10月5日 墮落的傾向

這就如罪是從一人入了世界，死又是從罪來的，於是死就臨到眾人，因為眾人都犯了罪。（羅五12）

聖經不是說神因一人的罪，就刑罰所有的人；聖經乃是說人的罪性－－我對自我主權的把持，是由一人進入人類。然而另一個人擔負了人類的罪，把罪除掉（來九26），這是何其奧秘的啟示哩。罪性並非指錯失或道德的敗落，而是自我實現的傾向－－我是自己的神。這傾向可以表現得很道德，也可以很不道德，但只有一個根基，就是對自我主權的把持。主耶穌不論碰到罪大惡極的人，還是正人君子，他均不理會前者道德的敗落或後者道德的操守；他所注意的，是我們所看不見的－－人的意向。

罪是與生俱來的，是人無能為力的，但神藉著救贖對付了罪。神藉主耶穌的十字架拯救整個人類，使我們可以脫離那因罪而來的咒詛。神從不因人有遺傳的罪根而定人的罪。定罪不是由於我生來承襲了罪，乃是因知道主耶穌來救贖我，而我仍拒絕他，那是我就要被定罪了。“光來到世間，世人……不愛光倒愛黑暗，定他們的罪就是在此。”

祈禱◆主啊，願你今天將聖靈的直覺力和先天的靈感賜給我，讓我可以在一切事情上識別你。願你恩慈的同在和平安，充滿這一天。

October 5 The Bias Of Degeneration

“Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” Romans 5:12

The Bible does not say that God punished the human race for one man's sin; but that the disposition of sin, viz., my claim to my right to myself, entered into the human race by one man, and that another Man took on Him the sin of the human race and put it away (Heb. 9:26) – an infinitely profounder revelation. The disposition of sin is not immorality and wrong-doing, but the disposition of self-realization – I am my own god. This disposition may work out in decorous morality or in indecorous immorality, but it has the one basis, my claim to my right to myself. When Our Lord faced men with all the forces of evil in them, and men who were clean living and moral and up right, He did not pay any attention to the moral degradation of the one or to the moral attainment of the other; He looked at something we do not see, viz., the disposition.

Sin is a thing I am born with and I cannot touch it; God touches sin in Redemption. In the Cross of Jesus Christ God redeemed the whole human race from the possibility of damnation through the heredity of sin. God nowhere holds a man responsible for having the heredity of sin. The condemnation is not that I am born with a heredity of sin, but if when I realize Jesus Christ came to deliver me from it, I refuse to let Him do so, from that moment I begin to get the seal of damnation. “And this is the judgment” (the critical moment), “that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light.”