sinfulness of individual men varies; the sinfulness of humanity is a constant quantity.” Robert Browning, Ferishtah’s Fancies: “Man lumps his kind i’ the mass. God singles thence unit by unit. Thou and God exist—So think! for certain: Think the mass—mankind—Disparts, disperses, leaves thyself alone! Ask thy lone soul what laws are plain to thee,—Thou and no other, stand or fall by them! That is the part for thee.”

B. Sins of ignorance, and sins of knowledge.

Here guilt is measured by the degree of light possessed, or in other words, by the opportunities of knowledge men have enjoyed, and the powers with which they have been naturally endowed. Genius and privilege increase responsibility. The heathen are guilty, but those to whom the oracles of God have been committed are more guilty than they.

Mat. 10:15—“more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city”; Luke 12:47, 48—“that servant, who knew his Lord’s will.… shall be beaten with many stripes; but he that knew not.… shall be beaten with few stripes”; 23:34—“Father forgive them; for they know not what they do” = complete knowledge would put them beyond the reach of forgiveness. John 19:11—“he that delivered me unto thee hath greater sin”; Acts 17:30—“The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked”; Rom. 1:32—“Who, knowing the ordinance of God, that they that practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but also consent with them that practise them”; 2:12—“For as many as have sinned without the law shall also perish without the law: and as many as have sinned under the law shall be judged by the law”; 1 Tim. 1:13, 15, 16—“I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.”

Is. 42:19—“Who is blind.… as Jehovah’s servant?” It was the Pharisees whom Jesus warned of the sin against the Holy Spirit. The guilt of the crucifixion rested on Jews rather than on Gentiles. Apostate Israel was more guilty than the pagans. The greatest sinners of the present day may be in Christendom, not in heathendom. Satan was an archangel; Judas was an apostle; Alexander Borgia was a pope. Jackson, James Martineau, 362—“Corruptio optimi pessima est, as seen in a drunken Webster, a treacherous Bacon, a licentious Goethe.” Sir Roger de Coverley observed that none but men of fine parts deserve to be hanged. Kaftan, Dogmatik, 317—“The greater sin often involves the lesser guilt; the lesser sin the greater guilt.” Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book, 227 (Pope, 1975)—“There’s a new tribunal now Higher than God’s,—the educated man’s! Nice sense of honor in the human breast Supersedes here the old coarse oracle!” Dr. H. E. Robins holds that “palliation of guilt according to light is not possible under a system of pure law, and is possible only because the probation of the sinner is a probation of grace.”

C. Sins of infirmity, and sins of presumption.

Here the guilt is measured by the energy of the evil will. Sin may be known to be sin, yet may be committed in haste or weakness. Though haste and weakness constitute a palliation of the offence which springs therefrom, yet they are themselves sins, as revealing an unbelieving and disordered heart. But of far greater guilt are those presumptuous choices of evil in which not weakness, but strength of will, is manifest.

Ps. 19:12, 13—“Clear thou me from hidden faults. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins”; Is. 5:18—“Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, and sin as it were with a cart-rope” = not led away insensibly by sin, but earnestly, perseveringly, and wilfully working away at it; Gal. 6:1—“overtaken in any trespass”; 1 Tim. 5:24—“Some men’s sins are evident, going before unto judgment; and some men also they follow after” =some men’s sins are so open, that they act as officers to bring to justice those who commit them; whilst others require after-proof (An. Par. Bible). Luther represents one of the former class as saying to himself: “Esto peccator, et pecca fortiter.” On sins of passion and of reflection, see Bittinger, in Princeton Rev., 1873:219.

Micah 7:3, marg.—“Both hands are put forth for evil, to do it diligently.” So we ought to do good. “My art is my life,” said Grisi, the prima donna of the opera, “I save myself all day for that one bound upon the stage.” H. Bonar: “Sin worketh,—Let me work too. Busy as sin, my work I ply, Till I rest in the rest of eternity.” German criminal law distinguishes between intentional homicide without deliberation, and intentional homicide with deliberation. There are three grades of sin: 1. Sins of ignorance, like Paul’s persecuting; 2. sins of infirmity, like Peter’s denial; 3. sins of presumption, like David’s murder of Uriah. Sins of presumption were unpardonable under the Jewish law; they are not unpardonable under Christ.

D. Sin of incomplete, and sin of final, obduracy.

Here the guilt is measured, not by the objective sufficiency or insufficiency of divine grace, but by the degree of unreceptiveness into which sin has brought the soul. As the only sin unto death which is described in Scripture is the sin against the Holy Spirit, we here consider the nature of that sin.

Mat. 12:31—“Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven”; 32—“And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in that which is to come”; Mark 3:29—“whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”; 1 John 5:16, 17—“If any man see his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he shall ask, and God will give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: not concerning this do I say that he should make request. All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death”; Heb. 10:26—“if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of fire which shall devour the adversaries.”

Ritschl holds all sin that comes short of definitive rejection of Christ to be ignorance rather than sin, and to be the object of no condemning sentence. This is to make the sin against the Holy Spirit the only real sin. Conscience and Scripture alike contradict this view. There is much incipient hardening of the heart that precedes the sin of final obduracy. See Densey, Studies in Theology, 80. The composure of the criminal is not always a sign of innocence. S. S. Times, April 12, 1902:200—“Sensitiveness of conscience and of feeling, and responsiveness of countenance and bearing, are to be retained by purity of life and freedom from transgression. On the other hand composure of countenance and calmness under suspicion and accusation are likely to be a result of continuance in wrong doing, with consequent hardening of the whole moral nature.”

Weismann, Heredity, 2:8—“As soon as any organ falls into disuse, it degenerates, and finally is lost altogether.… In parasites the organs of sense degenerate.” Marconi’s wireless telegraphy requires an attuned “receiver.” The “transmitter” sends out countless rays into space: only one capable of corresponding vibrations can understand them. The sinner may so destroy his receptivity, that the whole universe may be uttering God’s truth, yet he be unable to hear a word of it. The Outlook: “If a man should put out his eyes, he could not see—nothing could make him see. So if a man should by obstinate wickedness destroy his power to believe in God’s forgiveness, he would be in a hopeless state. Though God would still be gracious, the man could not see it, and so could not take God’s forgiveness to himself.”

The sin against the Holy Spirit is not to be regarded simply as are isolated act, but also as the external symptom of a heart so radically and finally set against God that no power which God can consistently use will ever save it. This sin, therefore, can be only the culmination of a long course of self-hardening and self-depraving. He who has committed it must be either profoundly indifferent to his own condition, or actively and bitterly hostile to God; so that anxiety or fear on account of one’s condition is evidence that it has not been committed. The sin against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven, simply because the soul that has committed it has ceased to be receptive of divine influences, even when those influences are exerted in the utmost strength which God has seen fit to employ in his spiritual administration.

The commission of this sin is marked by a loss of spiritual sight; the blind fish of the Mammoth Cave left light for darkness, and so in time lost their eyes. It is marked by a loss of religious sensibility; the sensitive-plant loses its sensitiveness, in proportion to the frequency with which it is touched. It is marked by a loss of power to will the good; “the lava hardens after it has broken from the crater, and in that state cannot return to its source” (Van Oosterzee). The same writer also remarks (Dogmatics, 2:428): “Herod Antipas, after earlier doubt and slavishness, reached such deadness as to be able to mock the Savior, at the mention of whose name he had not long before trembled.” Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 2:425—“It is not that divine grace is absolutely refused to any one who in true penitence asks forgiveness of this sin; but he who commits it never fulfills the subjective conditions upon which forgiveness is possible, because the aggravation of sin to this ultimatum destroys in him all susceptibility of repentance. The way of return to God is closed against no one who does not close it against himself.” Drummond, Natural Law in the Spiritual World, 97–120, illustrates the downward progress of the sinner by the law of degeneration in the vegetable and animal world: pigeons, roses, strawberries, all tend to revert to the primitive and wild type. “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great a salvation?” (Heb. 2:3).

Shakespeare, Macbeth, 3:5—“You all know security Is mortals’ chiefest enemy.” Moulton, Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist, 90–124—“Richard III is the ideal villain. Villainy has become an end in itself. Richard is an artist in villainy. He lacks the emotions naturally attending crime. He regards villainy with the intellectual enthusiasm of the artist. His villainy is ideal in its success. There is a fascination of irresistibility in him. He is imperturbable in his crime. There is no effort, but rather humor, in it; a recklessness which suggests boundless resources; an inspiration which excludes calculation. Shakespeare relieves the representation from the charge of monstrosity by turning all this villainous history into the unconscious development of Nemesis.” See also A. H. Strong, Great Poets, 188–193. Robert Browning’s Guido, in The Ring and the Book, is an example of pure hatred of the good. Guido hates Pompilia for her goodness, and declares that, if he catches her in the next world, he will murder her there, as he murdered her here.

Alexander VI, the father of Caesar and Luerezia Borgia, the pope of cruelty and lust, wore yet to the day of his death the look of unfailing joyousness and geniality, yes, of even retiring sensitiveness and modesty. No fear or reproach of conscience seemed to throw gloom over his life, as in the cases of Tiberius and Louis XI. He believed himself under the special protection of the Virgin, although he had her painted with the features of his paramour, Julia Farnese. He never scrupled at false witness, adultery, or murder. See Gregorovius, Lucrezia Borgia, 294, 295. Jeremy Taylor thus describes the progress of sin in the sinner: “First it startles him, then it becomes pleasing, then delightful, then frequent, then habitual, then confirmed; then the man is impenitent, then obstinate, then resolved never to repent, then damned.”

There is a state of utter insensibility to emotions of love or fear, and man by his sin may reach that state. The act of blasphemy is only the expression of a hardened or a hateful heart. B. H. Payne: “The calcium flame will char the steel wire so that it is no longer affected by the magnet.… As the blazing cinders and black curling smoke which the volcano spews from its rumbling throat are the accumulation of months and years, so the sin against the Holy Spirit is not a thoughtless expression in a moment of passion or rage, but the giving vent to a state of heart and mind abounding in the accumulations of weeks and months of opposition to the gospel.”

Dr. J. P. Thompson: “The unpardonable sin is the knowing, wilful, persistent, contemptuous, malignant spurning of divine truth and grace, as manifested to the soul by the convincing and illuminating power of the Holy Ghost.” Dorner says that “therefore this sin does not belong to Old Testament times, or to the mere revelation of law. It implies the full revelation of the grace in Christ, and the conscious rejection of it by a soul to which the Spirit has made it manifest (Acts 17:30—“The times of ignorance, therefore, God overlooked”; Rom. 3:25—“the passing over of the sins done aforetime”).” But was it not under the Old Testament that God said: “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever” (Gen. 6:3), and “Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone” (Hosea 4:17)? The sin against the Holy Ghost is a sin against grace, but it does not appear to be limited to New Testament times.

It is still true that the unpardonable sin is a sin committed against the Holy Spirit rather than against Christ: Mat. 12:32—“whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in that which is to come.” Jesus warns the Jews against it,—he does not say they had already committed it. They would seem to have committed it when, after Pentecost, they added to their rejection of Christ the rejection of the Holy Spirit’s witness to Christ’s resurrection. See Schaff, Sin against the Holy Ghost; Lemme, Sünade wider den Heiligen Geist; Davis, in Bap. Rev., 1882:317–326; Nitzsch, Christian Doctrine, 283–289. On the general subject of kinds of sin and degrees of guilt, see Kahnis, Dogmatik, 3:284, 298.