Original Sin and How it Impacts Us

Genesis 1-3 is the key to understanding original sin, because it is the place were human sin began. In order to give an answer to what original sin is or how it impacts people today we must define sin.

Erickson defines sin as a failure to let God be God, thus putting something or someone in God’s place of supremacy.¹ I believe that the Bible’s definition is a little clearer. Let us begin by looking at Genesis 1-3:

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”² Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”³ 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 desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.⁴

The key to understanding sin is the word knowledge. The tree is called “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” John said, “Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.”⁵ James said, “Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.”⁶

We all sin with knowledge; therefore, sin is doing what you know to be wrong and not doing what we know to be right. Human beings were created in the image of God, but we have all sinned and fall short of His glory. Our parents who were created by God in His image sinned with knowledge; therefore, we their children do likewise. The old adage, “Like father like son, like mother like daughter” applies to the situation of human sin.

God declared to man in the garden that death would result when they ate from the tree. Paul said, 

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— for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 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.⁷

All human beings die; as Critical•Care•Registered•Nurse I can assure you that this is true. I have stood over countless numbers of individuals; pushing drugs into their bodies and ponding their chest in a fruitless effort to keep them alive. It is always difficult to see a human being die!

What is Original sin? Original sin is a decision our parents made, who were created in the image of God; they knowingly made a decision to do wrong and not do what is right. How does original sin impact people today? Adam and Eve’s decision to do wrong and not do what is right resulted in two outcomes: the death of all their descendants and the propensity for all of their decedents to sin.

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     1 Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 3rd ed., (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), 513 & 530.

     2 The Holy Bible, Updated New American Standard Bible, (La Habra: The Lockman Foundation, 1995) Genesis 1:27-28.

     3 Ibid, 2:15-17.

     4 Ibid, 3:6-7.

     5 Ibid, 1John 3:4.

     6 Ibid, James 4:17.

     7 Ibid, Romans 5:12-14.

The Personhood of the Unborn

One of my jobs as a Registered Nurse is to teach patients, families and the public about their bodies and how to take care of them. At the very moment of conception within the mother’s womb there is a single cell that contains a DNA helix that is not the DNA of the mother. The genome of the mother and the father combine to form a complete new DNA helix that has never existed before. DNA is the programing to build an organism. In this case, the DNA in the mother’s womb (that is not hers) is the DNA to build a human being.

“Such arguments, of course, are based in natural theology; it employs the data of general revelation only.”¹ The question is “What is the biblical position on the personhood of the unborn.”

In his book, Christian Theology, Erickson gave five passages that have been employed throughout church history to give a biblical position on the personhood of the unborn; two Psalms passages, two New Testament passages and one Law passage:

1.     Psalm 51:5, in this passage David acknowledges his sinfulness from conception, thereby indicating that he was a human being from conception.²

^2.      Psalm 139:13-16, in this passage David speaks of God knitting him together in his mother’s womb and of God knowing him before he was fully formed, again indicating that a fetus is a human being.³

3.     Luke 1:41-44, tells of how John the Baptist leaped in his mother’s womb by the greeting of Mary who was carrying Jesus. This could be seen as a sign of prenatal faith, the faith given to human beings by the Holy Spirit.⁴

4.     Hebrews 7:9-10, the writer of Hebrews speaks of how Abraham paid tithe to Melchizedek and said that Levi paid tithe because he was still in Abraham at the time. This could be understood as God seeing every person that would exist as a human being even before conception.⁵

5.     Exodus 21:22-25, Jack Cottrell demonstrated through exegetical work on the Hebrew word יָצָא (yatsa) that Exodus 21:22-25 means, “if there is destruction of the fetus.”⁶

Erickson concludes by saying, “Indeed, none of the passages we have examined demonstrates conclusively that the fetus is a human being in God’s sight.”⁷ However, he goes on to say that there is enough evidence to say that it is likely.⁸

I think that there is a reason that the bible never explicitly says, “The fetus in the mother’s womb is a human being.” Justo L. Gonzalez wrote, “During the early decades of the life of the church, most of what Christians wrote addressed a concrete problem or specific issue. This is true, for instance, of the Pauline Epistles, each of which was prompted by a particular circumstance, and in none of which Paul attempts to discuss the entire body of Christian doctrine.”⁹

The reason that scripture never explicitly says, “The fetus in the mother’s womb is a human being is because it was not necessary. Everyone knows that what is being carried in a mother’s womb is a human being; those who deny it are simply “suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.”¹⁰

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     1 Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 3^rd ed., (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), 505.

     2 Ibid.

     3 bid.

     4 Ibid, 506.

     5 Ibid.

     6 Ibid, 507.

     7 Ibid, 508.

     8 Ibid.

     9 Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity Volume I The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation, Revised and Updated, (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), 83.

     10 The Holy Bible, Updated New American Standard Bible, (La Habra: The Lockman Foundation, 1995) Romans 1:18.