What is the origin of sin?
Scripture traces sin further back than the human race: it began in a creature, not in God, and it entered our world through one man. Two questions follow from that — how did evil ever appear in a good creation, and how does it now reach every person born?
God is not the author of sin
Writers are careful to distinguish permitting evil from producing it. God allowed sin, but its existence began elsewhere.
James BoydIt must not for a moment be supposed that He was the author of sin, or that He brought it into the world. Had He done either His purpose never could have been carried out. It was by one of His creatures it was brought into existence, and by another of His creatures it found entrance into the world.
Why God permitted it at all is answered differently. Some argue that a creature able to choose was better than a machine:
A J PollockGod is not the author of evil, but He has allowed sin for His own glory. He did not create creatures who were incapable of choosing between good and evil, or else He would have created mere machines — infinitely more wonderful than motor cars and aeroplanes, but still on the same level.
Others hold that the deeper "why" is simply not revealed. One writer says that although Scripture gives ample light on how evil entered this world, "as to why God, knowing all that would ultimately be involved, ever created Satan or man, and why He permitted evil to ever invade any part of His fair creation, Scripture is silent, and we know nothing" (F. B. Hole). Commentators differ here, and it is worth holding the difference honestly.
The first sinner
The trail runs back past Eden to a created being of the highest rank, whose downfall was pride.
James BoydHe is not the author of it: the devil is, he sins from the beginning (1 John 3:8). There was no sinner before him. Set in the most exalted position in which a creature was ever set, his pride rose up in rebellion against the One who had made him... "You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created, till unrighteousness was found in you." Sin began to exist in the thought of that anointed cherub.
What sin actually is
Defining sin as breaking a written law is too narrow, since sin was in the world before any law was given. The root is a will that acts on its own.
J. N. DarbyThe root of all sin is not in the lusts in which it is so hatefully shown, but in having a will of our own, the departure of the will from God, the will to be independent, free to do our own will — "who is Lord over us?" When we separate from God like this, we must have something; we cannot be enough for ourselves, and we sink into lusts, lusts in which our will works.
This definition reaches everyone, not only the obviously wicked:
W. W. FeredayEvery exercise of the human will in independence of God is by this divine statement declared to be sin. It does not matter what the act may be, whether it is what human courts would punish, or what would pass inspection in the eyes of men; every action taken without reference to God is sin.
How sin entered the human world
Adam started clean. His choice changed the nature that every later generation would inherit.
H Forbes WitherbyInnocence existed in one man — Adam. God made Adam free from evil, without the knowledge of sin... But Adam preferred disobedience to obedience, and by exercising his will his nature became evil, and with that the character of the fountain of human life was changed. Innocence disappeared from the earth, and sin came into the world. This is the origin of our sinful nature, which we received through our parents and were born with.
That fall also handed the race over to a new master. "When man fell, he abandoned God as Master; he gained by sin another master, even Satan, the great rebel against the true God," and so "neither Jew nor Gentile originated sin. It began with the head of the race, long before those distinctions" (William Kelly).
Sin, sins, and death
One act let in a principle, and the principle keeps producing acts. Death is the evidence that it is present in all.
Hamilton Smith"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... 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.
Where your own sins begin
Inherited nature does not remove personal responsibility. Outward pressure may come from without, but the pull comes from within.
Numerical Bible NotesThe devil solicits with evil; but he finds in us something he counts on as ready to yield to the temptation; and in fact anyone is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own lust. This is the only thing that makes him open to it. God is over all in permitting the outward solicitation, but the inward one is of man himself.
Summary
- Source. Sin did not start with God and did not start with man; it started in a creature, and the devil was the first sinner.
- Entrance. It reached our world through one man's act of disobedience, and Adam's fall changed the nature passed on to everyone after him.
- Definition. At root sin is lawlessness — a will acting independently of God — which is why it existed long before any written law.
- Evidence. The principle inside produces the acts outside, and death on all is God's proof that all are under it.
- Responsibility. The devil offers the bait, but each person is drawn away by his own desire — so inheritance never becomes an excuse.