Is There a Way Out Of Man’s Sinful State?
WITH her four teenage children, Chisako used to clean public toilets in a city 400 miles [600 km] from her home. While doing so, she chanted a sutra, the meaning of which she did not understand. It was one of the practices of a religious group seeking to discover what is at the actual core of all religions.
“Despite continued austere practices,” Chisako recalls, “I could not change my personality. Deep down in my heart, I couldn’t forgive others and couldn’t show love with a sincere motive.”
Even in Oriental lands, where most people have no concept of sin as taught in the Bible, many feel qualms of conscience over their sinful tendencies, as Chisako did. (Romans 2:14, 15) Who has not suffered uncomfortable feelings for not showing kindness to someone in a pitiful situation or has not felt some depressing remorse for words that should never have been uttered? (James 4:17) And does not an ugly monster of jealousy lurk inside young and old alike?
Why do people have such troubled feelings? Because, whether they realize it or not, they have an inner sense of wrong, of sin. Indeed, whether people are aware of the Bible’s teaching of sin or not, all are affected by sinful tendencies. An expert on this subject once concluded: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”—Romans 3:23.
Can Sin Be Wiped Away?
Many people today, especially in Christendom, are busy trying to erase feelings of sin and guilt from their consciences. “The very word ‘sin’ . . . has almost disappeared,” said Dr. Karl Menninger in his book Whatever Became of Sin? However, avoiding the word “sin” helps little more than an elderly man’s wanting to avoid the word “old.” We should face the fact that we have sinful tendencies and need to be rescued from that miserable condition. But by whom?
The Christian apostle Paul asked that question after admitting his own tendencies to sin despite wanting to do otherwise: “Miserable man that I am! Who will rescue me from the body undergoing this death?” Paul then proceeded to answer: “Thanks to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Why? Because God had arranged for forgiveness of sin through Jesus’ ransom sacrifice.—Romans 7:14-25.
However, many of the 3,500,000,000 non-Christians of the world (twice the number of so-called Christians) find the idea of a ransom very difficult to grasp. For example, the doctrine of the ransom became the biggest stumbling block to a Muslim living in Japan who studied the Bible for a while. For many Orientals the idea that one man could die for all is unusual.
This is understandable, as even some in Christendom find this basic doctrine hard to comprehend. “The theology of the Redemption,” admitted the New Catholic Encyclopedia, “is in some part unachieved and continues to pose itself as a problem in theology.”
The extent of the confusion over this doctrine is well illustrated in the words of the religious writer N. H. Barbour: “Christ’s death was no more a settlement of the penalty of man’s sins than would the sticking of a pin through the body of a fly and causing it suffering and death be considered by an earthly parent as a just settlement for misdemeanor in his child.” Then affiliated with Barbour was Charles T. Russell, who saw the urgent need to defend the teaching of the ransom. He disassociated himself from Barbour and in 1879 began publishing a new magazine, which later became the journal that you are reading. From its beginning, The Watchtower has been a champion of Jesus Christ’s ransom sacrifice.
But can this doctrine ever be acceptable to those without a “Christian” background? To find out, let us take a closer look at this teaching of one man dying for all.