The Problem

There has been concern about the man-made problems of the world for many centuries, and especially today. Why don't things improve? One explanation is the doctrine of original sin. For believers in the Creator, One who has long term intentions for the world, there is a need to understand what is happening. If we think of the world as God's world, is it the way it is because this is the way He has made us? Or should we think in terms of "adverse spiritual agencies" ‑ Satan? Or does it come down to mankind's own responsibility - but can we help ourselves? If we are made in God's image and likeness, why can't we keep on the straight and narrow?

These questions are bound up in the concept of 'original sin'. A nineteenth century dictionary defines it as - 'Original sin: the first sin committed by Adam as related to or manifested in its consequences to his posterity of the human race' A twentieth century theologian looks at it as an inherited tendency - 'the passing on through heredity of the bias toward sin…'A bent toward sinfulness'.

Understandably, the 'doctrine of original sin' is not acceptable in some schools of thought today, although fashions in human thinking tend to change. Human behaviour is explained in scientific terms, not as a defective relationship with God. The word 'sin' as a general term may not even be found in a compact modern dictionary, which only has 'sins' which are infringements of a religious code of moral behaviour. 'Sin' is not thought of as a fundamental explanation of self-destructive behaviour. People are 'immoral' or 'anti-social'. Such behaviour is said to be due to mental and or psychological problems or disorders, social maladjustment or biological defect; it is 'in the genes'; but it is not due to sin. Social readjustment and rehabilitation is said to put it right. In any event the wise of this world believe that they can rely upon the process of evolution to take humanity into a state sometimes referred to as homo-moralis. But how does this square with the facts as we see them all around today when the media declares loudly that every form of barbarism and savagery, of drug-taking are self-destruction is on the increase. What is the rational explanation for the continued deterioration of behaviour?

The explanation

Our explanation starts with belief in God the Creator. This is not unscientific for science can be a pointer toward the Creator. While thinkers continue the speculative and hypothetical explanations, real scientific investigation is frequently ignored. There are some in the forefront of such research who recognise that the very first DNA must have been extremely complex and no one has ever been able to explain the second law of thermodynamics in terms of a beginning by blind chance. Every nook and cranny - every minute detail of the physical universe as we so far have explored it, shouts the word Creation at us.

Sin

Men of ancient times had no doubt as to the reality of sin. Here is a plea, recorded on a tablet still in existence, of a man who lived more than four thousand years ago, obsessed with the consciousness of his sinful state and beseeching God to free him from its bondage. (Be it noted, too, that the God he besought was not one of the gods of paganism. In his day only the God of Heaven, the Most High, was known and worshipped. Researches over the past century have confirmed what some scholars had asserted for a century previously, that paganism was an invention of men's minds; primitive man knew and worshipped the one God.)

"O my God, my transgressions are very great, very great my sins. I transgress and know it not. I sin and know it not. I wander on wrong paths, and I know it not. I lie on the ground and none reaches a hand to me. I am silent, and in tears, and none takes me by the hand. I cry out, and there is none that hears me. I am exhausted, and oppressed, and none releases me. My God, who knowest the unknown, be merciful. Lord, thou wilt not repulse thy servant. In the midst of the stormy waters, come to my assistance, take me by the hand. I commit sins—turn them into blessedness. I commit transgressions—let the wind sweep them away. My blasphemies are very many—rend them like a garment. God, who knowest I knew not, my sins are seven times seven—forgive my sins ".

Long before Moses; long before Abraham; that man poured out his heart to God. He knew there was such a thing as sin.

In the Bible view the problems and troubles of this world, crime, disease and death itself are the consequence of sin. Sin is a reality and the Bible not only presents its cause but its cure. Its cause originated in Satan's rebellion against his Maker, in which he then went on to infect the human race and invited and encouraged their disobedience to the rules that God had laid down for the well being of Adam and his descendants. The record in Genesis 3, whether intended to be taken absolutely literally or not, enshrines that one great principle, obedience to the known will of God. Sin entered the world by one man and subsequently passed to all.

However one understands the story of the Garden of Eden it enshrines the reality of what sin means. Man was created by God; that is an essential prerequisite. He was not the product of blind chance or natural forces, of evolution from a fortuitous combination of chemical elements. And man was created perfect, sinless, able to live an eternal life by reason of the sustaining Divine life infused into his organism. Then man sinned, and the source of life from above was interrupted - cut off. The man who ceases to remain in living communion with God who alone is the Author and continual provider of life cuts himself off from life and eventually he dies; there is no alternative. So Adam died. And because the whole of his posterity were conceived and born while he was in that dying state they too have not that Divine sustaining life in them and they too die in their turn. The Bible is positive about this. "In Adam all die... By man came death" (1 Cor. 15) "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men" (Rom. 5.12)

The nature of the primal sin

What then was the intrinsic nature of that primal sin which brought such consequences upon the emergent human race? Granted that the Eden story is factually correct, in that one human pair was created at the first to become parents of the entire human race. What was the act that brought upon them the sentence of death, a sentence that was to involve the whole of their descendants, as yet unborn? The story depicts it as the picking and eating of the fruit of a forbidden tree - but was it really as simple as all that? Not a very sinful act by ordinary standards; neither immoral nor degrading. It is sometimes suggested that the prohibition was a test of obedience and the sin was that of disobedience. Against this it could be argued that the Lord has always been reasonable in his ways and demands and the death sentence for so apparently trivial an act does not match up with his character as revealed in the Bible. Perhaps this aspect of the story needs a little closer examination. Says the narrative "When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat" (Gen.3.6).

There is a very similar position arising in later times alluded to by the Lord, speaking to Israel through the prophet Ezekiel (16. 49). "This was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness .... therefore I took them away as 1 saw good". Good for food - fullness of bread, pleasant to the eyes - abundance of idleness. To make one wise - pride. The Sodomites enjoyed the munificence of Nature in their fertile domain, somewhat analogous to the Garden of Eden, but they sinned against the Lord to a degree that has made the very name a byword to this day. And the Apostle has a word which enshrines a faint echo of the Eden story. "The desire of the flesh, and the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world" (1 John 2.16).

The story of the forbidden fruit enshrines the perpetration of an act, or series of acts, which involve the use of God-given powers and the resources of man's environment for purposes pleasing to the flesh but inimical to the orderly conduct of life and to the detriment of spiritual communion with God. So was the sin, not merely disobedience in a minor matter, but disloyalty in a major matter?

Consequence

Disloyalty—rebellion—faithlessness; that was the original sin which separated man from God and interrupted the flow of continuing life from God. In consequence man could only carry on with what could be described as his reserve of vitality and when that was exhausted he died. All he could pass on to his descendants was a subnormal life that can only survive a limited term of years and then end in death. So all men die because of original sin. But the idea that God is in any way going to hold humanity guilty for all eternity is unimaginable in human terms. That a loving God should punish for all eternity anyone who has disobeyed Him for a short three score years and ten is so illogical, and worse, is so unscriptural as to hardly be worthy of further argument. In Roman 11 Paul explains how God "locked the human race up" in its stupid sin so that all mankind can hardly help themselves in their disobedience of His rules.

Salvation

But that is not completely true because Paul explains how that even now it is possible in Christ to be reconciled to God and so be liberated from the 'curse' of sin. That having been accomplished, God is able to transform those who surrender to Him. In the remaining years of their lives He is able to change them into His likeness, thus restoring the original intention that man should be in the image of his Maker.

Paul's words in Romans

Those whose eyes have been opened to the causes and cures of sin and who wish to please God, should seek His help in overcoming what is plainly condemned in Scripture - for it is all 'original sin'. Paul, apostle and servant of Jesus Christ, explores the doctrine of original sin in his letter to the Roman church. Right through from the first chapter he is treating of sin. But he does not leave his readers saddened by the terrible state of humanity, and goes on to show in the following chapters how sin can and will be remedied. It is hard to understand why after having read through Romans to the end of chapter 11, any one can resist the invitation given in chapter 12 to surrender one's whole life to God. It is equally hard to understand how anyone who reads and accepts Romans 11 as the word of God can possibly resist the viewpoint that He intends to reconcile the whole of the human race to Himself, if they are willing to co-operate with Him. This can only be accomplished when Jesus raises all who are in their graves, to life.

A real chance for all

And for those who have not enjoyed this wonderful experience of knowing and doing God's will, he provides them after their resurrection with what is in fact not a second chance as some incorrectly suggest, but with a first opportunity to enjoy real life in Him. Many who have done such evil things in the world that sometimes it is thought that they are beyond redemption have no more had a 'first chance' to please God than the tiny baby who dies a few days or month old in a refugee camp. Sin is real - it grips the personality, it warps and twists the life, until the image of the Divine Maker is all but obliterated. But none is beyond deliverance - God in his almighty love can and will offer all mankind the opportunity of a life obedient to him which Adam threw away in Eden. Jesus died for Adam and his race and they all will be restored to start again where Adam did the first time.

There will be a time when sin shall be no more. The results of sin will vanish. "There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away" (Rev. 21.4).

The Father in heaven has provided a remedy. It is true that "in Adam all die" but equally and gloriously true that "in Christ shall all be made alive". He will call all men back from the grave so that under the administration of our Lord's Kingdom they will learn the principles of righteousness. It will be such a contrast to their experience of this world of sin and death that they will of full free-will and understanding accept Christ as Saviour and so become "children of the living God". In the final chapter of the Bible the Tree of Life reappears, its fruit for the life of the nations; but of the other tree there is no more to be found.

Symposium