Original Sin
Un-edited Notes
By Nick Bibile
Romans
5: 12-14
If
God is perfect and good,
how come there is evil in this world? Was sin originated by God? Why is it that all sin?
God’s
character is absolutely holy and righteous and sin cannot come from God. See Deuteronomy 32:4 and James 1:13.
It
was the angels who sinned and man who sinned as God did not create robuts but God created them with a free will. God created man in the image of God. What is
the image of God? See Ephesians 4:22-24, Col. 3:10.
What
happened when man sinned? That image was
shattered, as man became un-holy and un-righteous.
In
our Romans studies, we have seen that sin has created a gap between God and
man, a gap that
man is incapable of bridging. But what caused this? Where did
sin come from?
The
origin of sin in the world is Adam's one willful sin, and his sin brought
tremendous
consequences.
First
we will see the effects of Adam's sin upon himself
Then
we will see the effects of Adam's sin upon us.
What
did sin do to Adam?
He
died spiritually
First,
when Adam sinned, he died spiritually:
He lost fellowship with God
He lost the ability to communicate with
God
He lost the ability to choose good
It
is difficult for us to understand, but Adam could have chosen good, but we cannot!
He
died physically
Adam's
sin brought not only spiritual ramifications, but also physical consequences.
When
Adam sinned, he became physically mortal. Did die at that moment? No - but the
aging
process set in, which would lead to his death.
And
when A sinned, his sin poisoned his body. I am speculating, but there must have
been a
physical basis to his sin, because it brought about
his death! His body changed - it was poisoned
by sin. And this change must have been on the physical level
- his chromosomal structure changed.
His
DNA was corrupted.
This
change would have affected not only him, but the entire human race!
As
a result of his sin and his consequent genetic corruption, everyone who was
descended from
him was born in that same condition:
each of his
descendants was born mortal
each was born
genetically corrupted
Also, every one of his descendants was
born inheriting his sin nature.
This
inherent sin nature means that every human being is born:
genetically
corrupted
completely
alienated from God
totally depraved
totally unable to
communicate with God
with a built-in
propensity to do evil
So
every baby is born with a sin nature, and, even before he sins, it is certain
that he will - just
because he has the sin nature.
For
example, when tigers are born, they are "cute". But they will not be
"cute" very long. We know
for a fact that the little tiger will become fierce. It is
his nature - therefore it is inevitable.
It is the tiger's nature to be fierce
It is man's nature to sin
Our
sin nature is built in to us, physically - into our DNA!
Recently
much has been made of research allegedly "proving" that homosexuals
are born with their
same-sex orientation.
We
have to say first that this research is not conclusive at all.
Secondly,
we say,
so what?
Even
if it were true, it would not mean at all that homosexuality is approved by
God, or that He
made them homosexuals. The truth is that we are
all predisposed to sin, because of our inherited,
built-in sin nature.
So
it would not be shocking to discover that some humans are born predisposed to a
particular
sin - which homosexuality most certainly is.
So
we have one of the results of Adam's sin and subsequent fall. He became
corrupted with a sin
nature, which we inherited.
In
this study we will see yet another result of Adam's fall. This one is
surprising, and is not
discussed much.
Because
of Adam's sin, something thing else happened, which is difficult to understand
and which,
many say, is not fair.
Let's
suppose that a man was born, and lived a totally sinless life, never sinning in
thought, word or
deed.
{Obviously
this is not only hypothetical, but also impossible}
Would
that man be acceptable before God and go to heaven?
The
answer is ..............................NO!!!
In
this study we will see why he would not be.
Romans
5: 12-14
12
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death
through sin,
and so death spread to all men, because all sinned--
13
for until the Law sin was in the world; but sin is not
imputed when there is no law.
14
Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even
over those who had not sinned
in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him
who was to come.
We
have seen in our Romans series that man is totally separated from God. God is
up, man is
down. There is an unbreachable
gap between God and the human race.
What
caused this separation? The answer is: SIN.
Now,
where did sin originate?
The
origin if sin
12
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world,
One
willful sin of Adam brought consequences, the first being death.
Death
is a consequence of sin.
and death through sin,
In
the Bible, "death" is presented in 3 different aspects
1)
Physical death.
Physical
death is "no big deal" for a Christian. Physical death just
transports us directly into the
conscious presence of Jesus.
2)
Spiritual death.
The
first instance of "spiritual death" was Adam. This death refers to
separation from God. As a
result if Adam's sin, he was separated from God. Now
there is absolutely no way that God can
communicate with us or us with Him.
For
the natural man to communicate with God would be like trying to tune in and FM
radio station
on a toaster. The natural human being cannot receive
spiritual signals from God because he is
spiritually dead.
3)
Eternal death . This is the final death. Anyone who
dies in his sins, having never trusted in Jesus
Christ
as his personal Savior, will "die"
eternally. He will be conscious, yet eternally separated from
God in hell.
Paul
is speaking here of physical death. Adam sinned and became mortal - he and all
descendants.
So
Paul says,
and so death spread to all men,
how did this happen?
because all sinned--
We
have already seen:
that we inherited
Adam's sin nature. When Adam sinned, his body was corrupted. We are
his descendants,
therefore we are corrupted as well.
that we also
inherited his propensity to sin (the "sin nature").
When
Adam sinned, we sinned!
But
this is not what Paul is saying here - he is saying something entirely
different, and possibly very
surprising:
When
Adam sinned, everybody sinned.
What
does Paul mean by this? He means exactly what he said.
When
Adam sinned, we sinned. That means we are guilty of Adam's sin. Adam ate the
forbidden
fruit. We did too. We are guilty of that sin.
How
can this be? We were not even born then! How can we be guilty for Adam's sin??
Adam
was our federal head
Adam
is our representative, the representative of the human race, our federal head.
In a federal
system, one person legally represents a group of
people.
We
send Congressmen and Senators to
supposed to). So the actions that they take as our
federal representatives are actions that are
imputed to us
-
even if they do bad things.
For example - abortion. If God chooses to
judge
"Americans" for abortion. Why? Because our
federal representatives - our federal "heads" - made
abortion legal.
So
another person acts as our federal head, and we get the credit for the
"good" things they do, as
well as the guilt for the "bad" things
they do.
In
the same way, Adam was our representative. If we had done a good work, we would
have
received the credit. Since, however, he sinned,
we receive the blame for his work,
Yes,
it happened before we were born, but Adam was acting as our representative, our
federal
head.
Adam
was also our "natural head".
Adam
was our natural head
Adam
was our natural, physical representative. We were physically in Adam!
Genetically,
Adam carried the base for every human being who would ever live, in his body!
In
that sense, he is our natural head.
In
Hebrews 7, the writer refers back to Genesis 14, where Abraham pays tithes to
the king of
Abraham had a son, Isaac.
Isaac had a son, Jacob.
Jacob had 12 sons, one of them named
"Levi."
The
writer says that "Levi paid tithes through Melchizedek." How could
that be? Levi was not
born when Abraham tithes to Melchizedek. The text
says that Levi was in the loins of his father.
Abraham
was carrying the genetic structure that later produced Levi. So, in the same
sense, Adam
was not only our federal head, he was also our natural,
physical, head.
Adam's
sin imputed to us
So
Adam's sin was imputed to us. This may not seem fair (it is, as we will see
later), but Adam's
sin was placed on our account - it was imputed to us.
So,
legally, we were guilty of Adam's sin. Before we were born, before we could
ever sin, we
were guilty of Adam's sin.
And,
once again, we are not just talking about just inheriting his evil nature
-which we did - we are
actually guilty for his sin.
Is
this fair? / Is this true?
Is
this fair? Well, the real issue is- is it true? If we have a difficult Biblical
doctrine, first we decide if
it is true, then we deal with the objections.
That
is what we will do in this study - we will look at this issue of Adam's sin
being imputed to us
and demonstrate that it is indeed fair.
Paul
proves that this imputation was true
But
you will notice that Paul neither explains nor attempts to justify the fact of
that imputation.
What
he DOES do is to prove that what he said was true.
In
fact , he now takes two verses (13-14) and proves
Adam's sin was imputed to us:
13
for until the Law sin was in the world; but sin is not
imputed when there is no law.
14
Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even
over those who had not sinned
in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him
who was to come.
What
in the world this mean? This is difficult to understand, isn't it?
Sin
leads to death
Let's
follow his reasoning:
There is a Biblical principle according to
which sin leads to death.
Death
proves sin
If
this is true, then the reverse is true:
If you have death, that means there WAS
sin.
That
is the principle. Now let's look at the facts and see how the principle fits.
People
were dying
Fact:
people were dying during the period of time that extended from Adam to Moses.
(We will
see later why he stopped with Moses).
In
fact, death reigned from Adam to Moses.
Therefore
there was sin.
So
people were dying from Adam to Moses. There was death. Therefore there must
have been
sin. Now whose sin? For whose sins were they dying?
But
not their own sin!
Were
they dying as a result of their own sins? Well, what is sin? Sin is the transgression
of the
Law. The problem is that there was no law yet.
So
it could not have been their own sin, because there
was no law to sin against. There were no
commands given during this time period that they could
have been breaking.
For
Adam's sin!
So,
for which law were they being punished? The last command given - to not eat of
the forbidden
fruit!
Were
they actually sinless? Certainly not. Paul's point is
that they did not sin in the same manner
that Adam did:
14
Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even
over those who had not sinned
in the likeness of the offense of Adam...
What
is the "likeness of the offense of Adam"?
What
did Adam do? Adam violated a specific command of God. On the other hand, people
from
Adam
to Moses did not sin in this way, because there was not a specific command to
disobey.
And
yet they died. This proves that they were dying for the violation that Adam had
committed.
His
sin was indeed imputed to them.
And
therefore,
death spread to all men,
Again
Paul states this as a fact. When Adam sinned, everyone sinned. He makes no
effort to
explain or to justify why God imputed Adam's sin to
us.
But
there are obvious objections. It really does not seem fair.
Looking
at this issue of the imputation of Adam's sin to us, we have two choices .
We can get "hung up" on the
issue and decide that it is not fair
Or we can look at the bigger picture.
The
"Big Picture"
The
bigger picture is this:
Along
with the imputation of Adam's sin to us, He also gave us a remedy. Not only did
God do
something about that original sin, He did much more.