Doctrine of Man (Part 20): Man as Sinner

Man as Sinner

Today we come to the fourth subsection of our study of the doctrine of man, which is “Man as Sinner.”

1. Doctrine of the Fall

The traditional doctrine of original sin affirmed by many Catholics and the Protestant Reformers involves two components: (1) the guilt of Adam’s sin is borne by every one of his descendants and (2) Adam’s sin resulted in a corruption of human nature or a privation of original righteousness that is transmitted to all of his descendants. By contrast the Orthodox Church and many Arminian Protestants affirm only (2). Therefore it behooves us to examine the scriptural foundations of this doctrine.

                  1.  Biblical Data

We will look at three biblical passages concerning the Fall.

1.1        Gen 3.1-24

The story of the fall of Adam and Eve into sin found in the primeval history of Genesis provides the historical foundation for the doctrine of original sin. The heart of the story is as follows:

Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?” ² And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; ³ but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” ⁴ But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die. ⁵ For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” ⁶ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate. ⁷ Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. ⁸ And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” ¹⁰ And he said, “I heard the sound of thee in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” ¹¹ He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” ¹² The man said, “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” ¹³ Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent beguiled me, and I ate.” ¹⁴ The Lord God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,
    cursed are you above all cattle,
    and above all wild animals;
upon your belly you shall go,
    and dust you shall eat
    all the days of your life.
¹⁵ I will put enmity between you and the woman,
    and between your seed and her seed;
he shall bruise your head,
    and you shall bruise his heel.”
¹⁶ To the woman he said,
“I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing;
    in pain you shall bring forth children,
yet your desire shall be for your husband,
    and he shall rule over you.”
¹⁷ And to Adam he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife,
    and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
    ‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
    in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
¹⁸ thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you;
    and you shall eat the plants of the field.
¹⁹ In the sweat of your face
    you shall eat bread
till you return to the ground,
    for out of it you were taken;
you are dust,
    and to dust you shall return.”

²⁰ The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. ²¹ And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins, and clothed them.

²² Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever”— ²³ therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. ²⁴ He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life (Gen 3.1-24).

Although the words translated “sin” and “fall” appear nowhere in this narrative, there can be no doubt that what the story describes is intended to be the first sin committed by human beings, which has catastrophic consequences not only for the founding pair but also for their progeny. In defiance of God’s command and oblivious to his warning, the couple have opposed their will to that of their Creator and Benefactor and brought down upon themselves terrible consequences.

The couple’s situation prior to their sin was not merely physically idyllic, but they also enjoyed an open fellowship with God, as we see from the awful estrangement from God that they suddenly come to experience after their sin (3.8). Now fear and shame come to displace their open fellowship with their Creator (3.7, 10). Evasion and shifting of blame now characterize their relations (3.12-13). Though God lovingly continues to provide for them (3.21), their fellowship with God has been ruptured. God’s command to abstain from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was accompanied by a judicial sanction stating the punishment for disobedience: “in the day that you eat of it you shall die” (2.17). That punishment is epitomized in their being exiled from the Garden of Eden to work the now cursed soil and bear progeny in multiplied pain. Cut off from the tree of life, they have no hope of immortality but are condemned to death.

Adam and Eve’s sin not only brought punishment upon themselves but also had earth-shattering consequences for their posterity. As we have seen, the curses pronounced by God are etiological motifs that serve to ground the nature of snakes, farming, and child-bearing, familiar to the Pentateuchal writer’s audience, in primordial events. Far more significantly, we all experience the inevitability of death. We all live east of Eden (3.24). In the ensuing narratives, climaxing in the flood story, we have what Gerhard von Rad famously called “an increase in sin to avalanche proportions” as man devolves from bad to worse until God sees “that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (6.5).[1] The story of the fall portrays the disobedience of the first couple as the floodgate through which sin entered into the paradisiacal world created for them by God, leading to their expulsion from the garden to eke out a living from the cursed soil, cut off from the tree of life, and so doomed to death. Thus, the sin of Adam and Eve as portrayed in this story most certainly deserves to be characterized as the fall of man from his pristine state.

At the same time, however, commentators find no trace of the traditional doctrine of original sin in the story of the fall. Adam and Eve’s progeny suffer the consequences of their parents’ sin but are not said to be punished for their sin, since their suffering is not their just desert for Adam’s wrongdoing, just as family members of a criminal who is punished by incarceration or execution suffer the consequences of his criminal wrongdoing but are not punished for it. There is no suggestion in the narrative that Adam and Eve’s descendants will be held guilty for their ancestors’ sin, as though they themselves had committed it. Neither is there any suggestion in the story that Adam and Eve’s sin resulted in a corruption of human nature that is transmitted to their descendants. The curses pronounced by God have nothing to do with moral corruption that is passed on from parent to child. Fallen people are just as much in God’s image as are Adam and Eve (Gen 5.1-3; 9.6; cf. Jas 3.9). Even human mortality is not attributed to a change in human nature but to exclusion from the life-giving fruit of the tree of life. 

It is important, therefore, to distinguish between what is sometimes called primal sin and original sin. The story of the fall does describe the first or primal sin committed by human beings, along with its disastrous consequences for all mankind. But one looks in vain for any indication by the author that all humans are held to be guilty of Adam’s sin or that they inherit as a result of Adam’s sin a corrupted human nature. It is rather to the NT, and in particular to the writings of Paul, that we must turn if justification for some version of the doctrine of original sin is to be biblically founded.

1.2 Paul’s Doctrine

The principal passage in the New Testament which reflects on the Fall is found in Paul’s letter to the Romans 5:12-21. Paul writes,

Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned – sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the effect of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. If, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous. Law came in, to increase the trespass; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Paul does not explain just how Adam’s sin is transmitted to his posterity. Paul may mean that Adam’s sin was imputed to every one of his descendants, or that Adam’s sin corrupted human nature and thus affected all of his progeny, or that Adam’s sin simply opened the floodgates to sin, which then infected all who came after him. 

Consider the first alternative, that in virtue of Adam’s representative status or our corporate solidarity with Adam or some such notion, Adam’s sin in the Garden is imputed to each of us, his progeny. That is to say, we are guilty before God in virtue of Adam’s wrongdoing and so under condemnation of death. Whether the notion of imputation of sin is palatable to modern sensibilities is irrelevant to the interpretive question before us.

But is that in fact Paul’s doctrine? Perhaps; but there is plenty of room for doubt. The question is how to relate v. 12cd, “As sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned,” to v. 18a, “One man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men.” It is not clear that the imputation of sin is implied here rather than the spread of the contagion of sin.

So what about the second proffered explanation of our solidarity in Adam’s sin (namely, a corrupt nature inherited from him)? The traditional doctrine of original sin postulates minimally a corrupted or deprived nature inherited from Adam, if not imputed guilt. Thomas Aquinas offers this pithy summary: “Original sin spread in this way, that at first the person infected the nature, and afterwards the nature infected the person” (Summa theologiae III.69.3 ad 3). But does Paul teach such a thing? Such a teaching is, perhaps surprisingly, nowhere to be found in Rom 5.12–21. That occasions the question: Is there no other alternative to either imputation or corrupted nature for explaining people’s proclivity toward sin?

That leads to the third alternative: our inherent self-seeking biological nature in combination with the web of corruption in which we are born and raised. Such a natural biological tendency toward survival and hence selfishness, coupled with a morally corrupt environment, suffices to explain why all have sinned. This explanation of the universality of human sin does not require even that Adam and Eve had biological ancestors, merely that they were created with a biological propensity to survival that is reinforced by society and upbringing. It is worth noting in passing that when in Rom 1–3 Paul develops his doctrine of the universality of sin and condemnation, he makes no appeal at all to the doctrine of original sin in any form.

So Romans 5 is inconclusive.

Finally, in 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 Paul writes, “For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” We have already seen, however, that in I Corinthians 15 Paul is dealing, not with spiritual death and justification, but rather with physical death. This is clear because the opposition in I Corinthians 15 is between death and physical resurrection, not between death and justification, as in Romans 5. So this passage has nothing to teach us about original sin.

These are the three critical passages in the Scriptures relevant to the doctrine of the Fall, both in the Old and New Testaments.