The purpose of all law is to set forth the doctrine of justice or righteousness and to punish injustice or sin. When a society’s doctrine of righteousness and sin changes, its laws also change. Every social order has a doctrine of law, of justice and injustice, and the source of that doctrine is in its religion.
In our day, because humanism is the established religion of the modern state, our law is in process of change, because we have a new definition of the meaning of righteousness and of sin. The Biblical doctrine of sin holds that all men are sinners by virtue of their birth into the humanity of Adam. Only by rebirth into the new humanity of Jesus Christ are they transferred to a life of righteousness, although not perfectly sanctified in this lifetime. Thus, sin and righteousness are attributes of birth and rebirth.
