What is original sin?

As to original sin, it is well to say what we mean by it, as men's thoughts differ widely. We read that "by one man's disobedience sin entered into the world": there we find that the sin of Adam put him in this position. There are two things in what is commonly called original sin. It does not consist in following Adam, but that I am alienated from God, and also that I have an evil nature. The two go together, just as reconciliation and a new nature go together. My heart is renewed from and to God.

The term "original sin" may not be found in the Bible, but the truth which is conveyed by the term is there right enough. In Genesis 5:3 we read, "Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image." Note the words we have italicised. Originally he had been created in God's likeness, but he did not reproduce himself during his brief time of innocence when there might have been another man also in God's likeness. He fell first and then begat children in his own likeness as a fallen creature. The law of Genesis 1 "after his kind" at once operated. Hence in Romans 5:19 we read that "by one man's disobedience many were made [or, constituted] sinners." All his descendants came into the world sinners in their very constitution. That is what is meant by "original sin."

As to "original sin," it is requisite that we should know what is meant by it. And in the first place it is necessary carefully to distinguish between sin and sins, — the root and the fruit. We all have sin in us, as we all have committed sins, and the latter are the fruit of the former. They are most clearly distinguished in Scripture, and are separately, and in some respects differently, treated of. Christ was made sin for us, but He bore our sins in His own body on the tree. Sins are forgiven, sin has been condemned in Christ as sin-offering on the cross. If we go to the Articles of the Church of England, we find (Art. ix.) original or birth-sin defined as, "the fault and the corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the nature of Adam." In Romans 8:3, this is called "sin in the flesh," (phronema sarkos). But this is never said to be forgiven, — God has condemned it in the sacrifice of Christ; and to faith, the Christian is dead to it, (Rom. 6:2, 7), though sin is not dead in him (1 John 1:8). Even in the case of the true Christian, as a matter of fact sin remains in him till he dies (or puts off this body of humiliation), though his sins have been forgiven. How absurd then is it to say that original sin has been washed away in baptism! Evidently the corrupt nature is not washed away, and as to the new or divine nature and reconciliation to God, that depends upon true and individual faith in Christ, and not upon baptism. As we have seen, "by His own will begat He us with the word of truth," — this is irrespective of any ordinance. As regards the sin of the world, the work is done in virtue of which it will in due time be removed, viz., the work of Christ on the cross: as yet, however, all that can be said is, "we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness," 1 John 5:19.

This term is often used by theologians, but they are not agreed as to its signification. It is not found in scripture. Man has derived an evil nature from Adam, but his sins are his own. Death passed upon all men because of Adam's sin, but all have sinned. Rom. 5:12.

“By one man sin entered into the world.” Innocence existed in one man — Adam. God made Adam free from evil; without the knowledge of sin. This was the starting point of man's existence upon earth — a life in its moral characteristics totally distinct from our present life. But Adam preferring disobedience to obedience, and exercising his will, his nature became evil, and thereupon the character of the fountain of human life became changed. Innocence disappeared from the earth, and sin entered the world. This is the origin of our sinful nature which we received through our parents, and with which we were born. We trace the river from this present day to the past generation — we follow it back further and further till we reach its source — and we find that every age has produced a nature which is sinful.

There is no other explanation of the fact that the children of Adam universally have a corrupted moral nature. The moral nature of man was first corrupted in him — our progenitor. Having become corrupted in him, it has passed on naturally as an inheritance to his descendants. They have a fallen, sinful nature through him. All his children are thus involved in his fall and ruin — the many involved by the act of the one.

For our racial head we have to go back to Adam, and to Adam in his fallen condition, for only when fallen did he beget sons and daughters. His fall came about by an act of sin, but that act induced a state or condition of sin which permeated his very being. Thereby his whole spiritual constitution was altered so fundamentally as to affect all his descendants. He could only beget children "in his own likeness, after his image" (Gen. 5:3) — the likeness and image of a fallen man. Heredity of this sort is a terrible fact, borne witness to by Scripture. Does God in the Gospel propose any remedy for this awful blight which lies upon the human race? Can He deal with the nature from which the acts of sin spring: with the root which produces the hideous fruits, as well as with the fruits themselves?

Every creature of God has its own nature, and of God’s creatures on earth man has a very distinctive nature that sets him apart from all others. Alas, sin has entered into the nature of man and has brought in all the ruin, decay, disease and death that we see all around. Scripture relates plainly that this was brought about by the sin of Adam and Eve, and that every child of Adam has inherited his sinful nature. Adam’s sin made him a guilty creature, and put him at a distance from God, but it also introduced into his nature an evil principle, sin, that had not been there before. The long centuries of man’s life upon earth have demonstrated the utter ruin of human nature, but the cross of Christ has not only shown that it is incorrigible, but there God condemned the sin that controlled, and formed part of, man’s nature as away from God (Rom. 8:3).

"Sin" is that which at the fall of Adam gained an entrance into the world. Just as the poison of a snake, once injected into la man's body, will run through his whole system doing its deadly work, so sin - the virus of that old serpent the devil - has permeated man's moral being to his ruin. The result of this is "all have sinned." "Sins," of thought, word, or act, whether of omission or commission, are chargeable to each of us.

(V. 12). The passage opens by tracing all the sorrows that have come into this world to one man — Adam. Through Adam's act of disobedience sin came into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all Adam's race. The outcome of "sin" must be sins, but it is of "sin" that the Apostle more especially speaks in this portion of the Epistle. In chapters 1, to 5:11, the word sin occurs but twice; in this division. 5:12 to 8, it occurs thirty-four times. "Sin" is the evil principle of "lawlessness", or the creature doing his own will. This evil principle entered the world. through Adam's one act of disobedience. Death followed as the penalty of sin. Sins can be forgiven; but "sin", the evil principle which leads to sins, can only be met by death that brings to an end the life governed by sin. Therefore the penalty of sin is death. Thus the death penalty passed upon all Adam's race. That all have come under the evil principle of sin is proved by the fact that all have sinned. The bad fruit shows the character of the tree. So the Apostle says, "Death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned".