From the OT come these words from the great Messianic prophecy:
"Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." ? Isaiah 53:4-6 (NIV)All of Israel (and humanity) were sinners and the belief was that infirmities were a ?natural? result of these sins. They were, as it were, "stricken by God", yet the Messiah would be like a scapegoat to bear their sins. The infirmities they suffered added to their sorrows.
Notice, though, that the sins to be carried by the messiah are not limited to those inherited from Adam (often referred to by the WTS as "Adamic sin"). We read of "our transgressions", "our iniquities", "we all have gone astray", and "each of us has turned to his own way". Ultimately they may be the consequences of original sin, but sin continued in them.
The Witness view, in practice
, seems to be quite different. To a dub, all of humankind are born in sin i.e. all have inherited Adamic sin and so are imperfect. But are they sinners in their lives now? They acknowledge being imperfect, but seem hesitant about declaring they are sinners.
This view influences the way that transgressions are handled in the dub congregations. The elders? manual defines many "gross sins": these are basically sins that the individual may be disfellowshiped for and must be dealt with by a judicial committee. All other sins, lesser sins, are not dealt with and the WTS seems unconcerned about them. Even with the "gross sins", some are more commonly dealt with than others e.g. fornication compared with greed.
What this means for the individual transgresser is that they must face a committee of men who don?t see themselves as sinners except that they are "imperfect" and have inherited Adamic sin. It is difficult for men in such a position, a superior one, to demonstrate fellow feeling, let alone mercy. Abuses of power result and these are well-documented both on JWD and other sites like Freeminds and Silentlambs.
Compare this with the committing of willful sins in Isaiah 53 "each of us has turned to his own way". They weren?t overcome by sin, nor unintentionally overtaken by sin, but they "turned to sin". Now visualise a judicial committee meeting where an individual has been accused of fornication. Did they go after it? If so, the committee will most likely DF the transgressor. Yet is that what is spoken of in Isaiah 53? To the WTS the sorrows that result from sin must include the punishment exacted by a sometimes heartless committee of elders.
But in Isaiah 53, the sorrows that result from afflictions derive from the sins themselves. These sorrows the Messiah took on himself in behalf of all humankind, all of whom are sinners.
One way of dealing with sorrows is forgiveness. Dubs miss out on this because of their mistaken view of who sinners really are ? all of us.