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9. That the Logos Present
in Us is Not Responsible for Our Sins.
One point more on the words: “Without Him
was not anything made.” The question about evil must
receive adequate discussion; what was said of it has not, it is true, a
very likely appearance, and yet it appears to me that it ought not to
be simply overlooked. The question is whether evil, also, was
made through the Logos, taking the Logos, now be it well noted, in the
sense of that reason which is in every one, as thus brought into being
by the reason which was from the
beginning. The Apostle says:4698
“Without the law sin was dead,” and adds, “But when
the commandment came sin revived,” and so teaches generally about
sin that it has no power before the law and the commandment (but the
Logos is, in a sense, law and commandment), and there would be no sin
were there no law, for,4699 “sin is not
imputed where there is no law.” And, again, there would be
no sin but for the Logos, for “if I had not come and spoken unto
them,” Christ says,4700 “they had not
had sin.” For every excuse is taken away from one who wants
to make excuse for his sin, if, though the Word is in him and shows him
what he ought to do, he does not obey it. It seems, then, that
all things, the worse things not excepted, were made by the Logos, and
without Him, taking the nothing here in its simpler sense, was nothing
made. Nor must we blame the Logos if all things were made by Him,
and without Him nothing was made, any more than we blame the master who
has showed the pupil his duty, when the instruction has been such as to
leave the pupil, should he sin, no excuse or room to say that he erred
through ignorance. This appears the more plainly when we consider
that master and pupil are inseparable. For as master and pupil
are correlatives, and belong together, so the Logos is present in the
nature of reasonable beings as such, always suggesting what they ought
to do, even should we pay no heed to his commands, but devote ourselves
to pleasure and allow his best counsels to pass by us unregarded.
As the eye is a servant given us for the best purposes, and yet we use
it to see things on which it is wrong for us to look, and as we make a
wrong use of our hearing when we spend our time in listening to singing
competitions and to other forbidden sounds, so we outrage the Logos who
is in us, and use Him otherwise than as we ought, when we make Him
assist in our transgressions. For He is present with those who
sin, for their condemnation, and He condemns the man who does not
prefer Him to everything else. Hence we find it written:4701 “The word which I have spoken
unto you, the same shall judge you.” That is as if He
should say: “I, the Word, who am always lifting up my voice
in you, I, myself, will judge you, and no refuge or excuse will then be
left you.” This interpretation, however, may appear
somewhat strained, as we have taken the Word in one sense to be the
Word in the beginning, who was with God, God the Word, and have now taken it in another sense,
speaking of it, not only in reference to the principal works of
creation, as in the words, “All things were made through
Him,” but as related to all the acts of reasonable beings, this
last being the Logos (reason), without whose presence none of our sins
are committed. The question arises whether the Logos in us is to
be pronounced the same being as that which was in the beginning and was
with God, God the Word. The Apostle, certainly, does not appear
to make the Logos in us a different being from the Logos who was in the
beginning with God. “Say not in thine heart,” he
says,4702 “who shall go up into heaven; that is
to bring Christ down, or who shall go down into the abyss; that is to
bring Christ up from the dead. But what saith the
Scripture? The Logos is very nigh thee, in thy mouth and in thy
heart.”E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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