Romans 5: 12," The fall of man. Therefore, just as through one man, sin entered into the world, and death through sin, so death passed to all men, because all sinned." This is the verse on which Augustine based his doctrine of original sin. Over the centuries, many interpretations have been given to these words of Paul. When most Christians read Romans 5:12 today, they rarely hear Paul's actual words. Instead, they hear their church's particular interpretation of his words.
So if we are ever going to grasp how this verse was understood in the beginning, we will first need to wipe the slates of our minds clean. We must begin with a blank slate and then look objectively at what Paul actually says, without reading anything into the text that he does not say. When we do this, we find that Paul merely makes three simple statements of fact. Sin entered the world through one man, Adam. Death entered through sin. Death has passed to all men because all have sinned. That is all Paul says.
He sets forth no fixed doctrine about original sin. In fact, he makes no attempt to explain the mechanics of how Adam's sin has affected all mankind. He only observes that sin entered the world through Adam. And now all men die because all men sin, second-century writers. During the second century, Christians made no effort to develop a dogma about the fall. However, their writings emphasize four main themes concerning fallen man. All mankind has somehow been affected by Adam's sin.
Despite the fall, man still has free will. However, the fallen flesh is prone to sin. Nevertheless, man is still able to believe in God and to obey Him, although imperfectly. Blessedly, God's grace works with man's free will to help fallen humans come to faith and walk obediently with Christ. Although sin entered the world through Adam, each person is responsible for his own sins. Children are born morally innocent. They do not bear the guilt of Adam's sin. Man's free will.
The following are some representative quotations from the second century on free will and man's responsibility. Justin Martyr, from Adam, humanity has fallen under the power of death and the guile of the serpent. Each one has committed personal transgressions. That is because God wishes both angels and men to be endowed with free will. If they choose the things acceptable to God, He will keep them free from death and from punishment. However, if they do evil, he will punish each one as he sees fit.
Melito, there is nothing to hinder you from changing your evil manner of life, for you are a free man. Theophilus:" If a man turns to the things of death, disobeying God, he himself will be the cause of his own death. For God made man free and with power over Himself." Irenaeus: Man is endowed with reason. In this respect, he is in the image of God, having been made free in his will and with power over himself. Accordingly, each man is his own cause that sometimes one man becomes wheat and another chaff.
Clement of Alexandria, scripture says," Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain." We all lie under Adam's sin through similarity of sin. For additional quotations from the early Christians about man's free will, please see chapter 9 herein, The Innocence of Children. When the early Christians speak of the innocence of children, they mean that children have not inherited any guilt from Adam's sin. The following are some characteristic quotations from the early Christians about the innocence of children.
Barnabas, having renewed us by the remission of our sins, he has remade us after another pattern. He has created us anew by His Spirit so that we can possess the souls of children. Aristides:" If any righteous man among the Christians passes from the world, they rejoice and offer thanks to God." They escort his body as if he were setting out from one place to another nearby. And when a child has been born to one of them, they give thanks to God.
Moreover, if the child happens to die in childhood, they give thanks to God the more, as for one who has passed through the world without sins. Hermas ought," These ones are like infant children in whose hearts no evil originates." 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.
How a mistranslation changed the history of Western theology? When accurately translated from the Greek, Romans 5:12 says," Just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, so death passed to all men because all sinned." Almost all English Bibles read similarly to this.
However, when Romans 5:12 was originally translated into Latin, the translator incorrectly rendered it," Therefore, as by one man, sin entered into this world, and death by sin." And so death passed to all men, in whom all have sinned. The phrase" in whom all have sinned" was interpreted as referring to Adam. As a result, most Latin-speaking Christians mistakenly thought Paul was saying that all mankind somehow sinned in Adam.
This notion led to Latin-speaking Christians having a slightly different view of the fall than did Greek-speaking Christians. Tertullian. This difference between Latin and Greek Christians first becomes apparent in Tertullian's work, The Testimony of the Soul, which was written around A.D. 200. In this work, Tertullian asserts the entire human race went over to death on account of Adam's sin. For humans were tainted in their descent from him. They were made a channel for transmitting his condemnation.
Tertullian later wrote," 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. And because it is unclean, the soul is actively sinful. In these writings of Tertullian, we find some of the earliest Christian statements that humans inherit a fallen nature from Adam. This view may or may not be correct.
If this view of the fall was not already the predominant Latin view, by the time of Tertullian's writings, it quickly became such, at the same time, Tertullian did not teach man's total inability or depravity. He wrote," 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. The reason it can be obscured is because it is not God.
However, it cannot be extinguished, for it comes from God. Just as no soul is without sin, so neither is any soul without seeds of good. When the soul embraces the faith, it is renewed through the second birth by water and by the power from above. At that time, the veil of its former corruption is taken away, and it beholds the light in all its brightness. So Tertullian did not teach the total depravity of man or that Adam's guilt is charged to his offspring.
He taught a fallen nature, but not a totally depraved nature. Furthermore, like all the other early Christians, Tertullian emphasized man's free will. For example, he wrote," Man is free with a will either for obedience or resistance." Tertullian also maintained that infants and young children are not chargeable with sin until they reach the age of accountability, other Latin writers.
A few decades after Tertullian, Cyprian, another Latin-speaking Christian, wrote," An infant, being lately born has not sinned," except that in being born after the flesh, according to Adam, he has contracted the disease of the ancient death at its earliest birth. So Cyprian believed that we inherit the disease of the ancient death from Adam. However, he did not present any developed dogma of original sin beyond that simple statement and ones like it.
A century after Cyprian, Ambrosiaster, another Latin Christian, wrote," We all have sinned in Adam as if part of a single batch of dough. Since Adam was corrupted by sin, all his descendants were born under sin. Therefore, we are all sinners because we all have descended from Adam. Because Adam transgressed God's command, he lost God's favor and became unworthy to eat from the tree of life. As a result, he died. This death is the separation of the soul from the body.
However, there is another death, called the second death, which takes place in hell, Revelation 20:12-15. We do not incur the second death because of the sin of Adam, but because of our own sins. So by the mid-fourth century, virtually all Latin-speaking Christians believed that humans inherit a fallen nature from Adam. Yet they also understood that humans continued to possess free will.
Instead of believing in man's total depravity, they asserted that unsaved humans can seek God, have faith in God, and obey natural law. Of course, they understood that God's preceding grace works with fallen humans in these matters. In short, the Latin Christians believed in man's imperfection, but not in his total depravity. Nor did they believe that humans are born in a state of damnation because of Adam's sin. Until the 5th century writings of Augustine, this was the position of Latin Christians on the fall.
It was also the original position of Augustine. However, Augustine later changed his own beliefs and innovated the novel doctrines of predestination and man's total depravity. These doctrines had never before been taught in the Church. Augustine also coined the term peccatum originale, original sin. Over a thousand years later, John Calvin would organize Augustine's doctrines into the theological system we know today as Calvinism, Greek Christians who believed in a fallen nature.
In the 3rd century, many Greek Christians also began to explore in more detail the question of how we are affected by Adam's sin. Different Greek Christian writers came to different views. Yet no one tried to turn their views of the fall into church dogma. No one labeled other Christians as heretics for holding to a different view of the fall. One of the Greek-speaking Christians who concluded that humans inherit a fallen nature from Adam was Origen.
In several of his works, he quoted 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." He also frequently quoted the following passage from Job," For who shall be pure from uncleanness? Not even one person, even if his life should be but one day upon the earth." Job 14. 5. Septuagint. Origen referred to this fallen nature as the defect of the first birth.
Like other early Christians, he believed this defect is wiped away in the new birth. Methodius, who lived shortly after Origen, also believed that humans inherit a fallen nature. He said, Paul writes," For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, no good thing dwells." Romans 7:18. And this is rightly said. I have already shown that from the time when man went astray and disobeyed the law in Eden, sin dwelt in him from then on. Sin received its birth from Adam's disobedience.
We were emptied of the divine inspiration and filled with carnal desires which the cunning serpent infused into us. Greek Christians who believed we inherit only Adam's mortality. Nevertheless, other Greek Christians believe that what we inherit from Adam is not a fallen nature, but a mortal nature. They believe that this mortal nature leads humans to sin.
For example, Chrysostom asks," What does it mean that all have sinned?" It means that once Adam fell, all those who descended from him became mortal, even though they had not eaten from the tree. Theodoret writes," After falling under the sentence of death, Adam begot Cain, Seth, and the rest. Therefore, since they all sprang from him, they all inherited a mortal nature." Now, such a nature has the need of many things: food, drink, clothing, housing, and various kinds of work.
And the necessity of these things often rouses our desires into excesses. In turn, excessive desires beget sin. The results of being cast out of paradise. Other early Christians point to the fact that, because of Adam's sin, we all have been born outside of the original paradise. This fact has contributed much to the fall of man. Alexander of Alexandria writes," Man went forth from paradise to a region that was the dregs of unrighteousness, fornication, adultery, and cruel murder.
And there he found his destruction, for all things conspired towards his death. They all worked toward the ruin of those who had barely entered there. Origen writes," If Levi, who was born in the fourth generation after Abraham, is said to have been in the loins of Abraham. So much more were all human beings who have been born and lived in this world in the loins of Adam, Hebrews 7, 9, and 10. While he was still in paradise, all humans were with him or in him.
When he was expelled, they too were exiled from paradise. As a result, that death which came upon him because of his transgression also passed through him into them who were held in his loins. Origen does not teach that we share in Adam's guilt, only that we have inherited his death and have been cast out of paradise with him. The effect of wrong instruction on mankind. As can be seen, Origen taught that Adam's sin adversely affected his descendants in several ways.
He taught that first, we inherit a fallen nature from Adam. Second, we inherit Adam's mortality. And third, we have lost paradise because of him. Origen also notes that false and wicked instruction has played a major role in bringing man to his present sinful state. He points out that the sin in the Garden of Eden began with Eve listening to the deceitful words of Satan. It then grew as Adam listened to the beguiling pleas of his wife. The effect of false teaching has only increased since then.
Adam's guilt is not imputed to us. In short, the early Christians put forth several theories as to how Adam's sin affects his posterity. Perhaps all these theories may be correct, for they are not mutually exclusive. However, until Augustine, absolutely no one taught that we somehow inherit Adam's guilt. No one taught that Adam's sin is charged or imputed to his descendants, making them liable to eternal damnation.
For example, Theodoret comments," Death came upon all men because all have sinned." So each person receives the sentence of death for his own transgressions, not on account of our first father's transgression. Chrysostom adds," A man would not deserve punishment if it were not from his own self that he became a sinner." Why is it Adam's sin, not Eve's? Through the ages, many Christians have asked," Why does Paul say through one man sin entered into the world? Did not sin enter the world through a woman, Eve?
Was she not the first human to sin? Why does Paul say that we die in Adam rather than in Eve?" Modern commentaries sometimes state that Eve was somehow less culpable than Adam, and that the major share of the blame for the sin in Eden falls on Adam, not Eve. However, this simply reflects contemporary thinking, not apostolic thinking. When God pronounced sentence on Adam and Eve, He pronounced judgment on each of them equally, not singling out either of them for greater blame. Genesis 3:10-19.
They were both driven from Eden, and they both incurred the penalty of death. So why does Paul say that we die in Adam, not in Adam and Eve? Origen asks the same question. The woman sinned before Adam, and the serpent sinned before the woman. In fact, in another place, the apostle says," Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression." 1 Timothy 2:14. So how can it be said that sin entered by one man instead of through one woman? After all, the beginning 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," John 8:44. Origen then provides the answer. Nevertheless, please note that here, the apostle has simply adhered to the natural order of things. We should remember that Paul is speaking about death that passed to all humans because of the sin in Eden.
Since he is talking about the succession of human generations who became subject to this death, he did not attribute this succession to the woman, but to the man. For the practice is not to ascribe family succession to woman, but to man. For elsewhere, Paul says," For man is not from woman, but woman from man. And for as woman came from man, even so man also comes through woman, not from woman, but through her." 1 Corinthians 11:8-12.
Accordingly, both mortality and the succession of generations are attributed to the man as the fountainhead of mankind, not to the woman. As Origen points out, all the genealogies in the Scriptures are traced through the Fathers, not through the mothers. When Luke lists the earthly lineage of Jesus, he traces it back to Adam, not to Adam and Eve, Luke 3:38. Yet Jesus was equally the descendant of Eve.
Similarly, the Jews call themselves the seed of Abraham, even though genetically they are equally the seed of Sarah. So in the case of Adam and Eve, they both passed on their mortality and perhaps their fallen nature to their posterity. Nevertheless, when we trace the lineage of death and sin, we trace it to the head of the human race, Adam. The other reason why Paul mentions only Adam is that throughout this chapter of Romans, he repeatedly contrasts one man, Adam, to one man.
Jesus, contrasting one couple to one man would be an unequal analogy.