WISDOM OF A FOOL: June 2018

Below is from a comment on the above video by Randy Churchill:

Those who teach the doctrine of Original Sin as Augustine taught it believe that man has imputed corruption or biological transmission of guilt through sexual procreation. This imputed stain of guilt is transmitted to you from your parents. Thus you are born in sin and depravity. You have a sinful NATURE. That is you have a sinful nature that was passed down to you by ordinary generation. I am stating accurately the doctrine of sin that is universally stated in all Protestant creeds and confessions. This Protestant doctrine comes from a Roman Catholic named Augustine. Augustine came up with his ideas about Original Sin from Romans 5:12 In the Latin translation from the Greek Augustine saw these words, “in quo omnes peccaverunt” English Translation, “in whom [Adam] all sinned”. So Augustine took the idea that we were all "IN" Adam and postulated that this meant that we were all in Adams loins and present with him and thus share in his culpability and guilt. All babies are born with this stain of original guilt. The problem with this theory is that it is not taught in scripture. Perhaps you are not aware of it but many theologians have recognised that this theory is unbiblical and has caused millions of people in the West to think incorrectly about sin and it keeps them from a proper anthropology. Here are two articles that point out this problem. Augustine's Mistake About Original Sin http://gentlewisdom.org/2007/08/11/augustines-mistake-about-sin/ Original Sin: How Original Is It? Romans 5:12 https://answersingenesis.org/sin/original-sin/how-original-is-it-romans-5-12/ The early church and Eastern Orthodoxy have always rejected Augustine's interpretation of Romans 5:12. They have always maintained that Romans 5:12 is to be interpreted that we sin "BECAUSE" Adam sinned. We are not guilty of Adams sin. I am not guilty of your sin. Each person is guilty of their sins. The reason for this is because of the verses that follow vs 12. Vs 13 says, “for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.” Vs 14 identifies the subjects of this passage. It is talking about all the men who lived from Adam to Moses. For these men “sin was in the world”. These men struggled with sin, but it says that sin is not imputed where there is no law. In the King James Version, it actually says that sin was not imputed or reckoned to these men because the Torah had not been given. So verse 13 contradicts Augustine’s theory that all men have imputed guilt after Adam. Adam did not break the Torah. The Torah had not been given. Adam broke the command not to eat of the tree in Genesis 2:17. All of the men who live from Adam to Moses had no biological transmitted guilt from Adam. The entire Bible nowhere teaches biological or genetically transmitted guilt from Adams original sin. It is a myth. Vs 14 states, “Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.” Adam broke the command of God not to eat of the tree. Adam’s sin brought the "reign of death into creation". So Adam’s sin establishes the curse and slavery of death. This is why everyone who lives after Adam is under that curse. Adam is the head of the human race. He was the first man. He was the first man to sin. And Adam’s sin brings death on all men after him. So the problem was not imputed guilt from Adam. The problem is the reign of death. So Adam sets up the pattern of the one who is to come. That pattern is that Adam brings death into creation thus producing the fruit of unrighteousness. Christ the second Adam defeats death and establishes righteousness. Vs 17 says this, “For if by the transgression of the one, DEATH REIGNED through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.” So death reigned through Adam and produced sin. Jesus Christ produces the gift of righteousness which reigns in resurrection life. Then in vs 21 of Chapter 5, it says that “Sin reigned in death”. Here again, Paul says that sin comes from the reign of death. Then in Chapter 7 after Paul describes his struggle with sin he says in vs 24, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?” So Paul says that his struggle with sin originates from his body which is infected by death. Paul nowhere ascribes his struggle with imputed guilt from Adam. Nor does he ascribe his struggle with sin from a biological or genetic guilt transmitted from Adam. Again this is a philosophical myth invented by Augustine and it has become the great deception of western Christianity. 1 Cor. 15:56. where he says, the sting of death is sin.” You will not find any mention in Paul’s writings in all of the New Testament the idea that sin comes from imputed guilt, genetic transmission, or biological procreation. Romans 6:23 states that "the wages of sin are death." This is true. The early church taught that both things are true. Death produces sin and sin produce death. Adam brought all men under q covenant with death. We are born into that world of death and because we are under the covenant that Adam established we will sin. When we Sin we recapitulate and confirm the covenant with death that Adam established. So sin comes from death and death comes from sin. Both things are true. When we sin we recapitulate the covenant that Adam established and we produce more death in our lives. It is an endless cycle of bondage to sin and death. In the garden narrative, God says to Adam that “in the day you eat you will surely die.” God did not say that in the day you eat the wrath of God will fall on you. God does not say in the day you eat that you will have a legal problem with Me. God does not say to Adam in the day you eat I will kill you. What God was saying to Adam is that death is the natural consequence of moving away from God. Adam had life because his being was connected to the being of God. In other words, Adams life was directly connected to his divine union with God and thus he had life. There was no death before Adams disobedience. To move away from the being of God is to move to non-being. The ultimate result of non-being is death. There is no life apart from God. So the early church believed that the first sin produced an ontological problem for Adam and all of the creation. The law of decay became the slavery and curse of the original creation. Since Adams sin created an ontological problem for Adam the solution for this ontological problem is an ontological solution. That ontological solution is in the incarnation of Christ. Hebrews 2:9 says, “But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” So it is in the incarnation that Christ comes to “taste death for every man.” So in the incarnation, Christ pays the wages of sin and He destroys the sting of death. The fall of Adam created an Ontological problem. The solution was an ontological remedy. Everything I have articulated comes from the church fathers. Augustine by interpreting the Bible apart from Church Tradition came up with a new and heretical doctrine that has become the great heresy of the West. Simply put he used the principle of Sola Scriptura and by ignoring the Church Fathers he put the West into a false anthropology and a false metaphysical theory of reality. The doctrine of sin in the Bible is very important because it is the foundation of so many other doctrines in the Bible. One final note. There is a distinction that needs to be made between a sinful nature and a fallen nature. The reason for this is because sin is located precisely in an act of the will (James 1:14-15), and is not a state of being. Sin does not have an existence in and of itself. That is it has no being and thus it is not part of our natures. Sin comes into existence by an act of our wills When Adam sinned God told him he would die. Death created the Ontological problem for Adam and his posterity. Since death had made him weak in his flesh Adam was now subject to his passions and lusts. All men are subject to their passions and we cannot love as God intended because we are now self-centered, Egotistical and selfish, We need to survive or we die. That is why we say as the scripture teaches that sin comes from death. Now that we are ontologically under the curse of death we will all sin. When we sin we ontologically move away from life and move toward death. The ultimate end of sin or non-being is death. So to say we have a sinful nature is to say we have a mortal nature. A fallen nature is a mortal condition. Christ entered into that fallen nature by becoming flesh and blood. Christ raises his flesh from the dead and takes it back to the right hand of God. By doing this he ontological shows that he is the second Adam and reverses the pattern. that Adam established.