The doctrine of original sin has fallen on hard times. Celebrated as more “positive” thinking, recent pop publications like Humankind: A Hopeful History propel the sirenic melodies of innate human goodness to an ever-growing audience. The past portrayal of original sin is attributed more to the 17th-century works of Thomas Hobbes than to the Bible, and the new data reveals that we are actually our best selves when we recognize our inner goodness. To many outside the church, the man-as-moral-monster bit simply doesn’t do.
However, there are also others operating within Christian culture who would say a traditional doctrine of original sin is missing the point of the Bible’s message about God’s love and grace.
So, is Christianity’s teaching about sin merely a vestige of times gone by? Is it necessary to the Bible’s message of salvation? Is there a connection between Adam’s sin and my spiritual condition? Does our theology of sin fit with a modern view of the origins of humanity?
The challenge of answering such relevant questions is the breadth of ground they cover—church history, systematic theology, biblical exegesis, philosophy, and now even genetics. However, we are not starting from the ground up in constructing our thoughts about original sin. Christians have been asking similar questions for millennia, and we are stepping into a long stream of holy reflection on what it means to be a human being in a post-Fall world—albeit, now in the 21st century.
What Is Original Sin?
Throughout the history of the Church, there has been considerable agreement over the doctrine of universal sin. Sometimes, this concept can be confused with original sin. However, while related, the two concepts are distinct. Universal sin affirms, with passages like Romans 3:23, that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (ESV), that there is no human being that does not sin—thus, the universal aspect of the doctrine. Sometimes confusion can arise because passages that support universal sinfulness are used as proof texts for original sin (for example, Isa. 64:6). However, many Christians from various denominations would follow the clear teaching of the apostle Paul in affirming the universal impact of sin on humanity.
However, the reality of universal sin raises another question: How does sin spread universally to all humanity? This is the question the doctrine of original sin seeks to answer. What is the mechanism by which sin invades the world? A traditional understanding of the doctrine of original sin states that Adam and Eve’s transgression had a direct impact on the human race so that all of their children—as their progeny—received a fallen nature, characterized by both separation from God and a corrupted moral state. Generally, discussions of original sin begin their reflection by highlighting the writings of Augustine, who argued fervently for original sin during the fourth century A.D. in response to the optimistic anthropology of his opponent Pelagius. Recently, the argument has been made that original sin is more an Augustinian doctrine than a biblical one. Scholars propose that the church’s embrace of original sin is merely one more example of dogma directing exegesis—the church decides on its theology and then makes the Bible fit into the mold. Anyone familiar with Church history knows that such concerns are not without validity, but accusations claiming the Bible doesn’t teach original sin are inaccurate.
Origins and Original Sin
In reflecting on the Bible’s answer to how sin invades humanity, our thoughts naturally drift to the story of our first parents, Adam and Eve. Genesis 3 records how sin entered into the good world that God created, and while there is no explicit statement about how sin will be passed on to other humans, the narrative of chapters 4–11 reveals that the sin of Adam and Eve leaves an indelible stain on their progeny. Sin spreads quickly and severely. When humanity first chafes at the expressed will of God, the rebellion looks like eating a piece of fruit. However, only one generation later, the crime committed is taking the life of a fellow image-bearer. This pattern in the early chapters of the Bible continues until the narrator writes in Genesis 6:5, “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (ESV). The tidal wave of sin that overtakes humanity in these early chapters is woven together with the genealogy of Genesis 5, which demonstrates that human life is getting shorter as sin spreads—lining up with the Pauline teaching thousands of years later: Sin leads to death.
The rapid spread of sin, rebellion, disregard for God’s image, and evil in the world rightly causes us to ask: What happened to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3? Traditionally, proponents of original sin have used the language of a fallen nature to describe the impact sin had on humanity. But some critics of the doctrine have argued that a fallen nature creates problems for Christology. If human nature is now a fallen nature that brings with it moral corruption and guilt, then how can Jesus be truly human (with a fallen nature), and yet truly sinless? If He doesn’t assume a fallen nature, then how can He redeem that which He doesn’t take on? While much reflection has been spent trying to understand the relationship between the human will and human nature, one need not assert a metaphysically transformed fallen nature in the Garden to affirm original sin. The ensuing state of moral corruption and sin that will infect every offspring of the couple flows from their spiritual, relational, and covenantal separation from the life-giving God who created them.
The punishment described in chapter 3 affirms that both the man and the woman will continue their God-given roles in the world (that is, working the soil and bearing children), but because of their sinful rebellion, these tasks will be burdensome, and eventually deadly. Later reference to the image of God in humanity (Gen. 9:6) indicates that people did not cease to be divine image bearers because of the first sin. Adam and Eve did not physically change because of sin; instead, their moral constitution was forever altered because of the severed relationship with their Creator. The narrative of Genesis 3 indicates that death entered the world because of sin and because Adam and Eve were removed from the Garden of Eden (that is, the presence of God and His provision for life in the Tree of Life). In the Garden story, death is characterized by physical mortality and separation from the life-giving Creator God.
The Old Testament and Original Sin
In agreement with some opponents of original sin, Genesis 3 does not explicitly teach that all of Adam’s children biologically inherit his sinful, fallen condition. However, the passage does teach that after the Fall the way of humans being in the world is forever redefined by mortality and separation from God—two realities that continually surface throughout the Old Testament. In Leviticus, Israel is instructed that sacrifice—that is, death—is needed to atone for the sins of the people: Sin leads to death. However, many sacrifices and ritual practices were conducted simply to address the human condition. To be a human being is to be unclean and in need of purification. Yet, even while Israel had these ritual rules to follow in order to experience God’s presence and live in relationship with Him, they repeatedly rebelled against God, worshipped idols, and committed moral atrocities revealing that the poison of sin still ran through God’s people—to the extent that Jeremiah says it is more likely for a leopard to change its spots than for Israel, who was accustomed to evil, to do good (Jer. 13:23).
Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than where the great dynastic leader David confesses in Psalm 51:5, “Behold, I was brough forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” David’s words are often cited as a proof text for original sin, and they are often criticized as such as well. As a poetic reflection on his own wicked deeds toward Uriah and Bathsheba, David’s words come to us through the figurative and emotive style of poetic sorrow. While Psalm 51:5 does not necessarily prove original sin, it ably demonstrates the impact sin and wickedness continue to have on God’s chosen people—even His chosen king! The message of Psalm 51 lines up well with another Davidic psalm reflecting on the impact of sin on humanity: “They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one” (Ps. 14:3, ESV). Sin has impacted the human condition deeply and holistically. The Old Testament reveals a people who not only sin (that is, do the wrong thing), but who are a sinful people who need a circumcised heart (Deut. 30:6), a heart of flesh (Ezek. 11:19), a new heart (Ezek. 36:26), and the law of God inscribed on their heart (Jer. 31:33). Israel’s problem was the human problem—a sinful, corrupt heart that requires divine attention.
During the Second Temple period, Jewish writers espoused a view similar to original sin. Commenting on the impact of Adam’s sin on the rest of humanity, 2 Esdras 3:21–22 reads, “For the first Adam, burdened with an evil heart, transgressed and was overcome, as were also all who were descended from him. Thus, the disease become permanent; the law was in the hearts of the people along with the evil root; but what was good departed, and the evil remained.” As this passage reflects on God’s interaction with Israel in exile, it reveals that early Jews perceived the perennial sin problem that plagued their nation as rooted in the transgression of Adam.
The New Testament and Original Sin
In the Gospels, Jesus speaks clearly to the impact of sin on the human heart. In John 8:34 sin is compared to slavery, not merely committing a wrong action. One is under the power of sin and must be set free. And earlier in John 6:44, Jesus stated that “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (ESV). The consequence of original sin is a humanity that exists in perpetual enmity with God and, therefore, cannot on their own account or in their own moral ability draw near to God. Furthermore, Jesus clearly taught that the root of sin lies in the heart of human beings. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus drives His listeners to realize that the law not only exposes wrong behaviors but wrong desires. Or, as He would later say in Matthew, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Matt. 15:19, ESV). As the seat of the will and desire, the heart is what must be transformed, and yet it is the one thing God’s people are powerless to do—God must act.
While the Gospels point to the heart as the root of the problem of sin, the most robust discussion of original sin is found in the Pauline Epistles. In one of the clearest depictions of the fallen condition of humanity, Paul writes to the church in Ephesus, saying:
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
Paul’s assessment of the Ephesian Christians before God “made them alive” in Christ was that they were spiritually dead, enslaved to the power of evil in the world, and were by nature children of wrath. According to our natural condition as descendants of Adam (not necessarily a “fallen nature”), we are born into the world hostile to God and therefore “children of wrath,” experiencing alienation from God, powerless to come to God in our own strength, nor desiring to because of our corrupt hearts.
Ephesians 2 provides a clear depiction of the fallen condition of humanity apart from the grace-filled saving work of God, but Romans 5:12 is the locus classicus for discussions about original sin. In this chapter, Paul seeks to expand on his argument in the earlier chapters of Romans by describing the universal impact of the work of Christ, as compared to the universal reality of sin and death in the world. So, while Romans 5:12 is relevant to the discussion of original sin, and I believe supports it, Romans 5:12–19 is not primarily about the mechanism of the spread of sin. Verse 12 reads, “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” (ESV). Douglas Moo helpfully highlights the structure and logic of the passage:
A Sin came into the world through Adam
B With sin came death
B’ Death spread to all people
A’ Because all people sinned (Moo, Romans, NIVAC, 181)
The sin of Adam is the vehicle that brings sin and death into the world, and the post-Fall reality of death spreads to all of Adam’s children “because all sin.” Some critics of original sin have argued that this passage doesn’t speak to the origins of sin at all, but only to the spread of death through sin. And, as an isolated text, it could be argued that is the case. However, it is only six verses later where Paul elaborates on his comparison between Adam and Christ and writes, “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men” (Rom. 5:18, ESV). It is not a misreading of Paul to see in Romans 5 an assertion about the spread of sin to humanity through the sin of Adam.
Augustine and many “realist” interpreters since the fourth century have argued that the propagation of sin occurs because Adam’s progeny is truly in him seminally at the time of his transgression, so humanity literally sins with Adam. Others have argued more convincingly that Paul’s emphasis in Romans 5 is to present Adam as a covenantal representative that stands to shape the spiritual destiny of all who follow, in a similar way that Christ represents a new humanity for those who unite with Him by faith. In explaining the unique representative role played by both Adam and Christ, Herman Bavinck writes, “They have the human race not behind them but before them; they do not spring from it but give rise to it; they are not sustained by it but themselves sustain it; they are not the product of humankind, but are, each in his own way, the beginning and root of it, the heads of all humanity” (Reformed Dogmatics, III:106). The trespass of Adam invariably impacted all humanity by bringing about the spiritual separation between God and man that would usher in an era of mortality. It is only when the New Adam arises to establish a new humanity that the power of sin and death are overcome by the grace and mercy of God.
Conclusion
Is there one biblical passage that we can point to that clearly sets out the details of exactly how Adam’s sin impacts the rest of humanity? No, there is not. Just like we might say there is no verse in the Bible that explicitly states the doctrine of the Trinity. The formation of Christian doctrine consists of both analysis and synthesis. We always want our textual analysis to read various passages well and within their own context, but we also want to aptly synthesize the biblical text in our understanding of “what the Bible teaches.”
Is the doctrine of original sin an antiquated idea that Christians need to wake up and abandon? No. It is a biblical truth that describes the reality that human beings are not sinners because they sin; instead, they sin because they are sinners. And for sinners, while original sin is not necessarily “good news,” the reality of mankind’s inability to save himself truthfully guides us more and more into the beauty of the gospel and the saving grace of God.