Romans Series Part 13, Romans Chapter 5:12 - DAVID BERCOT

We can rejoice in the grace of God, but at the same time, also rejoice in His commandments. His commandments are part of the redemptive process, and they're here for our good. And we can rejoice that we have that, and we can rejoice in suffering for Christ if when we're called to do that.

We're just going to be looking at one verse this morning, Romans 5. And this verse, so much theology has been built around one verse of the Bible. And we're going to look at historically what this verse meant, which it wasn't any giant verse at the beginning, but it became that centuries later.

When we go up to this verse, it's been a while since, I guess, the last preaching of Romans, a couple of months. So in the previous verses, if you went to Romans 5, you would see that Paul had been describing how Christ redeemed us through His death. So the question that naturally comes up, of course, we're so used to this concept. I mean, since before we became Christians, or certainly when we became Christians, you know, we were told, "Oh, Christ died for our sins. We've been redeemed through His death." We don't think very much about it. It's such a foundational truth of Christianity. But it was a new concept for humans at that time. You mean one death could redeem all of us, that all of us could at least have the opportunity for eternal life just for one man dying for us.

So the setting of Romans 5:12, that is the setting. Okay, how is it that one man's death could redeem us all? And so Paul, to help explain that, explains how the opposite happened, that everyone could see that. If the opposite happened, well, then of course it can happen the other way. So he says, "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, so death passed to all men because all sinned." And so if sin could enter the world through one man, well, then obviously life could enter the world through one man. If we all die because of the actions of one man, then we can all live, or at least have that opportunity through the actions of one man.

So that's the point Paul is making. He's not creating a theology of original sin or anything like that. But that's what people did later to this verse.

Okay, we've already discussed that. Okay. As I said, this is the verse that the doctrine of original sin in its various forms is based on. How many of you have heard of original sin? Okay, just about every hand went up. So this is something in most churches you're going to hear about a lot, that term original sin. Now it can mean different things to different people. We're going to talk about how it's come to mean mostly for Western Christians.

Now, because, like I say, in most churches you do get constant teaching on Romans 5:12, and it means this and that, that for the average Christian today, when they read Romans 5:12, they don't really hear what Paul is saying.

They're hearing what their church says that this verse means, or their denomination, or, you know, whoever, what John Calvin said this verse means, or Martin Luther. And they don't realize that, that they think, I mean, I thought back in my life, yeah, I'd always had Romans 5:12 explained, it meant this or that. And so when I read it, I was hearing everything that I had been indoctrinated with, not what Paul says.

And you know, it's one of the hardest things as humans, and it's counterintuitive. You think it'd be the other way around. It'd be real easy for all of us to read a statement for exactly what it says. But really, for most humans, we're used to reading between the lines, reading stuff that something doesn't say, but we're assuming that that's what the person meant. And so in law school, I mean, that was a discipline we had to learn. Because in real life, a deed or a will or a contract, I mean, it means exactly what it says. You don't go to court and say, "Well, if you read between the lines here, you know, what my grandfather meant, you know, he was meaning to leave the money to me."

I know he doesn't say that, but if you read between, it just doesn't work that way. It means exactly what it says. You don't get to go in and do that in the real world. So what we're going to be doing this morning is just whatever you've heard about Romans 5:12, and it may be what you've heard is exactly the conclusion you're going to come to or be left with at the end of this message. But just for a moment, wipe the slate clean in your mind. Okay, let's just see what Paul actually says.

And when we look at Romans 5:12, we're going to be looking at it again, we see he only makes four simple statements of fact. And these are, he starts off, "Through one man sin entered into the world." He doesn't even say who that is, but we all know he's talking about Adam because when you go to the next verses, he talks about Adam. So that's who he's talking about. "Through one man sin entered into the world." Okay, nothing controversial there. I think everybody would believe that if you believe the Old Testament. Okay.

And then death through sin, that death entered as well because of that sin. Again, I think everybody knows that. Death passed to all men. How many of you know someone who hasn't died? Well, who, let's say he's over 150, hasn't died.

Yeah, we all know a lot of people who haven't died, but yeah, we don't know anybody who's 150 or older, who's past the age of death and is still around. So everybody in history, once they reach a certain age, they, I don't know what the maximum has been, 120 years, whatever. No one has gone beyond 150, you know, since the time of Moses, we'll put it that way.

And then he says, "Because all sinned." Okay. That's how he ends the verse. So what does Paul say as to why we all sin? How does he explain that? Why does everyone sin? You know, Bill's shaking his head, and he's right. He doesn't say. Paul does not say. He just says, "To one man sin entered, death came with sin, death passed to all men because we all sinned."

He never explains why do we all sin. But see, that's what everybody has built into this verse. And they think Paul has said, "Well, this is why we all sinned." He never, because that's not even his point. His point is life came through one man. That's the point he's trying to get across. Because people who were feeling bound to the Mosaic law, it's like, okay, they could understand if we live by this law, we can have eternal life. But you're saying eternal life came through the death of one man, and it's not even contingent on the Mosaic law.

How does that work? How does it make sense? He's saying, "Oh, it makes a lot of sense." Because look at Adam. All right. One man, sin entered the world, death came through sin. We all die, and this all happened through one man. It's the same way with life. And he goes on the rest of chapter 5. He keeps showing the parallel between Adam and Jesus.

So like I say, he doesn't set forth any fixed dogma at all about original sin. He never uses that term. The terms aren't even in the Bible. So those of you who didn't raise your hand, I said, "Have you heard of original sin?" Well, it's fine if you didn't, because it's not in the Bible. You just hear the term a lot, but the terms aren't in the Bible. I don't think it's a wrong term necessarily. It depends what you're putting on there.

Okay, so when you look back then in church history, okay, of what people believed after the apostles died, you're going to find for the first hundred years after John died, that there's really no dogma about, no fixed doctrine. Okay, this is why everyone sins, because this, this or that.

They just kind of repeat what Paul says. Okay, we all sin because of Adam. Sin came into the world. Everybody sins. Everybody dies. And they sort of leave it at that. It's like they didn't feel this need. Okay, we've got to come up with some kind of doctrine that explains all of this, because the New Testament really just does not explain it.

It's okay to come up with a theory of why we all sin. I don't think there's anything wrong with theological theories, as long as you recognize this is just a theory, because the Bible really doesn't lay it out black and white.

Okay, now I said there's no real dogma of original sin in the first hundred years after the apostles, but there are three dominant themes when you read the writings when they discuss the subject of sin and what's sometimes called the doctrine of man, why we all sin.

They all say three things, okay, that we have free will, okay, that humans have a choice even after the fall, even after Adam and Eve's sin, we still have the choice to obey or not to obey God. Now, they didn't say we can obey him perfectly, but we can obey him. We can choose to believe in Christ. We can choose to follow him. We can choose to obey him. We're going to stumble.

We're not going to be saved without grace. We're not going to, no one can save themselves. There's no eternal life apart from Christ. I mean, that was just as fixed as well. But we do have free will. We can't blame our sin on Adam.

Each person is responsible for his own sin. Okay, we can't say, you know, the devil made me do it or I just couldn't help it. That's the way we are. No, you can't help sinning, having sin, imperfection in your life, but any particular sin, yes, you could have helped. I don't think there's any sin that I just couldn't help it. I mean, unless, you know, you would be, you know, criminally insane or something where you couldn't even, you know, control yourself or something like that, then that would be very few people. You know, any given sin, yeah, we could have said no to that. But we're not going to live a sinless life. We need Christ.

But like I say, the emphasis was on responsibility, which is what the word means, responsibility. We have the ability to choose our response. Adam didn't make that choice for us. They also believed in the innocence of infants and young children, not that young children and infants don't do wrong, but that they aren't accountable for sin. They aren't born. A little baby does not deserve eternal damnation if he dies as a baby.

Now, I think all of us in this room believe that. But we're going to be ending today on Augustine. He said the opposite. Okay. And the reason I mentioned these things is Augustine said, we don't have free will. We have no choice but to sin. And the reformers, Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin, all repeated the Reformation was built on Augustine. So they all said the same thing. We cannot help sinning. We have no choice. We cannot do good. Only God can do good through us. But we as humans do not have a choice. We do not have free will. In fact, Augustine said, we can't even believe in Christ. We don't even have that much free will.

God has to give you the faith and then you believe. Okay. So you're not responsible for your sins, but Augustine said you are. You can't help sinning, but you deserve punishment anyway. But I can't help it. That's too bad. You deserve punishment because you did. I mean, it's a horrible doctrine about where it puts God. Okay.

He made the rules. What's going to happen if Adam and Eve sin? That supposedly that means that all of us have to sin, but we're guilty. And we deserve eternal damnation, even though we can't do anything about it. We can't even believe in Christ. We can't even accept the gift of salvation unless God decides he's going to give it to us. And if he didn't pick you as one of the elect, that's just too bad. You know, you're going to suffer eternal damnation. There's nothing you can do about it. And that's just the way it is.

Well, like I said, that makes God worse than probably any, well, easily worse than any human who's ever lived. I mean, it's a horrible doctrine about God. And then Augustine said that an infant, if he is not baptized, he's eternally damned. And so it was because of Augustine that then the government passed a law. Every parent had to baptize their children. And this is what our forefathers ran into then.

In the 1500s, it would have been about 1100 years after Augustine that they refused to baptize their children. And so that's why they were put to death, one of the reasons, and imprisoned and all that. And it goes all the way back to Augustine, that if you don't baptize your infant, you've just assigned him to eternal damnation.

And so you are a horrible, wicked parent if you don't baptize your infant. Okay. So that's where all that goes back to. So ideas have consequences, as we talk about a lot. And so there were some big consequences to this. And it, like I say, affected our forefathers. We've gone through the history of all the persecution of the Anabaptists. But yeah, this is where the root of it is. It goes right back to this.

Now, here's just some representative quotes from the second century on those themes of free will and human responsibility. Justin Martyr, this would have been written about 50 years after the apostle John died. From Adam, the human race had fallen under the power of death and the guile of the serpent. So Satan also got control over mankind through that. Each one had committed personal transgressions. For God wished both angels and men to be endowed with free will. Thereby, if they chose the things acceptable to God, he would keep them free from death and from punishment. However, if they did evil, he would punish each one as he sees fit.

So we have free will. Again, we're not talking sinless perfection, but you look back even before Christ, you have people like Abraham, Joseph, Daniel, Jeremiah, Isaiah. I mean, you can go a long list of people. Ruth, I mean, just, you know, people who lived, you know, exemplary lives, faithful lives, not sinless lives, but lives that were pleasing to God. Even before Christ, people had that power. They didn't have the power to save themselves. They still needed Christ to come and die for them. But they did have the power to live the obedient life of an imperfect human. We'll put it that way. We were not created to die, but we die by our own fault.

Our free will has destroyed us. We who were once free have become slaves. You saw my slaves of sin. We have been sold through sin. Nothing evil has been created by God. Rather, we ourselves have manifested wickedness. Nevertheless, we who have practiced wickedness are able again to reject it. Now again, they're not denying the prevenient grace of God, that God works. We're not just doing this whole thing on our own, but we do have the responsibility. God will give us the help if we put forth the desire. But if we don't put forth the desire, God isn't going to do everything for us. He's not going to obey for us. Irenaeus, by means of our first parents, we were all brought into bondage by being made subject to death.

So we did inherit death. No one would doubt that. And then Clement, scripture says, woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain. For we all lie under Adam's sin through similarity of sin. So he didn't say we inherit his sin, but we all sin, which is what Paul says. We all die because we all sin.

Okay. And the innocence of children, they are as infant children in whose heart no evil originates. This is usually, I don't know that there's any doctrinal treatises on the innocence of children. It just comes out all the time in the writings of the second century Christians and the early Christians in general, until you get to Augustine that, yeah, children are innocent.

Irenaeus, who are those who have been saved and have received the inheritance? Those doubtless who believe God and who have continued in his love, as did Caleb of Jephunneh and Joshua of Nun. Also innocent children who have had no sense of evil.

And again, this may, like I say, this sounds like, okay, yeah, we all know that. Why are you mentioning this? Well, people didn't know this. When the Anabaptists said, no, children are innocent. If they're unbaptized, they're not going to be sent to hell because they're innocent as children. And Luther, Calvin, all the authorities, the Catholics, all of them said, no, that's not the way it works. They're damned as children unless you baptize them. So, like I say, what we might accept today was not accepted throughout most of the history of Western Christianity.

Now, we're going to look briefly how a mistranslation changed the history of Western theology. The West and the East among Christians, they have a little different view of the fall. And a lot of this turns on a wrong translation.

Why translations of the Bible are important and why we should always check, you know, is this really how this should be translated? Now, from the early centuries, Western Latin-speaking Christians came to a different understanding of the fall. You have a little difference between the East and the West. And this is because most Western Christians, not all of them, but a very large percentage of them were Latin-speaking. Now, we all know that Latin was the official language of Rome. But for the longest time, people in Rome, more people spoke Greek than they did Latin. I mean, Paul wrote to the Romans. He wrote it in Greek. He didn't write it in Latin. For the first hundred years, all of the Western writers, I mean, Clement of Rome, Irenaeus, they wrote in Greek.

A number of writers in Rome, Hippolytus, he wrote in Greek, even though they were in Rome. That was still the predominant language. But that was changing. And particularly the uneducated, Latin was the language they knew. Now, going back to Romans 5:12, what Paul actually said, therefore, just as through one man, sin entered into the world and death through sin, so death passed to all men because all sinned. All right?

But we don't even know who translated the first Latin Bible. But how it got translated and spread was this way. Therefore, as by one man, sin entered into this world and death by sin, that was fine. And so death passed to all men, fine, in whom all have sinned.

Now, in whom apparently refers to Adam. So in Latin, it sounded like in Adam, we all sinned. That when he sinned, we sinned with him. That we're responsible for his sin. That's not what the Greek says at all.

I don't, usually the Latin translation is pretty decent. But like I say, here, somebody made a bad goof. Maybe couldn't, there was a, you know, the copy he was working from had an ink smear on it or something. I don't know what happened here. But in whom all have sinned. And so this idea that we all sinned in Adam.

And of course, the Greek-speaking Christians weren't reading that. So they're reading just what Paul said. We die because we have sinned, not we die because we sinned in Adam. Okay. Now, I say there was a slightly different view between East and West because the difference between the two was only in explaining why we sinned. The West would have said we sinned because we inherit a fallen nature from Adam. In the East, the Greek-speaking Christians didn't necessarily believe that. Some did. There was a variation. But now, until you get to Augustine, no one is saying that we are guilty because of Adam's sin. It was Augustine who said, we were guilty. When Adam sinned, we were right there with him sinning.

We are just as guilty as Adam. It's like, whoa, how? You know, it's like if your dad, you know, robs a bank, sorry, you're just as guilty as he is because you were sinning, you were robbing that bank with him. I mean, that's, wow, human law has more justice than that. I mean, it would be terrible to have laws that, yeah, your parent did something. I'm sorry, you're guilty because your parent did this. God is much more just than we are. And if we realize that would be unjust, how much more God?

Also, the West, they taught free will as well. Okay. So Tertullian was the first significant Christian author to write in Latin. And about the year 200, he wrote this concerning our nature. The entire human race went over to death on account of Adam's sin, for they were tainted in their descent from him. They were made a channel for transmitting his condemnation. By reason of its birth, every soul has its nature in Adam until it is born again in Christ. Moreover, the soul is unclean the entire time until it obtains this regeneration, that is, a new birth. And because it is unclean, the soul is actively sinful. So his understanding is, okay, in Adam, we inherit a fallen nature.

We have a taint, we're tainted when at the time of our conception. We're born, like I say, with an imperfect fallen nature inclined towards sin. And that's the reason that we all sin. Okay. I don't necessarily disagree with that. I'm just saying this is a theory you start seeing around the year 200, different ones saying this.

But now he says this also. There is still a portion of good in the soul, a portion of that original divine and genuine good. For this is its proper nature. Because the soul is derived from God, its goodness is only obscured, not extinguished. Now, Augustine and most Protestant churches, they'd say, no, it's totally extinguished. You cannot do good apart from Christ. But even the Latin Christians said, no, the soul was created by God.

Adam and Eve's sin did not make the soul where it's just totally evil and can't do anything good. But the goodness is obscured. In other words, yeah, it doesn't do good perfectly. The reason its goodness can be obscured is because it is not God. The soul is not God. However, its goodness cannot be extinguished, for it comes from God. Just as no soul is without sin, neither is any soul without seeds of good. Okay. I mean, everyone would have believed that that would have just been human nature because you can witness that around you, that people who aren't even Christians can do good. They cannot save themselves, and they're not going to always do good.

But they, yeah, humans do have the ability to do good. And again, you see people in the Old Testament, they were not, none of them were born again. But you go through the whole list of godly men and women in the Old Testament, none of them born again, and yet quite a long list of ones who did obey God, who did do what was right, but they just didn't do it perfectly.

When the soul embraces the faith, it is renewed to the second birth by water and by the power from above, that's Holy Spirit baptism. At that time, the veil of its former corruption is taken away, and it beholds the light in all its brightness. So, yeah, our nature is obscured until we are born again. And that's why the new birth makes such a difference in our lives. Because, yeah, we do have a fallen nature, he is saying.

Now, I'll tip my hand. I happen to agree largely with Tertullian, but not because he said it. I'll talk about that later. It does seem to fit what I've observed in life. And Cyprian says, an infant being lately born has not sinned other than in being born after the flesh. According to Adam, he has contracted the disease of the ancient death at its earliest birth. So it's like we've contracted something in Adam that when we're born, we're not born, we're not standing in the shoes of where Adam and Eve were before the fall. That we're born with a tainted nature that tends to be drawn to do wrong. Yet it can be drawn to do what's right, but it needs a new birth.

Okay. Another Latin Christian, Ambrose Astor, we have all sinned in Adam as if part of a single batch. Since Adam was corrupted by sin, all his descendants were born under sin.

Therefore, we are all sinners because we have all descended from Adam. Death entered into the world through this transgression. This is the first death, which is the separation of the soul from the body. However, there is another death called the second death, which takes place in Gehenna, or the lake of fire, hell. We do not incur the second death because of the sin of Adam, but because of our own sins. So in other words, we all die because of Adam. We all have sinned because of Adam. But no one goes to hell because of Adam. You're going to go to hell if you die the second death. It's because of your own sin. It's not because of Adam's sin.

So even, and this, he would have written this, you know, maybe 50 years before Augustine started writing his things. Even then in the West, this view of inheriting a corrupt nature, but it's still not a view that you are born damned from Adam. You are already condemned to eternal life when you are born. No one said that until we get to Augustine.

Okay. So we're not totally depraved. Have any of you heard that term total depravity? Okay. A few hands. If, again, you go to Protestant churches, you're going to hear it all the time. That we're totally depraved, or sometimes nowadays they use the word total inability. You cannot do good. I heard that all the time when I attended an evangelical church. You know, you cannot do any good. Only Christ can do good through you. In yourself, you can't do anything. Okay. That's a view from Augustine. It's not the historic faith. All right. We have the ability to have faith in God and Christ. Now, God helps us in all this. No one is saying this, that God's out of the picture.

He's there helping us if we are willing. And we have the ability to obey his commandments. Again, his spirit gives us the necessary power. But we're not going to obey them perfectly, nor does God expect perfection from people who can't give it.

And it wasn't just Latin Christians who held to this view. You do see some of the Greek-speaking Christians saying the same thing. The most notable is probably Origen, just because he wrote a lot. He would have written between the years, say, about 225 to 250, would be most of his writings. And he often quotes Psalm 51:5 as evidence that humans are tainted by Adam's sin. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. How many of you are familiar with that verse?

Is that a familiar verse to you? Okay. I grew up hearing this all the time. I mean, it was quoted all the time. And I don't think misquoted, okay? It would indicate if David is speaking literally there that we are born with a sin nature.

I don't know if David meant that theologically. I don't know. But if it's to be taken literally, it would indicate that. Another one, the early Christians quote a lot in Origen particularly, is from Job. And this is how it reads in the Septuagint. For whom shall be pure from uncleanness?

Not even one person, even if his life should be but one day upon the earth. So even the first day you're born, there's sin and imperfection there, the first day according to Job.

Okay. So to reiterate, in the second century, Christians usually didn't have any theory about the fall. Beginning in the third century, that's like the year 200 on, then Latin Christians and a few Greek Christians, their theory was we inherit a sin nature from Adam. And as a result of that, we cannot live a sinless life, but we can still have faith in God. We can still live a generally obedient life. And we have many examples in the scriptures of people who did. Okay. So I'm just curious because I don't know what your upbringings, what you've heard in church, and maybe the subject never came up. So how many of you would feel, there's no right or wrong answer to this, so don't be hesitant.

How many of you would feel we inherit a fallen nature from Adam?

Okay. How many feel that we're born sinless and we're basically in the shoes of Adam before he sinned?

Okay. And half of you don't have any belief.

That's fine too. You don't have to. You don't have to. Okay. But that was just one of the theories that we inherit a sin nature. Other writers had different views, and nobody said, "Oh, you're a heretic because you don't believe we inherit a fallen nature from Adam." I mean, that was, you didn't have to. That wasn't an article of the faith.

Okay. Another common view among the Greek Christians was that what we inherit from Adam is not a sin nature, but a mortal nature. That was really new to me, but when I got acquainted with the Eastern Orthodox and talked to a number of their bishops and some of their theology teachers, yeah, this is what they shared. No, we don't inherit Adam's sin nature. We inherit a mortal nature. And because we inherit a mortal nature, we sin. And you see that a lot in the writings of John Chrysostom, who we quote often. He would have lived like, you know, 370s, somewhere in there. Like I say, that's the predominant view of the Eastern Orthodox Church, that we sin because we're mortal, not we're mortal because we sin.

I'm not saying I agree with that. I'm just saying that's their view. Another theory put forth is that everyone, you know, we suffer being cast out of paradise. In that sense, we were with Adam and Eve. When they got cast out, we got cast out too, because none of us have been able to get back into paradise on this side of the grave anyway. So the theory that, okay, outside of paradise, you're in a world where evil is the greatest influence, and that pulls people to evil, and that's why we sin. Okay.

Another theory. A fourth theory is we all sin because we're born in an evil environment. So you grow up, you see the imperfections of your parents. You see that they sin. You see people around you sin. So it's like, yeah, well, you do it too because everyone else is doing it. You don't have a perfect example around you. So that's another theory of why we all sin.

Now, Origen, like I say, he believed we inherit a sin nature, but he believed all of these other things as well worked towards it. He points out that the sin in the Garden of Eden began with, as far as teaching and influence, it began with Eve listening to the deceitful words of Satan. So sin started among humans because of an outside influence. It was Satan who deceived Eve, okay? And then she brings the forbidden boots to Adam, and then he eats, okay? So she's influenced by Satan. He's influenced by her. And so that's the argument that, yeah, it's because of the evil influence.

And I think there's truth in that. I personally don't think that explains it all, but there is a lot of truth there. Origen says this: it is important to understand that the reason why death has reigned since the time of Adam is not just because of our birth from him. Rather, it is also because of wrong teaching. This can be seen when we compare the opposite examples of Jesus and Adam. Jesus came to undo what had brought mankind into its present condition. He began by addressing our first birth from Adam, by which we are born into death. To undo this, Christ initiated a second birth, which he referred to as being reborn rather than just being born.

Through this second birth, he cleanses us from the blemish of our first birth, okay? So the new birth takes care of part of it, but it doesn't just stop there. Just as he replaced one birth with a rebirth, so likewise, he substituted one teaching with a new one. To this end, when he sent out his apostles, he did not simply tell them to go and baptize all nations. Rather, he added, teaching them to observe all the things that I have commanded to you. Now, this is important, and this would be one thing that would separate us as Anabaptists from a lot of other churches.

I remember when I was an evangelical, I remember so often in church thinking, well, why did Jesus spend three years giving us all this teaching? Because everything I'm hearing from the pulpit, he could have just come, died the first day he was here. I mean, God, if God could, the incarnation, he came as an infant, he could just as easily have come as an adult, okay? God can do anything.

So why didn't he just do that and then die? Because that seems to be all he did for us according to what our church teaches. I mean, the Sermon on the Mount, all of that is, we can't live by that. That's too hard, you know? He came to die for us, and that was it.

And it didn't make sense to me at the time because it's like, so why did he give us all this teaching if this wasn't part of the redemption? And so when I read the early Christians, I saw, no, they saw that this was part of the redemption. It's not just the new birth. We have to have that. We have to have the blood of Christ. You know, that's an essential. But that's not the only thing Christ did for us. He gave us the teachings, the teachings of the kingdom, the eternal values of God, loving not just your brother and sister, but loving your enemy as well.

All of these teachings, this is what God is like, and this is how we are called to live. And through the new birth and through the empowering spirit, the indwelling of God's spirit, we can live by his teachings. Again, not perfectly. We're all imperfect here, but we can live by them as a general rule. And that's why he gave them. And that's why he told the apostles, as Origen points out, he says, teaching them to observe all the things I've commanded. He didn't give them his suggestions that we are to live by them.

And he concludes, for Jesus realized that two different issues needed to be addressed. Therefore, he provided a remedy for both. Accordingly, our mortal birth is changed by the rebirth of baptism, and the teaching of ungodly things is replaced by his teachings of godliness. So we have the rebirth, and we have the teachings. It's not just the rebirth. And churches that focus just on that, what they get is people who do get born again, and there's often some dramatic changes in their life. But there's also a lot of Christ's teachings that are just thrown under the rug. We're just talking about the American Revolution. And just about every minister here in the colonies compromised. They knew their flock wanted to hear, you don't have to pay your taxes, let's overthrow this government.

And yet, they had the clear teachings of Jesus, you pay back Caesar's things to Caesar. You have the clear teaching in Romans 13 that we obey the superior authorities. And did the ministers uphold that? No. They said, well, yeah, when the authority is this bad, you have the right to overthrow them. And it's like, what bad? I mean, you know, the British government was one of the most benevolent governments, probably in existence in that day. And the taxation on the colonies was so small compared to the taxation on the British people. I mean, like the French Andre talked about the French and Indian War that benefited mainly the colonists and opened up where they could now expand and, you know, go beyond the Appalachian Mountains and all of that.

They benefited the most from the French and Indian War, but it was the British people who paid the price both in their lives and with their money. And they were being taxed heavily to pay for that war. And, you know, the king said, hey, you colonists benefited. You should pay part of this. It's like, no, this is evil. We have to pay. We're going to overthrow the government. I mean, it's like, you just totally ignore the teachings of Christ. But then there's Anabaptist groups that all they talk about are the teachings. They don't talk about the new birth. You know, you've got to have them both. You know, if you just talk about the teachings of Christ and you don't ever talk about, hey, there's a new birth, yeah, you end up with just people who are just, you know, legalistic and no real spiritual life in them.

So it's important we emphasize both things. We'll talk about that another time. God's provenient grace that he's always there working from day one with, you know, Abel and Cain, even with Adam and Eve after they sinned. God's always there. He's on our side working to help us. So which view of the fall is correct? I mentioned four different views.

The answer is nobody really knows. Paul doesn't explain why all men sin, and the Bible doesn't explain. Like I say, you can pick some of those verses from the Old Testament, but I don't know if that's really the, they weren't, I don't know if they were meant to be theological statements. Again, all he says is through one man, sin entered into the world and death through sin. So death passed to all men because all sinned. That's all that Paul says. It's amazing what we build out of, you know, some just simple statements there that are, you know, I don't think anyone could argue with any of that.

I'm going to just give you my own view, and it's my personal view. You know, looking at all the views of the early Christians, various churches, Augustine, you name it. And it seems to me that we do inherit a fallen nature from our parents. This comes more from personal experience, I'd say, than even scripture, you know, raising children. I remember when Andre was just a baby, you know, and I remember sitting there in the high chair, and I don't remember what it was. There was some object. He was one, you know, and we took it away. No, don't touch, you know, and, you know, moved it, you know, out of his reach. And then, you know, Deborah and I are talking and look away, and I glance back, and he's just, he's not even two yet, you know, and he's reaching out to get the forbidden object, you know, and there just seems to be in human nature from childhood on that we have an inclination to sin.

That's my observation. Now, there may be other explanations to that. And like I say, if that doesn't resonate with you, that's fine. You don't have to believe that. And yet, I also see that in experience. We do have free will. You know, when I was a child, I did things wrong, but before I was born again, but I also made good choices. I obeyed my parents most of the time. I obeyed the teacher just about all the time. I mean, you know, we have that ability to obey or disobey.

And I think our fallen nature is aggravated by the fact we grow up in a wicked, fallen world, and we get all kinds of evil, wrong teachings, like they're in the colonies. If the ministers had stood firm, well, I think to be honest, if they had stood firm, they would have been removed from the pulpit, and somebody else would have been appointed. Because in a few cases, they did, and that is what happened. But at least they could have given a witness, no, Christians don't do this. We don't take up arms and overthrow the government because we don't like their taxes.

Okay, and we're going to conclude on this. Okay, why does Paul talk about Adam's sin and not Eve's? And Christians have asked this. They were asking this back in the days of the early church. Why does Paul say through one man sin entered into the world? Didn't sin enter into the world through a woman, Eve? Was she not the first human to sin? So why does Paul say that we die in Adam rather than saying we die in Eve?

Now, modern commentaries often will state that Eve was somehow less culpable than Adam, meaning less blame, and that the major share of the blame falls on Adam, not Eve. But this reflects just modern thinking. It doesn't reflect the thinking of the Bible or the thinking of the first century. If you go back to Genesis 3, after they had sinned, when he pronounced sentence, he pronounced judgment on both of them. He didn't single out either Eve or Adam for greater blame. You know, Eve said, I sinned because the serpent deceived me. I listened to him.

God, you know, gives her a punishment. Adam says, I listened to my wife. She brought me the fruit. God punishes him for that. They're both driven out of Eden, and they're both given the penalty of death. God doesn't indicate one is more guilty than the other. So why does Paul say we die in Adam rather than in Adam and Eve?

Well, the clue, and I don't know that I would have got this from my own. This is, you know, from the early Christians.

Okay, so the clue lies when we look at the genealogies of scripture. And I've just picked a few here. Genesis 5, 1 through 9. This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them and called them mankind in the day they were created.

And Adam lived 130 years and begot a son in his own likeness after his image and named him Seth. After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were 800 years and he had sons and daughters. So all the days Adam lived were 930 years and he died. Seth lived 105 years and he begot Enosh. I won't go through Genesis, but you go through the whole genealogy, it all goes back to Adam, you know, all the way through Seth, through Enosh, Canaan, Lamech, Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Let me go back to that. First Chronicles, okay. It's given the genealogy of the Israelites, the different tribes. It starts off Adam, Seth, Enosh, Canaan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, okay? We're going to look at one more. This is the genealogy of Jesus. It says, now Jesus himself began his ministry at about 30 years of age, being as was supposed the son of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Methat, the son of Levi, the son of Malchi, the son of Jannah, the son of Joseph. This is a different Joseph.

And then it ends as it goes through the long list, the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel, the son of Canaan, the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. Okay, so do you see a pattern in the genealogies of the Bible?

All right, so they're traced through the male lineage and they always go back to Adam, okay? So he has the privilege of being the fountain or head of the human race, okay? And that the genealogies, even of Jesus, is traced through Adam.

But of course, it works both ways, okay? Origen points out the woman sinned before Adam and the serpent sinned before the woman. In fact, in another place, Paul says Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression. So how can it be said that through one man sin entered into the world instead of through one woman? After all, the start of sin was from the woman. In fact, before the woman, it began with the serpent, actually the devil. And of the devil, the gospel says he was a murderer from the beginning. So sin started with Satan. Nevertheless, please note that here the apostle has simply adhered to the natural order of things.