A Sermon Preached by the Rev. A. N. Rowland on April 9 in Union Church, Shanghai law:" 1-Cor. 15, 56. temptations arises from our environment, but sin gets its pull over us from another source than these. "The power of sin is the law."
Apam's Faun.
Other people, perhaps the majority here, would hold that sin has its vested rights over us because of Adam's fall. It is true that St. Paul once drew an analogy between the consequences of Eden and of Calvary. It is also true that sin has gained accumulated force from its long and undisputed possession of the human race, ever since it was human, yet the key of its power is not Adam's fal] but the Taw. If, therefore, there should he any here who are entertaining the idea that through the new biology or the, new psychology, or the new theology, the sinews of sin are cut, and its meaning relegated to the limbo of exploded fancies, I beseed you to consider if such am idea 's not a profound mistake, or rather a superficial one bearing profound consequences. The power of sin is not in human nature, or in circumstances, or in Adam's fall but in the law.
What then does St. Paul mean by this searching analysis, which 1s expressed in other words by the apostle John when he defined sin as lawlessness? Sin has a real place in me because the law of my true nature relates me to my fellows and God in a way that I cannot. by myself fulfil. If a man wants a mirror of himself as one standing midway between animal and angel he can find it in the 7th chapter of Romans with its description of our law-ridden nature. And although philosopher, looking at man as part of the furniture of the un-verse, may dismiss our sin as unreal, conscience, that knows man as a member of the household "f God and under the laws of the Father in whose image he is made, knows that sin is actual because of the laws he is called upon to fulfil cannot.
We can think of this law of our being in three ways. It implies (1) our proper self-development, (2) our obligation to our fellows and (3) our indebtedness to God. Now every human being has some sense of a law in regard to these three relationships. Even the Gentiles, said St. Paul, are a law unto themselves. But what puts the matter beyond dispute for us is the fact that Jesus Christ fulfilled these tasks in such a way as "condemn sin in the flesh.'" And thexvery mention of his name brings this truth home to men's souls that they are sinners.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.