God's law (not necessarily limiting the word to the law of Moses). Righteousness on the

other hand is that condition and state arising out of complete conformity to God's law

(not necessarily limiting the word to the Mosaic). Hence sin and righteousness are the

two extremes, sin the negative, righteousness the positive. This is further emphasized in

the words, "All unrighteousness is sin".

It is an indescribable comfort to have reached this Scriptural conclusion. Darkness is

the negation of light; sin is the negation of right. The perennial dispute as to the origin of

sin ceases to have interest. God is light, darkness is the result of shutting out that light.

We are here concerned with the positive "light"; there is no problem concerning the

negative "darkness".  All the other phases of sin with which both Scripture and

experience have made us familiar are but the "unfruitful works of darkness", they arise of

necessity out of the lawless condition that is essentially sin. Let us give attention to some

of the outstanding developments of that original "failure" whereby man "sinned and

came short of the glory of God".

The first word which we intend to study is asham. This word occurs 35 times in the

O.T., and is translated as follows in the A.V.: acknowledge offence; be desolate;

be found faulty;  be found guilty;  be guilty;  be made desolate;  become desolate;

become guilty; hold one's self guilty; offend; trespass; destroy. The LXX translates

asham by ten different Greek words, agnoeo, to be ignorant;  hamartano, sin;

aphanizo, corrupt or disfigure; metameleomai, repent; miaino, defile; mnesikakeo*, to

bear in mind evil received; parapipto, fall away; plemmelleo*, behave unseemly. In

combination: exolothreuo, destroy; krino, judge. (* - These do not occur in N.T.).

The LXX like the A.V does not use one Greek word for one Hebrew word, but allows

a wide margin in the translation. We must, therefore, to make our understanding clearer

and our ground work broader, see what other Hebrew words beside asham the LXX

renders by the various Greek words cited above:--