Sin Vs Law?

Question

Without a law by which to establish what action is good and evil how can anyone be called wicked, evil or sinful?

Keep in mind Romans7:7 I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet."

Wouldn't everyone prior to the law have been oblivious to what was good or evil since there was no guideline for what they were do to?

There was NO LAW or Commandment before the Flood where God killed all but one family!

There was NO LAW or Commandment when God said to find 10 righteous! HOW DO YOU FIND ANY WITHOUT A LAW TO ESTABLISH WHAT IS GOOD AND EVIL?

Answer 1

Yes, before the law, noone would have known.

Kinda like kids. Kids dont know what is good or bad, wrong or right until they are taught.

Answer 2

No, for two reasons. First, humans were created with a conscience.

Romans 2:14, 15: "For whenever people of the nations that do not have law do by nature the things of the law, these people, although not having law, are a law to themselves. They are the very ones who demonstrate the matter of the law to be written in their hearts, while their conscience is bearing witness with them and, between their own thoughts, they are being accused or even excused. "

And second, before God ever set Laws down in writing, he had principles, which those who had a relationship with him were aware of. For example, young Joseph refused to be seduced by the wife of Potifer, saying at Genesis 39:9, "How could I commit this great badness and actually sin against God?" This was well before Israel became a nation under Mosaic Law.

That law is no longer in force for Christians. This does not mean, however, that there is no such thing as sin or right and wrong. The law made clear, not just commands, but principles. God's principles never change and are still important for Christians to follow. The Christian Greek Scriptures make this clear by condemning practices that God hates, pointing out that those who practice such things would have no place in God's Kingdom.

Answer 3

Good question!
The good answer is ....No.
Joseph was sold into slavery and ended up a worker in the house of a guy named Potiphar.
While everyone was away, Potiphar's wife made a play for Joseph.
Genesis 39:9 describes Joseph running out screaming: "How could I commit this great badness and actually sin against God?"
Interesting question since The Law wouldn't come into existence for a few more hundred years.
Answer: It would seem Joseph had a conscience.
It gave him a pretty good idea of the basics of what God would accept or not accept.
This same idea is referred to in Romans 2:14

Answer 4

First off, 'sin' was originally defined at Mt 'Sin'ai through the Mosaic Law. A thorough teaching of the Gospel will reveal that we were given a much more complete law through Jesus Christ known as the Law of Christ. This law simply states that we must love God with all that we are, have and will be. It also demands that we love others as we love ourselves.

So while the Mosaic Law helped people understand what is unacceptable, the Law of Christ freed people to become saints.

Previous to the Mosaic Law, idols and statues were used to guide people's understanding of certain principals and scare them into obedience. For example, it was believed that idols that were set up throughout a community, actually policed the area and gave information of your misbehavior to priests. Therefore, people dare not do things bad in public in fear the idols would see them and the priests would become angry.

So, there were not exactly NO guidelines for what they were to do, they were just understood through the use of physical representations of mythological characters. The Mosaic Law eliminated the fear of VISIBLE gods and introduced a fear or respect for a God that was INVISIBLE and yet present EVERYWHERE. This was a God to truly be afraid of because you can't hide from him.

Furthermore, the Mosaic Law introduced the use of LITERACY. All the rules were written down. Unfortunately, the Mosaic Law, like law of culture today, wasn't complete. And there were inconsistencies in it which Jesus exposed by healing on the Sabbath, plucking and eating corn on the Sabbath, freeing the adulterous woman from a stoning. He introduced the Law of Christ which freed us of an incomplete, inconsistent and unfair law to live a life we can finally be confident truly pleases God.

Idols taught people about love, war, fire, sex, power, etc. People learned about these things through the stories attached to the idols. Idols didn't exactly teach about good or evil as much as it did about certain facts of life and wisdom. If you believed in a certain god who was powerful, you needed to know what made that god happy or angry. Do what makes it happy, don't do what makes it angry. This was right or wrong before the law came about.

Judaism brought the idea of the invisible God, stories about Abraham and his decendants were passed on for years, generation after generation until Moses when they were supposedly all written down. Some speculate that much wasn't written until King Josiah, but that's another matter all together. From Abraham until Moses, right and wrong was understood through the stories associated with decendants of Abraham, indeed, even of Adam himself, actually.

Good day.

Addendum:You wrote "There was NO LAW or Commandment when God said to find 10 righteous! HOW DO YOU FIND ANY WITHOUT A LAW TO ESTABLISH WHAT IS GOOD AND EVIL?
"

Noah was justified by his FAITH, as was Abraham, etc. Faith has always been the primary determining factor, it's how we prove our faith that is most important. For Jews, they proved it through fulfilling the law. For Christians, the Law of Christ, for those before the Law, a respect for ONE TRUE INVISIBLE GOD.

Answer 5

The assumption in your question is that the only way we have morals is from higher authorities - presumably god. We don't. We do actually have inherent morals - you can observe this in the animal kingdom all the time. They have a very established social system where they work in groups and help each other. They feel reverence when one of their own dies. ( http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=154A6174EEC6F10041543BF664D27408 ) They certainly don't have written law to tell them what to do.

Humans are just further along in cognitive development than apes and other primates. We still have very sound morals, based on what I suspect, is evolutionary principles. We value the existence of people. (Do not kill). We value a person's freedom (Do not imprison those who are innocent). We value a person's livelihood (Do not steal). All of these are sound with evolutionary development - if we were all inherently dangerous killers with no moral compass, our species never would have survived as long as it has - as you already know, we didn't have "written laws" forever!

Answer 6

Not necessarily because law was pretty much devised to maintain order, if you will. Now if law was created to keep civil order amongst the people, wouldn't you guess that they had some sort of idea between what they 'felt' was right or wrong or else it would never have been created in the first place.

And this is just a guess so bare with me here, but things like adultery might have been devised on the premise that STD's and other problems surfaced with one's being so promiscuous, which gave the ability to see that it was not right and that some sort of law had to be engaged in order to prevent more harm coming to their people.

Answer 7

No.
It's not hard to figure out that we can't run around killing each other. Everyone has figured that out by themselves. All religions even agree on it.
So, we make, and enforce, laws like that.
God doesn't pass those laws. We do.
God doesn't enforce those laws. We do.
Witness Darfur, where there is currently little man-made law: God isn't stopped children from being butchered. Only we can decide to step in and do that.

Answer 8

The Law is definately a school master to show people they have sinned against God- this shows them and helps them understand salvation through Jesus Christ and why they need Him. I think it is SO important to use the Law when sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because if you do not, many will not understand why they need Jesus. Many do not understand the seriousness of sin. Romans 7:7 is a great verse in regards to this!

Answer 9

Before the flood, the law was given via prophesy. After the flood, God entered into a covenant with Noah (see Gen ch 9) and his children which applied to all mankind (and still does). Later covenants with Abraham and the Jews are in addition to, not replacement of this Noahide covenant.

Answer 10

You are right -- without law there is no sin. However, God has always given commandments to His children, so there has basically been no time when we didn't have laws to follow. I think you might have a terminology question. That is, I think you might be understanding the word "law" here to mean something different.

Here's one of my favorite sermons on the topic:
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/2_ne/2