Think Wink.

At Theology for the Masses there has been a resurgence in the debate on Original Sin.  The latest comment was on Original Sin.  There are 32 comments on my cousin’s post on Original Sin.  His refutation of the doctrine was quite clever from the philosophical approach he took.  Tomorrow, my church is holding a memorial service for the mother of one of our members.  The text that I am preaching the invitation from is 1 Corinthians 15:20-22.  Paul gives some great theology here.  But in my preparation for the service, I couldn’t help but notice something in the text that speaks to Original Sin.   Paul’s words to the Corinthians are,

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.  For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.  For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

Paul makes Adam the originator of death in this text and makes Christ the originator of life.  Through Adam came death because through Adam comes sin.  Through Christ comes life because Christ died the substitutionary death that bore our sins and gave us his righteousness.  There is no middle ground here.  You can look further down in 1 Corinthians 15 and see there are only two Adams, the first and last (15:45).

Thus when we are in Adam we have death and when we are in Christ we have life.  So in our text, whether we recieve life or death is a relational issue.  What connects the death of Adam to the all, and vice-a-versa for Christ, is the proposition “in” or en in the Greek.  Prepositions are parts of speech that give spacial information.  Thus if we are “in” Adam we die and if we are “in” Christ we live.  So how we relate spacially to Christ and Adam is whether or not we are dying or living.  We are in either one or the other.  But you see that those who are in Adam die.  That is all it says.  We can import into this text the concept of sin and it is certainly warranted.  But let us let Paul’s words stand for the time being.  Let us not make the text read “For as in Adam all die because they have sinned like Adam did.”  There are no because clauses so let us not put them there.

So let us try to identify how we are to relate Adam and Chirst.  Paul is trying to set up two contrasting humanities here in 1 Corinthians 15.  Look at v 47-49,

The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.  As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.  Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

There is the humanity that comes from the dust.  There is the humanity that comes from heaven.  Adam is from the dust and Christ is from heaven.  Paul has them as two different humanities and we bare the image of the man of the dust.  At the resurrection those who are “in” Christ will bare the image of the man of heaven.  How is it that we are of the image of the man of dust, Adam?  We are all physical sons of Adam.  We are his offspring as he was the first man to live upon the earth.  All men are descended from him.  That is how we are “in” him.  It is a birth issue.  We are born into the humanity of the dust.

Jesus said in John 3:3 that we must be born again to enter into the kingdom of heave, to have eternal life.  We must be born of above, by the Spirit (John 3:5-6); we must be born of God (John 1:13).  Here again to be in Christ it is a birth issue.  We must be born into the humanity of Christ, the heavenly humanity, the humanity that dwells in the presence of God.  It is by the Spirit of God, by the power and will of God that we are born into the humanity of Christ.  That is our relationship to Adam and Christ, our birth.  One is physical and the other is spiritual, but both have the same impact.

By being born in the humanity of Adam, one is condemned to death, “For as in Adam all die.”  By being born in Christ one is justified and made alive, “so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”  Just by our relationship of birth to each head we receive either life or death.  We are sinners and fallen or we are righteous and saved.  Thus the Scriptures say here in 1 Corinthians 15 that we are not condemned by our actions but by being in Christ.

One objection is that isn’t it by our sins we are condemned?  Yes but that is not in this text.  That has to be read into this text.  This text just says by our relationship to Adam are we condemned and by our relationship to Christ are we saved.  That is all.  I always caution adding in words to texts because it will bring out our point better if we do.

Another objection is that term “all.”  Some will try to construe it to mean that it means every single human being dies in Adam and every single human being is now alive.  That is universalism.  Some will argue for a limited universalism by saying all that Adam did is undone.  But the text says we are either in Adam and dying or we are in  Christ and we are being made alive.  We must be in Christ to have Adam’s effects of death removed.  Thus it doesn’t fit the text to argue any kind of limited universalism.  Otherwise one is forced to speak of full universalism because they must say all are in Christ and therefore all must be saved.  All who are in Christ are made alive.  But there are sinners out there who are not in Christ so this won’t work.

Therefore I conclude that the Bible teaches Original Sin.  I did not come to Romans 5:12ff because it was debated at the post The Heritage of Sin at Theology for the Masses.  Thus I wanted to use this text to shed some new light on this debate that we did not consider at the previous debate.  That is why I limited my discussion of this text, I did not feel the need to reiterate my thoughts because you can read them there at that debate.

Related posts:

Original Sin

Calvin and Original Sin: Part 6

Calvin and Original Sin: Part 5