Last Sunday I preached on “Original Sin” at Living Hope Community Church. In that sermon, I commented at length on the original sin of Adam and Eve from Genesis 2&3 and then went to Romans 5.12-21 to show how their sin affected humanity.
In my treatment of the topic, I didn’t get a chance to delve deeply into the theological options and reason them through very much. To my surprise, several comments on the livestream and subsequent interest via email and social media have either misunderstood my position or challenged it. I would not have thought there would be so much engagement on this topic. So, in an effort to clarify where I stand on the doctrine of sin (hamartiology), I will present a four-part series of posts wrestling with each of these questions:
- Guilt: Are we born guilty of Adam’s sin?
- Nature: Are we born with a morally corrupted nature?
- Faith: Are non-Christians capable of saving faith?
- Perfection: Are Christians capable of sinlessness?
In what follows I am heavily indebted to the masterful treatment of Thomas McCall in his book, Against God and Nature: The Doctrine of Sin, especially chapter 4, “The Doctrine of Original Sin.” I encourage anyone interested in seriously considering this topic to get his book.
Are we born guilty of Adam’s sin?
Some Christians say, “yes,” and others say, “no.” In fact, from my research, I’ve discovered four main positions that Christians have taken over the years. Let’s take them one at a time.
1. Realism
We all participated in the sin of Adam, since we were “in Adam” when he sinned. Alva Huffer put it this way:
The guilt of Adam’s sin is imputed to every member of the human race. Every person, therefore is born a sinner, under condemnation, and in need of salvation…As Levi was in Abraham and paid tithes to Mechisedec (Heb 7.9-10), so every man was in Adam and participated in the that first human sin. Every man is charged with the guilt and penalty of that original sin he committed in Adam.1Alva Huffer, Systematic Theology (McDonough, GA: Atlanta Bible College, 2010), 211.
On this view all babies are born condemned even before they have committed any sins of their own. Realism draws strength from the concept of “in Adam” (1 Cor 15.22) as an obvious parallel to the “in Christ” language Paul employs in 1 Cor 15 and Romans 5. By default we are born into “the domain of darkness” until we believe and God delivers us and transfers us “to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col 1.13).
We find the biblical basis for imputed sin of Adam in three main texts in Romans 5:
- “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Rom 5.12)
- “the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation” (Rom 5.16)
- “one trespass led to the condemnation of all men” (Rom 5.18)
- “by one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners” (Rom 5.19)
None of these scriptures actually says we sinned in Adam, only that Adam’s sin affected us. Although such statements may not prove realism, they at least fit together with it nicely.
Herman Bavinck pointed out an important flaw in the basic parallelism between Adam and Christ for realism:
We can and may indeed say that God so imputes to us the righteousness of Christ as if we ourselves had accomplished the obedience that Christ accomplished for us, but we are not, by that token, the people who personally and physically satisfied God’s righteousness. Christ satisfied God’s righteous requirement for us and in our place. So it is also with Adam: virtually, potentially, seminally, we may have been comprehended in him; personally and actually, however, it was he who broke the probationary command, and not we. If realism were to reject this distinction and be totally consistent, all imputation, both in the case of Adam and in that of Christ, would be unnecessary.2 Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 102.
Personally, I find realism unconvincing because it lacks a plausible metaphysical mechanism for us to “be present” in Adam. Secondly, the Bible never explicitly teaches it. Thirdly, it fails the Adam-Christ parallel between the fall and the atonement.
Individuals associated with realism include Augustine of Hippo, Jonathan Edwards, and Alva Huffer.
2. Federalism
Adam represented humanity as our federal head, so when he sinned, he sinned on behalf of the entire human race, placing us all under condemnation. This is the view I used to hold. Millard Erickson, nicely summarizes the position:
Adam was on probation for us all, as it were; and because Adam sinned, all of us are treated as guilty and corrupted. Bound by the covenant between God and Adam, we are treated as if we have actually and personally done what he as our representative did. 3Millard Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1998), 652.
The advantage of federalism is how well it lines up the parallel between Adam and Christ. Adam, our representative, disobeyed God and doomed the human race. Christ, our new representative, obeyed God and redeemed the human race–for those willing to recognize him as their federal head.
Francis Turretin further elucidates this position:
For the bond between Adam and his posterity is twofold: (1) natural, as he is the father, and we are his children; (2) political and forensic, as he was the prince and representative head of the whole human race…Hence Adam stood in that sin not as a private person, but as a public and representative person–representing all his posterity in that action and whose demerit equally pertains to all. 4Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 1, trans. George Giger, ed. James Dennison Jr. (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1992), 616.
Even if federalism presents an attractive symmetry, says Thomas McCall, “The federalist position simply cannot account for the apparently brazen miscarriage of justice that it proposes.”5Thomas McCall, Against God and Nature (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 165. Again McCall says, “It is implausible to think that we have moral responsibility for events over which we have no causal control.”6ibid., 186.
Shifting the situation to a hypothetical will make this justice worry clear. Imagine you commit a crime and are judged guilty. Would it be fair to also impute that guilt to your two-year-old daughter? One way to solve this problem is to have the child mark herself guilty by some act that clearly identifies her with the action of her parent. This is, in fact, how I believe atonement works, at least on the communal substitution view. (See my brief explanation here as well as Joshua Thurow’s full treatment here.) People are not automatically “in Christ” until they make that declaration. So, on this view, people are not “in Adam” until they likewise indicate so, perhaps by committing their first sins. Erickson explains:
With the matter of guilt, however, just as with the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, there must be some conscious or voluntary decision on our part. Until this is the case, there is only a conditional imputation of guilt. Thus, there is no condemnation before one reaches the age of responsibility.7Erickson, 656.
But, if humans are not actually guilty, just potentially guilty, until we commit our first sins, isn’t this just a tacit endorsement of a no-guilt position? In this way, federalism on close inspection, fails to uphold the parallel between Adam and Christ. For in Adam we do nothing to become damned, but in Christ we must identify ourselves with him (through faith, repentance, baptism, etc.). If we cannot be saved apart from confession and solidarity with Christ then why are we damned apart from confession and solidarity with Adam?
Even if I find federalism attractive for it’s explanatory power, it breaks down on close inspection and also fails to account for texts that directly speak against punishing children for the sins of their parents (see the next section). Furthermore, as Douglas Moo points out in his comments on Romans 5.12 in the NICNT, the text does not demand inherited guilt. So long as we affirm an inherited corruption, we are able to account for how Adam’s sin resulted in both humanity’s condemnation and sinfulness.
Individuals associated with federalism include John Calvin, John Wesley, Francis Pieper, and Francis Turretin, and R. C. Sproul.
3. Corruption-Only
Adam and Eve’s guilt are their own–a consequence of their own choices to sin. Everyone is born innocent before God rather than guilty. This is the view I currently hold. Corruption-only advocates point to the slew of scripture that challenge the imputation of guilt upon an innocent person. Here is a selection of the most salient:
Deuteronomy 24.16
Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.Jeremiah 31.30
But everyone shall die for his own iniquity. Each man who eats sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge.Ezekiel 18.4, 17, 20
Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die. …“he shall not die for his father’s iniquity; he shall surely live. …The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.
These texts, clearly show that both for human justice and divine justice, people are held accountable for their own sins. This is not to say that no consequences from ancestors affect them, but they are not held guilty for something someone else did. Consider and alcoholic mother who drinks during pregnancy. This is her sin, not her baby’s. The baby is not guilty of drinking while pregnant, but the baby still suffers the consequences of the mother’s actions.
Even if we’re all born innocent, we are also born with a corrupted nature. McCall explains the two dimensions of this corruption:
Traditionally, two aspects have been recognized as central to the notion of hereditary or original corruption (corruptio hereditaria). The first is the loss or privation of the original righteousness that was enjoyed by Adam and Eve in their prelapsarian state, while the second, which follows from it and comes to fill the void that is left by the loss of righteousness, is the perversion of the moral nature of humanity.8McCall, 159.
To these two, I would add a third–corrupted physical nature. Without access to the tree of life, we die. Depending on your view of how God made the first humans to be in the Garden, we may have originally been impervious to aging, disease, and injury too. If so, then these realities are also part of our inherited corrupted nature.
One explanation for how this all works relates to DNA, the information we inherit from our parents. Geneticists are just beginning to grasp the role our inherited genes play in predisposing us toward deadly illnesses and harmful behaviors. See for example, “Genetic determinants of aggression and impulsivity in humans.” What if our first parents were wired to have perfect impulse control? They could just as easily choose sin as righteousness. Then after they carefully considered and chose rebellion, they suffered epigenetic consequences? Although this tack may not account for everything scripture says about “the flesh,” it does make some progress in that direction.
Moo described our morally corrupt nature as “a fatal, God-resisting, bent in all people, inherited from Adam. …for it was Adam’s sin that corrupted human nature and made individual sinning an inevitability.”9Douglas J. Moo, The Letter to the Romans, New International Commentary on the New Testament, Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018), paragraph 37736.
An advantage of the corruption-only and Pelagianism (below) positions is that they appear to agree with the pre-Augustinian church fathers that we did not inherit Adam’s guilt. J. N. D. Kelly writes:
There is hardly a hint in the Greek fathers that mankind as a whole shares in Adam’s guilt, i.e. his culpability. …But they have the greatest possible feeling for the mystical unity of mankind with its first ancestor…Their tendency is to view original sin as a wound inflicted on our nature.10J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, revised ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 1978), 350.
Critics of corrupted nature theories (whether realism, federalism, or corruption-only) point to another justice worry. How is it fair for God to corrupt human nature and then to hold us accountable for the very corruption he caused us to be born with? Would it be fair to cut off a man’s leg and then punish him if he couldn’t walk? Also, just how corrupted are we? Can humans do any good whatsoever prior to salvation? To these questions and more, we will return in our next part in this series.
Individuals associated with corruption-only include Ulrich Zwingli, Arminius, Wesleyans, Richard Swinburne, and Stanley Grenz
4. No Guilt and No Corruption
All people are born innocent of any inherited guilt. We are all equally able to do right and wrong. This view stresses free will and optimism.
Pelagius believed that God created each soul as it came into the world. As such, souls could not possibly be tainted with evil tendencies or guilt. We do not have any intrinsic desire for evil over good. We are all like Eve in the Garden of Eden–each faced with temptation and able to resist or give in.
This is not to say Adam’s actions did not have lasting and deadly consequences. Our first parent’s actions introduced separation from God and exclusion from immortality, resulting in both spiritual and physical death for them. These consequences are inherited by their descendants not through some physical mechanism, but through the kind of example and environment that Adam and Eve introduced. Our world is full of corruption brought about by people’s choices not some metaphysical cloud that hangs over each person’s head from birth. We are all innocent and neutral, able to freely choose right and wrong.
This position faces a massive number of biblical texts arguing for the universality of sin. We will explore many more in the next post, but here are two representative texts:
Romans 3.23
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.Romans 3.10–12
10 None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.
Since the Pelagianist affirms the possibility of morally perfect unbelievers, such sweeping declarations of sin’s universality are troubling. Furthermore, a Pelagian exegesis of Romans 5.12-21 is fraught with difficulty.
In addition to Pelgianism, some scholars over the last couple of centuries have come to take a similar view but for very different reasons. In the wake of Darwin’s evolutionary theory and the advent of the historical-critical method, some Christian thinkers have looked upon the narrative about Adam and Eve as myth or archetype. McCall explains:
For, given the facts of evolution, it is simply incredible to believe that there was an innocent or perfect first human pair who then sinned and descended into ruin and death. What we learn from the natural sciences is that humankind has ascended rather than descended, and Christian theology simply needs to accept this fact.11McCall, 154.
Once again, the problem with this view is that Paul appears to affirm a historical Adam in Romans 5.12-21. If we regard Adam as a myth, aren’t we bound to do the same for Christ? A mythical Christ can’t save anyone, can he?
Individuals associated with Pelgianism include Pelagius, Celestius, and perhaps the Orthodox Church (though they may fit with a modified corruption-only view)
Individuals associated with a symbolic interpretation of the fall include Frederick Tennant, F. D. E. Schleiermacher, Paul Tillich, John Macquarrie, Albrecht Ritschl, perhaps Karl Barth, and Jordan Peterson.
Footnotes:
- 1Alva Huffer, Systematic Theology (McDonough, GA: Atlanta Bible College, 2010), 211.
- 2Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 102.
- 3Millard Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1998), 652.
- 4Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 1, trans. George Giger, ed. James Dennison Jr. (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1992), 616.
- 5Thomas McCall, Against God and Nature (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 165.
- 6ibid., 186.
- 7Erickson, 656.
- 8McCall, 159.
- 9Douglas J. Moo, The Letter to the Romans, New International Commentary on the New Testament, Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018), paragraph 37736.
- 10J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, revised ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 1978), 350.
- 11McCall, 154.
An Excellent presentation, Sean. Clarifying, informative, and biblical. I’m looking forward to the next post.
Hi Sean…this is rather timely for me. I’ve spent what seems like an inordinate amount of time on the subject of sin (going back years now). Without your extensive background on the subject of original sin, I’ve come to roughly the same conclusion, namely, mankind suffers the consequences of Adam and Eve’s act, mankind does not carry the guilt of their act. God “covered” Adam and Eve with a sacrifice, which I take as an act of forgiveness as a precursor to the sacrifices in the Law.
I recently put a relatively short piece together on “Free Will, Original Sin, and Sin Nature.” I know its asking a lot but would appreciate it if you could give it a read and let me know what you think.
Thx for your consideration.
Hi, Ken;
May I ask you the following question ? :
If a sacrifice was given in Eden, do you think Adam and Eve repented in Eden ?
God bless you.
Repentance would only be implied. There’s no indication that they refused the new covering. Eve stated, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD,” (Gen. 4:1) which implies that she had not rejected God. Also, In Gen. 4:3 and 4, the sons brought offerings which implies that they were taught something about offerings which implies some degree of piousness on the part of their parents. But no, I’m not aware of a direct statement in Scripture stating that they repented.
Hi, Ken.
Thanks for your comments.
As you seem to have done some extensive work in this area, Ken, can I ask you if you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ inherited from his mother exactly the same human nature that we possess – with the proviso that that our human nature, in which He fully shared (Heb. 2:14, 17), did not not make an actual sinner out of Him ?
I “struggle” with the definition of the expression “human nature.” God gave Adam a physical body made from the ground. God breathed life into the man which I would refer to as “soul life.” This soul life had various capabilities including the ability to see (literally), feel (as in touch), hear, etc. Adam also had the capability to think, to choose, to desire/want, and a host of other capabilities. As soon as God gave Adam the ability to choose, sin became a possibility (same with Lucifer). I am not aware of Scripture defining “human nature,” so, I would need a definition of the expression before considering the “nature” of Jesus.
Given the fact that the parents of Yeshua are Yosef and Mirium, then you would have no perplexity of mind or understanding the need for him to be given the direction from Yahweh, the Father, to “fulfill all righteousness,” by participating in John’s baptism, which is for the repentance of sin and turning back to the Father. Hence his being “led by the SPIRIT,” to the wilderness…so that the old man (in Adam), was done away (literal death of the old man), and the NEW MAN (THE MESSIAHSHIP/ANOINTING/SONSHIP), that was declared to him at the Jordan, “This is my beloved son (sonship, express image of the Father), in whom I am well pleased (I am pleased with you Yeshua and pleased to set you apart and cause you to become my chosen Messiah), THIS DAY HAVE I BEGOTTEN THEE.” It was a legal transaction. A man’s life that brought death upon all his seed, for the death of a man that brought life upon all his seed. It was the perfect act of love and restoration of all things. That is why Paul called Yeshua the LAST ADAM. Now, we know NO MAN after the flesh anymore, no, not even Yeshua Messiah. IT IS A GLORIOUS GOSPEL INDEED! 🙂
The apostle Paul gives his own excellent, pre-Christian, working definition of ‘human nature’ (a psycho-physical entity) in Romans 7:14-24, Ken. This is the human nature, that we inherit from Adam, and which leads (despite our best ‘religious’ endeavours) to moral lapses (cf. Romans 7:5; Eph. 2:1-3) – and our subsequent need for the redemption and effective moral empowerment, through Christ. As Paul explains, the Jewish Law merely reveals our underlying moral impotency (Romans 3:20; 7:14-24) – it does not solve our moral problem (Gal. 3:21). We all now come into this world in need of an individual future redemption – but Adam originally didn’t. Adam’s direct progeny contained an intrinsic moral flaw – which is rectifiable only through the ‘last Adam’ (1 Cor. 15:45).
It would seem you have a level of comfort with your understanding of Romans 7. I do not have such a level of comfort at this point in time. This is not to say that I fail to recognize that mankind has a very real problem that only Christ could/can rectify. At the moment, I do understand Romans 7, at least in part, as an argument for the benefit of the gift of holy spirit, which enables a believer to both know and to be inclined to do good (a “help” it is). If a man has only body-and-soul to rely on, he is truly weak (a word worth checking out). This “natural man” cannot fully grasp spiritual truth or fully live it out. Part of my concern with the expression “sin nature” is explaining how Adam and Eve ended up disobeying God. No one would say that they had “sin nature,” yet they sinned. James 1:14 and 15 seems pertinent. Not so sure mans’ “nature” changed…what I am relatively sure of is that man being expelled from the garden became mortal (subject to death); not having spirit, he became reliant on his 5 senses, his own reasoning capabilities, and his various other faculties; having been expelled from the garden and having relinquished some important aspects of his power and authority, he was now living in a world dominated by the god of this world. Given these factors, at the moment I see no need for “sin nature” to explain mans’ predicament and the obvious proliferation of sin in the world. I have also noted in Romans 5–7 the liberal use of personification with respect to sin, death, grace, and righteousness when used with “enter,” “reign,” “dwell,” and “obey.” These expressions also give me pause with respect to the term “sin nature.” If this term is being used to mean body-and-soul-only nature and is describing mans’ weakness with respect to achieving eternal life and/or living out righteousness on his own, then I don’t have a problem with the expression. At this point, I just choose to refrain from its use. Perhaps worth noting, Adam and Eve were not inherently righteous. Only God is inherently righteous (and now Christ as well). God cannot be tempted with evil. Adam and Eve obviously could be. The moment God gave man the ability to choose, choosing “badly” became a possibility. This has not changed since Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the garden.
Correct, correct, correct! Excellent and concise! It is literally, “line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little!”
Thanks, Ken.
I’ve encountered a multiplicity of theories regarding the meaning of Romans 7:14-25, but the one’s that make best sense to me are those by Dr. Robert H. Gundry (‘The Moral Frustration of Paul Before His Conversion : Sexual Lust in Romans 7:7-25’; available on the website ‘academia.edu’; and, by
Dr. Gary S. Shogren (‘The ‘Wretched Man’ of Romans 7:14-25 as Reductio ad absurdem”).
In Romans 7-8, Paul uses the term ‘flesh’ for what others may call ‘sin nature’. Christians should no longer be dominated by ‘the flesh’/’sin nature’ because they have a potential countervailing power within them, in the holy Spirit (Romans 8: 1-13). Christ is the only absolutely sinless man who has ever lived, and it is only by being in union with Him (via the holy Spirit) that we can progressively share in His victory over the power of Sin (personified as a ‘king’ in Romans 6:12), and grow in sanctification (Romans 6:22).
The only two men who originally did not necessarily have to transgress were the two men who directly entered into this world as ‘Sons of God’ – Adam (Luke 3:38), and Jesus (Luke 1:35). From the post- transgressional Adam we acquire ‘the flesh’ (in the technical Pauline sense of the term) – but from Jesus we can acquire the holy Spirit (Romans 8:2, 9-13).
Thanks for the references. Appreciate it. Generally, I agree with what you’ve stated. At the moment, I only hesitate to use the words “power” or “acquire” in conjunction with the words “sin” or “flesh.” … a work in progress … thanks again for your input and recommendations.
Thanks, Ken.
God bless you, sir.
Thank you, Sean, for an interesting and stimulating presentation that covers many angles of a complex subject, you have provided much food for thought. Notwithstanding the objections of Thomas McCall, for a long time I have held the federalist view for these reasons: when God created Adam He created the whole human race ‘in Adam’, for God has created no one since that time. When Adam was tempted we all were tempted ‘in Adam’, and when Adam sinned we all sinned ‘in Adam’. The sacrificial death and resurrection of Christ is designed specifically to be the antidote that alone can eradicate all the ill effects suffered by all who sinned ‘in Adam’.
Isolating v12 from the context of Paul’s argument in the search for different ways to re-interpret the phrase ‘because all sinned’, cannot change the force of Paul’s exposition which he continues in vv 13 – 14, and I believe Paul’s argument is conclusive:
13 “… for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.”
Paul argues in v13: that even while there was no law [and therefore no disobedience to law] in the world before the time of Moses, people still sinned. But because there was no law to be disobeyed their sin was not counted against them – they could not be condemned for those sins when there was no law to condemn them.
14 “Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the ‘one who was to come’.”
Paul says that although their sin that was not counted was not like the sin of Adam, yet people still died – they received the wages of sin, and death reigned over humanity during the time when there was no law – the time when their sin was not counted against them.
With that statement Paul presents his readers with two questions they must consider:
1) Why did death reign during the time there was no law for them to disobey or be condemned for disobeying?
Paul’s answer is found in his statement in v12: Death reigned during the time there was no law because all men had sinned previously when they were ‘in Adam’.
2) For which sin did they receive death, the wages of sin?
Paul’s statement in v12 provides further confirmation: During the time when their sin was not counted because there was no law, their earlier sin ‘in Adam’ was the only other sin of which they were guilty and for which they could receive death – the wages of sin.
This is Paul’s evidence that during the time there was no law the only sin for which they, and all humanity ‘in Adam’, could receive sin’s wages was the sin they had sinned previously ‘in Adam’ – i.e. the sin they had committed before they went on to commit the sins that were not counted against them while there was no law.
In respect to federal headship Adam was a type of the ‘one to come’ – i.e. Christ, and Paul illustrates that type in vs 15–19. Men ‘in Adam’ and men ‘in Christ’ are dealt with by God on the same principle – the principle of federal headship. In 1 Cor 15:45 Paul refers to Christ as the ‘last Adam’. The ‘last Adam’ is also the firstborn of the new creation, 2 Cor 5:17.
In Rom 5:15-19 Paul contrasts the consequences of sinning ‘in Adam’ with the consequences of dying ‘in Christ’, and he describes more fully in ch 6 the blessings of dying to sin ‘in Christ’ and rising to the new life ‘in Christ’. The blessings received by those ‘in Christ – His righteousness, no condemnation, no guilt (cleansed conscience) and eternal life, are just as real as the curses received when they sinned ‘in Adam’ – unrighteousness, condemnation, guilt (polluted conscience) and eternal death.
We died the death we died ‘in Christ’ to take away the curses of the sin we sinned ‘in Adam’. However the sinning and the dying are understood, the consequences are actual and real and they are experienced by those who receive them. Notional sins or deaths do not produce real and actual experiences!
‘Realism’ and ‘Federalism’ may have some combinable elements. The reason why Adam can ‘represent’ every man is because in a some very real sense, he is every man (likewise Eve, in some very real sense, is every woman). The Fall of Adam and Eve was a species Fall – and the union between Adam and Eve and their direct progeny, may ultimately involve parapsychological mechanisms.
The ‘bottom line’ is that due to Adamic failure we come into this world as fundamentally ‘spiritually dead’ (Ephesians 2:1 – 3; Romans 7:14-24; Gal, 3:21)), and out of union with God. Jesus Christ (as a second, divine, directly created ‘Son of God’ – cf. Luke 1:35 with Luke 3:38) is God’s means of counteracting this lamentable situation. This is achieved through Christ’s resurrection, and the dispensing of the life-giving, Spirit of God (Romans 8:2, 9, 10). A real union with Adam is replaceable with a blessed, real union with God, through Jesus (John 14:23-24).
Praise God for Jesus!
Raymond Bacon I agree with what you have presented totally!
If the Christ comes from humanity when then is He not considered to fall under the Federal Head of Adam?
Check out ‘The Theology of the Apostle Paul’ by James D.G. Dunn.
Thanks for this helpful overview, Sean.
(And thanks to those who have already commented above. I found the remarks both thoughtful and thought-provoking.)
Br John Bradley suggested that I should post any comments here after reading Post 435 :
It is a very interesting discussion. These are my positive, current convictions on various thoughts mentioned in this post by Sean and in the Comments by other brothers and sisters:
“In Adam….in Christ” 1 Cor 15:22. The “in Christ” here is obviously a spiritual choice, so the “In Adam” can only be spiritual, if the contrast is to have logical validity ie it refers only to imitation of Adam’s moral sin. Jesus was not “In Adam” in that sense. “As in Adam all die…” – What does “all die” mean? See John 3:36 – we pass from death unto life even before we die if we faithfully accept Christ. “he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life” John 3:36. So the “die” in 1 Cor 15:22 is permanent death, because we all die. Adam himself may have faithfully repented and so may not have been “in Adam” himself all his life. We do not have to stay “in Adam”.
I believe the unscriptural word “innocence” can only refer to those who have experienced moral trial successfully, and that innocence and guilt can only apply in this situation, not in babies, for instance. Innocence is a moral description, and does not refer to physical inheritance. I do not know when the age of responsibility starts, Jesus at age 12 was responsible in his eyes. The many references to the unjust slaughter of “innocents” may include babies who had no opportunity to sin against or to oppose their murderers.
I avoid unscriptural terms such as “corrupted nature”, “fallen nature”, sinful nature”, and “human nature”, because none of them are found in scripture. I think “nature” in scripture describes demonstrated chosen behaviour and does not refer to physical inheritance. We have a choice as to what nature we display – “Make the tree good and its fruit good”. Matt 12:33. “The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things” – nature in this sense is our chosen treasure, and we can choose to make it good or evil – from the words of Jesus Christ himself. The olive tree which is “wild by nature” Rom 11:24 is one which has not been cultivated adequately by its owner. We do not physically inherit an evil tree. Jeremiah 17:9 must be qualified by Jer 17:5. Nothing is “inflicted on our nature” – we determine our own nature.
I suspect that Pelagius’s beliefs were reported by his enemies and so their reports may be not entirely accurate, though he did strongly believe in salvation by faith. There is some doubt about what exactly his beliefs were. Coelestius may have been more extreme, and this may have tainted the reputation of Pelagius. Pelagius was never condemned by the eastern Greek church investigations, to my knowledge.
Jesus was not baptised for any sins, as John protested, but to affirm his willingness to go ahead with a life of service to God which he knew would result in a painful death, which is why God was so pleased at his faithfulness. He was also affirming his belief that God would resurrect him. His life would “fulfill all righteousness” and his sacrifice was his whole life of service and not just the suffering of death. Blood under the Law of Moses symbolised “life” – “the life is in the blood”. Jesus “gave his life as a ransom for many”, not exclusively his death. Jesus was “born of the Spirit” long before his baptism, certainly by age 12.
Jesus Christ was “begotten” at conception.
Is “Human nature” taught in Romans 7? Is there an “intrinsic moral flaw” inherited in our flesh? No to both concepts. The term “flesh” in Romans 7 has a sinister moral connotation, which we choose to become when we sin. Rom 8:8 says “Those that are in the flesh cannot please God”. Rom 8:9 says “we are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit”, so flesh is a spiritual term here. Flesh has 2 usages – Jesus Christ came in the flesh, but was not spiritually in the flesh, and those who deny Jesus came in the flesh are anti-Christ. I believe that the latter half of Rom 7 is speaking of Paul’s pre-conversion state, when he was murdering Christians, when he was “kicking against the pricks” and had a bad conscience about it. He was then coveting inappropriate power over Christians. Coveting can certainly refer to sexual temptations and sin, but there is no evidence this was so with Paul/Saul.
We can revert back into Romans 7 if we choose to persist in sin and do not repent.
Jesus said “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”. He did not say the physical flesh was evil or unclean, but that we “should watch and pray lest we enter into temptation”, inferring that the flesh unaided by God’s Spirit via prayer can fail, as happened to Peter.
Adam could be described as mortal after his sin by being denied access to the tree of life, not by any change in his physical make-up, and the tree of life was a life-prolonging, not an immortality-imparting tree, as it is in Revelation. Otherwise there could be no valid comparison between Adam and Jesus, as per 1 Cor 15, because a change in physical make-up would disrupt any valid comparison.
In genesis 3:22, the verbs “take”, “eat”, and “live forever” are perfect tense which implies only one single eating would enable “live forever”. However the verb “put forth” is Hebrew imperfect tense which implies that the action is not completed and may be repeated. Because the verb “put forth” is the dominant verb, by Hebrew idiom it dominates the verbs which follow and makes them effectively imperfect verbs. I have been told this by Hebrew scholars, one of whom was from the COGGC. Adam’s inherent, created physical corruptibility was only restrained by the tree of life. It was exclusion from this tree which eventually caused his death.
Eph 2:3 does not teach that we are born “spiritually dead”. We are children of wrath because we had our “way of life in times past, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind”. “Flesh” here has the sinister spiritual usage. The “nature” here is demonstrated chosen behaviour, precipitated by a choice of evil treasure in our hearts.
I love the scripture which says “For by grace are ye saved through faith, and not of yourselves, it is the gift of God”. Ephesians 2:8.
Yours in our common hope
Patrick Brady
I think both Augustine and Pelagius made their respective mistakes, Pat, but my main criticism of Pelagianism is that it doesn’t appear to put any emphasis on the holy Spirit, especially in it’s indispensable role in the transformation of congenital, human nature (which the apostle Paul terms ‘the flesh’, i.e. human nature without the indwelling spiritual presence of God, and Jesus, within it, cf. John 14:23; Rom. 8:9). What God works into us (by His Spirit), we need to work out (cf. Gal. 5:13-26, 6:8; Rom. 8:13). The apostle Paul’s analysis of the human condition at the time of Christ’s death was that we were ‘helpless’ and ‘wicked’ (Romans 5:6, GNT). All that the Mosaic Law ultimately did was to confirm in every right-thinking, Jewish person’s experience that they were moral sinners :
“Through the Law comes a full, clear, exact, added and experience-gained knowledge [Gk. ‘epignosis’] of sin” (Romans 3:20, Jonathan Mitchell’s translation), and, as John Locke’s translation puts it :
“For by [Mosaic] law, which is the publishing the rule with a penalty we are not delivered from the power of sin, nor can it help men to [true] righteousness, but by law we come experimentally to know [Gk. ‘epignosis’] sin, in the force and power of it, since we find it prevail upon us ..” (Romans 3:20).
That Paul in his pre-Christian state found himself to be an involuntary, slave of Sin, is documented in Rom. 7:14-24. (where Rom. 7:14-24 probably represents Paul’s personal expansion of the general statement he had made in Rom. 7:5 – which highlights the inability of the Mosaic Law to adequately deliver Mankind from the power of Sin). The only power that can truly counter ‘the law of Sin’ is not primarily our own will-power, or our own moral effort, but the utilization of the life-giving Spirit of God (Romans 8:2), which comes from the risen Christ.