There is, then, a law of sin and death. Sin is not some indifferent, inconsequential nothing. Sinful acts and thoughts are not mere deeds and nothing more to it. But there is a law of sin and death. It is an active, spiritual power and principle.
Sin is a power operating always.
Let us look into that law of sin and death. First of all, this principle of sin and death in our sinful flesh and in the flesh of all men and women is the inclination against God's good commandments. No, better, we should say it is the enmity, the deep-seated hostility of the human nature against God's commandments. It is our natural dislike of the law and our desire to violate and to break God's good commandments. That shows itself in us already in our earliest childhood.