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Does Islam cause terrorism? Click here: /Apologeticshtml/Moral Equivalency Applied Islamic History 0409.htm
Is the Bible God’s Word? Click here: /Apologeticshtml/Is the Bible the Word of God.htm
Why does God Allow Evil? Click here: /Apologeticshtml/Why Does God Allow Evil 0908.htm
Is Christian teaching from ancient paganism? /Bookhtml/Paganism influence issue article Journal 013003.htm
Should God’s existence be proven? /Apologeticshtml/Should the Bible and God Be Proven Fideism vs WCG.htm
Does the Bible teach blind faith? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Gospel of John Theory of Knowledge.htm
Is
the Doctrine of Original Sin True?
Should
we believe in the doctrine of original sin?
Although the Bible reveals that we aren’t born with the guilt or stain
of Adam’s sin on us, we are born into a fallen world that promotes sinful
tendencies among all people.
As
explained in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve were successfully tempted by Satan, who
was speaking through a serpent or snake.
Once their eyes were opened by eating of the tree of knowledge of good
and evil, they knew they had sinned. They hid from God when He visited
the Garden of Eden (v. 8, 10), which showed they knew they were in the
wrong. Eve was deceived, but Adam wasn't, according to Paul (I Timothy
2:14). So what were the
consequences for their descendants because of their sin? Eve was condemned to have more pain in
childbirth and her husband would rule over her. Adam was condemned to the hard work of making a living from the
earth that God had cursed as a punishment for his sin. But these aren’t spiritual punishments, only
physical ones. They did die because of
their sin eventually, which would be a spiritual punishment, not just a
physical one.
Would
it be just for God to condemn people for a sin that they didn’t actually
commit? This is the basic problem with
the doctrine of original sin, which maintains that all human beings are born
with Adam’s sin assessed against them.
In Ezekiel 18:20 God proclaims a basic moral principle: "The soul who sins shall die. The son
shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the
son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the
wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.” So if we take this directly and literally, the son of Adam, Seth,
was born without sin or guilt on him.
Seth wasn’t condemned to die from birth because of his father’s (Adam’s)
sin.
However,
have people been born with intrinsic tendencies to sin? We find in Ecclesiastes 7:29: “Truly, this only I have found: That God
made man upright, But they have sought out many schemes." Similarly, God made everything to be good in
the beginning, before Adam sinned (Genesis 1:31): “And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very
good.” Notice that the heart of man is
evil “from his youth,” but not from his birth (Genesis 8:21). So people aren’t born with the guilt of
Adam’s sin on them nor are they born with an innate tendency to sin. Instead, it is acquired after birth because
of the influence of Satan and the evil world around us.
In
this context, it’s important to examine the key text used to justify the
doctrine of original sin. As Paul
explains in Romans 5:12, "through one man sin entered into the world,
and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned." Notice
those last three words. This text has
often been cited as absolute proof of the doctrine of original sin, yet it
contradicts it when carefully read.
Notice that it doesn’t say, “because he [i.e., Adam] sinned.” So all men die because they all sinned (cf.
Romans 3:23; 6:23), not because of the first man’s sin.
However,
it’s important to examine two verses that appear later in the same chapter of
Romans (verses 18-19): “Therefore, as
through one man's offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation,
even so through one Man's righteous act the free gift came to all men,
resulting in justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were
made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous.” These verses are actually much better, on
the face of them, for proving the doctrine of original sin than verse 12
is. However, we shouldn’t try to
contradict the principle of Ezekiel 18:20 here. What they mean is that people are born into a world cut off from
God and his direct influence. They
become sinners not directly because of Adam’s sin being assessed against them,
but because all of Adam and Eve’s descendents are born into a world in which
they end up sinning because of the influence of Satan, the evil world
civilization around us, and our acquired evil human nature since birth. After all, notice that all people aren’t
actually justified or made obedient by Christ’s sacrifice until they have the
faith to accept it, which obviously a majority of the world’s population hasn’t
done. So we can’t take literally this
statement that everyone is presently justified by what Jesus did.
Although
the doctrine of original sin is false, it is true that the human race is indeed
born into a world cut off from God, which makes it very easy to sin.
Eric
V. Snow
Click here to access essays that
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Why does God Allow Evil? Click
here: /Apologeticshtml/Why Does God
Allow Evil 0908.htm
May Christians work on Saturdays?
Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Protestant
Rhetoric vs Sabbath Refuted.htm
Should Christians obey the Old
Testament law? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Does the New
Covenant Abolish the OT Law.htm
Do you have an immortal soul?
Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Here and
Hereafter.htm
Does the ministry have authority?
Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Is There an
Ordained Ministry vs Edwards.html
Is the United States the Beast?
Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Are We the Beast
vs Collins.htm
Should you give 10% of your
income to your church? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Does the Argument
from Silence Abolish the Old Testament Law of Tithing 0205 Mokarow rebuttal.htm
Is Jesus God? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Is Jesus God.htm
Will there be a third
resurrection? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Will There Be a
Third Resurrection.htm
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