Charles Hodge · 47 of 128

13. Original Sin. · Part 2

Evasions of the Foregoing Arguments.

The methods adopted by those who deny the doctrine of original sin, to account for the universality of sin, are in the highest degree unsatisfactory.

1. It is not necessary here to refer to the theories which get over this great difficulty either by denying the existence of sin, or by extenuating its evil nature, so that the difficulty ceases to exist. If there be really no such evil as sin, there is no sin to account for. But the fact of the existence of sin, of its universality and of its power, is too palpable and too much a matter of consciousness to admit of being denied or ignored.

2. Others contend that we have in the free agency of man a sufficient solution of the universality of sin. Men can sin; they choose to sin, and no further reason for the fact need be demanded. If Adam sinned without an antecedent corrupt nature, why, it is asked, must corruption of nature be assumed to account for the fact that other men sin? A uniform effect, however, demands a uniform cause. That a man can walk is no adequate reason why he always walks in one direction. A man may exercise his faculties to attain one object or another; the fact that he does devote them through a long life to the acquisition of wealth is not accounted for by saying that he is a free agent. The question is, Why his free agency is always exercised in one particular direction. The fact, therefore, that men are free agents is no solution for the universal sinfulness and total apostasy of our race from God.

3. Others seek in the order of development of the constituent elements of our nature, an explanation of the fact in question. We are so constituted that the sensuous faculties are called into exercise before the higher powers of reason and conscience. The former therefore attain an undue ascendency, and lead the child and the man to obey the lower instincts of his nature, when he should be guided by his higher faculties. But, in the first place, this is altogether an inadequate conception of our hereditary depravity. It does not consist exclusively or principally in the ascendency of the flesh (in the limited sense of that word) over the Spirit. It is a far deeper and more radical evil. It is spiritual death, according to the express declarations of the Scriptures. And, in the second place, it cannot be the normal condition of man that his natural faculties should develop in such order as inevitably and universally to lead to his moral degradation and ruin. And, in the third place, this theory relieves no difficulties while it accounts for no facts. It is as hard to reconcile with the justice and goodness of God that men should be born with a nature so constituted as certainly to lead them to sin, as that they should be born in a state of sin. It denies any fair probation to the race. According to the Scriptures and the doctrine of the Church, mankind had not only a fair but a favourable probation in Adam, who stood for them in the maturity and full perfection of his nature; and with every facility, motive and consideration adapted to secure his fidelity. This is far easier of belief than the assumption that God places the child in the first dawn of reason on its probation for eternity, with a nature already perverted, and under circumstances which in every case infallibly lead to its destruction. The only solution therefore which at all meets the case is the Scriptural doctrine that all mankind fell in Adam’s first transgression, and bearing the penalty of his sin, they come into the world in a state of spiritual death, the evidence of which is seen and felt in the universality, the controlling power, and the early manifestation of sin.

The Scriptures expressly Teach the Doctrine.

The Scriptures not only indirectly teach the doctrine of original sin, or of the hereditary, sinful corruption of our nature as derived from Adam, by teaching, as we have seen, the universal and total depravity of our race, but they directly assert the doctrine. They not only teach expressly that men sin universally and from the first dawn of their being, but they also assert that the heart of man is evil. It is declared to be “Deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: Who can know it?” (Jer. xvii. 9.) “The heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.” (Eccl. viii. 11.) Every imagination of the thoughts of his (man’s) heart is only evil.” (Gen. vi. 5); or as it is in Gen. viii. 21, “The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” By heart in Scriptural language is meant the man himself; the soul; that which is the seat and source of life. It is that which thinks, feels, desires, and wills. It is that out of which good or evil thoughts, desires, and purposes proceed. It never signifies a mere act, or a transient state of the soul. It is that which is abiding, which determines character. It bears the same relation to acts that the soil does to its productions. As a good soil brings forth herbs suited for man and beast, and an evil soil brings forth briars and thorns, so we are told that the human heart (human nature in its present state), is proved to be evil by the prolific crop of sins which it everywhere and always produces. Still more distinctly is this doctrine taught in Matt. vii. 16-19, where our Lord says that men are known by their fruits. “Do men gather grapes or thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.” And again, in Matt. xii. 33, “Either make the tree good and his fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.” The very pith and point of these instructions is, that moral acts are a revelation of moral character. They do not constitute it, but simply manifest what it is. The fruit of a tree reveals the nature of the tree. It does not make that nature, but simply proves what it is. So in the case of man, his moral exercises, his thoughts and feelings, as well as his external acts, are determined by an internal cause. There is something in the nature of the man distinct from his acts and anterior to them, which determines his conduct (i.e., all his conscious exercises), to be either good or evil. If men are universally sinful, it is, according to our Lord’s doctrine, proof positive that their nature is evil; as much so as corrupt fruit proves the tree to be corrupt. When therefore the Scriptures assert that the heart of man is “desperately wicked,” they assert precisely what the Church means when she asserts our nature to be depraved. Neither the word, heart, nor nature, in such connections means substance or essence, but natural disposition. The words express a quality as distinguished from an essential attribute or property. Even when we speak of the nature of a tree, we do not mean its essence, but its quality; something which can be modified or changed without a change of substance. Thus our Lord speaks of making a tree good, or making it evil. The explanation of the Scriptural meaning of the word heart given above is confirmed by analogous and synonymous forums of expression used in the Bible. What is sometimes designated as an evil heart is called “the old man,” “a law of sin in our members,” “the flesh,” “the carnal mind,” etc. And on the other hand, what is called “a new heart,” is called “the new man,” “a new creature” (or nature), “the law of the Spirit,” “the spiritual mind,” etc. All these terms and phrases designate what is inherent, immanent, and abiding, as opposed to what is transient and voluntary. The former class of terms is used to describe the nature of man before it is regenerated, and the other to describe the change consequent on regeneration. The Scriptures, therefore, in declaring the heart of man to be deceitful and desperately wicked, and its imaginations or exercises to be only evil continually, assert in direct terms the Church doctrine of original sin.

The Psalmist also directly asserts this doctrine when he says (Ps. li. 5), “Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” In the preceding verses he had confessed his actual sins; and he here humbles himself still more completely before God by acknowledging his innate, hereditary depravity; a depravity which he did not regard as a mere weakness, or inclination to evil, but which he pronounces iniquity and sin. To this inherent, hereditary corruption he refers in the subsequent parts of the Psalm as his chief burden from which he most earnestly desired to be delivered. “Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts; and in the hidden part shalt thou make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. . . . . Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” It was his inward parts, his interior nature, which had been shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin, which he prayed might be purified and renewed. The whole spirit of this Psalm and the connection in which the words of the fifth verse occur, have constrained the great majority of commentators and readers of the Scripture to recognize in this passage a direct affirmation of the doctrine of original sin. Of course no doctrine rests on any one isolated passage. What is taught in one place is sure to be assumed or asserted in other places. What David says of himself as born in sin is confirmed by other representations of Scripture, which show that what was true of him is no less true of all mankind. Thus (Job xiv. 4), “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean.” (xv. 14), “What is man that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?” Thus also our Lord says (John iii. 6), “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” This clearly means that, That which is born of corrupt parents is itself corrupt; and is corrupt in virtue of its descent or derivation. This is plain, (1.) From the common usage of the word flesh in a religious sense in the Scriptures. Besides the primary and secondary meanings of the word it is familiarly used in the Bible to designate our fallen and corrupt nature. Hence to be “in the flesh” is to be in a natural, unrenewed state; the works of the flesh, are works springing from a corrupt nature; to walk after the flesh, is to live under the controlling influence of a sinful nature. Hence to be carnal, or carnally minded, is to be corrupt, or, as Paul explains it, sold under, a slave to sin. (2.) Because the flesh is here opposed to the Spirit. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” As the latter member of this verse undoubtedly means that, That which is derived from the Holy Spirit is holy, or conformed to the nature of the Holy Spirit; the former member must mean that, That which is derived from an evil source is itself evil. A child born of fallen parents derives from them a fallen, corrupt nature. (3.) This interpretation is demanded by the context. Our Lord is assigning the reason for the necessity of regeneration or spiritual birth. That reason is, the derivation of a corrupt nature by our natural birth. It is because we are born in sin that the renewing of the Holy Ghost is universally and absolutely necessary to our salvation.

Another passage equally decisive is Eph. ii. 3: “We also” (i.e., we Jews as well as the Gentiles) “were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.” Children of wrath, according to a familiar Hebrew idiom, means the objects of wrath. We, says the Apostle, as well as other men, are the objects of the divine wrath. That is, under condemnation, justly exposed to his displeasure. This exposure to the wrath of God, as He teaches, is not due exclusively to our sinful conduct, it is the condition in which we were born. We are by nature the children of wrath. The word nature in such forms of speech always stands opposed to what is acquired, or superinduced, or to what is due to ab extra influence or inward development. Paul says that he and Peter were by nature Jews, i.e., they were Jews by birth, not by proselytism. He says the Gentiles do by nature the things of the law; i.e., in virtue of their internal constitution, not by external instruction. The gods of the heathen, he says, are by nature no gods. They are such only in the opinions of men. In classic literature as in ordinary language, to say that men are by nature proud, or cruel, or just, always means that the predicate is due to them in virtue of their natural constitution or condition, and not simply on account of their conduct or acquired character. The dative φύσει in this passage does not mean on account of, because φύσις means simply nature, whether good or bad. Paul does not say directly that it is “on account of our (corrupt) nature we are the children of wrath,” which interpretation requires the idea expressed by the word corrupt to be introduced into the text. He simply asserts that we are the children of wrath by nature; that is, as we were born. We are born in a state of sin and condemnation. And this is the Church doctrine of original sin. Our natural condition is not merely a condition of physical weakness, or of proneness to sin, or of subjection to evil dispositions, which, if cherished, become sinful; but we are born in a state of sin. Rueckert, a rationalistic commentator, says in reference to this passage: “It is perfectly evident, from Rom. v. 12-20, that Paul was far from being opposed to the view expressed in Ps. li. 7, that men are born sinners; and as we interpret for no system, so we will not attempt to deny that the thought, ‘We were born children of wrath,’ i.e.. such as we were from our birth we were exposed to the divine wrath, is the true sense of these words.”

The Bible Represents Men as Spiritually Dead.

Another way in which the Scriptures clearly teach the doctrine of original sin is to be found in the passages in which they describe the natural state of man since the fall. Men, all men, men of every nation, of every age, and of every condition, are represented as spiritually dead. The natural man, man as he is by nature, is destitute of the life of God, i.e., of spiritual life. His understanding is darkness, so that he does not know or receive the things of God. He is not susceptible of impression from the realities of the spiritual world. He is as insensible to them as a dead man to the things of this world. He is alienated from God, and utterly unable to deliver himself from this state of corruption and misery. Those, and those only, are represented as delivered from this state in which men are born, who are renewed by the Holy Ghost; who are quickened, or made alive by the power of God, and who are therefore called spiritual as governed and actuated by a higher principle than any which belongs to our fallen nature. “The natural man,” says the Apostle (that is, man as he is by nature), “receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them; because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Cor. ii. 14.) “You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins;” and not only you Gentiles, but “even us,” when dead in sins, hath God “quickened together with Christ.” (Eph. ii. 1, 5.) The state of all men, Jews and Gentiles, prior to regeneration, is declared to be a state of spiritual death. In Eph. iv. 17, 18, this natural state of man is described by saying of the heathen that they “walk in the vanity of their mind (i.e., in sin), having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.” Man’s natural state is one of darkness, of which the proximate effect is ignorance and obduracy, and consequent alienation from God. It is true this is said of the heathen, but the Apostle constantly teaches that what is true of the heathen is no less true of the Jews; for there is no difference, since all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. With these few passages the whole tenour of the word of God agrees. Human nature in its present state is always and everywhere described as thus darkened and corrupted.

Argument from the Necessity of Redemption.

Another argument in support of the doctrine of original sin is that the Bible everywhere teaches that all men need redemption through the blood of Christ. The Scriptures know nothing of the salvation of any of the human family otherwise than through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. This is so plainly the doctrine of the Bible that it never has been questioned in the Christian Church. Infants need redemption as well as adults, for they also are included in the covenant of grace. But redemption, in the Christian sense of the term, is deliverance through the blood of Christ, from the power and consequences of sin. Christ came to save sinners. He saves none but sinners. If He saves infants, infants must be in a state of sin. There is no possibility of avoiding this conclusion, except by denying one or the other of the premises from which it is drawn. We must either deny that infants are saved through Christ, which is such a thoroughly anti-Christian sentiment, that it has scarcely ever been avowed within the pale of the Church; or we must deny that redemption, in the Christian sense of the term, includes deliverance from sin. This is the ground taken by those who deny the doctrine of original sin, and yet admit that infants are saved through Christ. They hold that in their case redemption is merely preservation from sin. For Christ’s sake, or through his intervention, they are transferred to a state of being in which their nature develops in holiness. In answer to this evasion it is enough to remark, (1.) That it is contrary to the plain and universally received doctrine of the Bible as to the nature of the work of Christ. (2.) That this view supersedes the necessity of redemption at all. The Bible, however, clearly teaches that the death of Christ is absolutely necessary; that if there had been any other way in which men could be saved Christ is dead in vain. (Gal. ii. 21; iii. 21.) But, according to the doctrine in question, there is no necessity for his death. If men are an unfallen, uncorrupted race, and if they can be preserved from sin by a mere change of their circumstances, why should there be the costly array of remedial means, the incarnation, the sufferings and death of the Eternal Son of God, for their salvation. It is perfectly plain that the whole Scriptural plan of redemption is founded in the apostasy of the whole human race from God. It assumed that men, all men, infants as well as adults, are in a state of sin and misery, from which none but a divine Saviour can deliver them.

Argument from the Necessity of Regeneration.

This is still further plain from what the Scriptures teach concerning the necessity of regeneration. By regeneration is meant both in Scripture and in the language of the Church, the renewing of the Holy Ghost; the change of heart or of nature effected by the power of the Spirit, by which the soul passes from a state of spiritual death into a state of spiritual life. It is that change from sin to holiness, which our Lord pronounces absolutely essential to salvation. Sinners only need regeneration. Infants need regeneration. Therefore infants are in a state of sin. The only point in this argument which requires to be proved, is that infants need regeneration in the sense above explained. This, however, hardly admits of doubt. (1.) It is proved by the language of the Scriptures which assert that all men must be born of the Spirit, in order to enter the Kingdom of God. The expression used, is absolutely universal. It means every human being descended from Adam by ordinary generation. No exception of class, tribe, character, or age is made; and we are not authorized to make any such exception. But besides, as remarked above, the reason assigned for this necessity of the new birth, applies to infants as well as to adults. All who are born of the flesh, and because they are thus born, our Lord says, must be born again (2.) Infants always have been included with their parents in every revelation or enactment of the covenant of grace. The promise to our first parents of a Redeemer, concerned their children as well as themselves. The covenant with Abraham was not only with him, but also with his posterity, infant and adult. The covenant at Mount Sinai, which as Paul teaches, included the covenant of grace, was solemnly ratified with the people and with their “little ones.” The Scriptures, therefore, always contemplate children from their birth as needing to be saved, and as interested in the plan of salvation which it is the great design of the Bible to reveal. (3.) This is still further evident from the fact that the sign and seal of the covenant of grace, circumcision under the Old dispensation, and baptism under the New, was applied to new-born infants. Circumcision was indeed a sign and seal of the national covenant between God and the Hebrews as a nation. That is, it was a seal of those promises made to Abraham, and afterwards through Moses, which related to the external theocracy or Commonwealth of Israel. But nevertheless, it is plain, that besides these national promises, there was also the promise of redemption made to Abraham, which promise, the Apostle expressly says, has come upon us. (Gal. iii. 14) That is, we (all believers) are included in the covenant made with Abraham. It is no less plain that circumcision was the sign and seal of that covenant. This is clear, because the Apostle teaches that Abraham received circumcision as a seal of the righteousness of faith. That is, it was the seal of that covenant which promised and secured righteousness on the condition of faith. It is also plain because the Scriptures teach that circumcision had a spiritual import. It signified inward purification. It was administered in order to teach men that those who received the rite, needed such purification, and that this great blessing was promised to those faithful to the covenant, of which circumcision was the seal. Hence, the Scriptures speak of the circumcision of the heart; of an inward circumcision effected by the Spirit as distinguished from that which was outward in the flesh. Compare Deut. x. 16; xxx. 6; Ezek. xliv. 7; Acts vii. 51; Rom. ii. 28. From all this it is clear that circumcision could not be administered according to its divinely constituted design to any who did not need the circumcision or regeneration of heart, to fit them for the presence and service of God. And as it was by divine command administered to infants when eight days old, the conclusion is inevitable that in the sight of God such infants need regeneration, and therefore are born in sin.

The same argument obviously applies to infant baptism. Baptism is an ordinance instituted by Christ, to signify and seal the purification of the soul, by the sprinkling of his blood, and its regeneration by the Holy Ghost. It can therefore be properly administered only to those who are in a state of guilt and pollution. It is, however, administered to infants, and therefore infants are assumed to need pardon and sanctification. This is the argument which Pelagius and his followers, more than all others, found it most difficult to answer. They could not deny the import of the rite. They could not deny that it was properly administered to infants, and yet they refused to admit the unavoidable conclusion, that infants are born in sin. They were therefore driven to the unnatural evasion, that baptism was administered to infants, not on the ground of their present state, but on the assumption of their probable future condition. They were not sinners, but would probably become such, and thus need the benefits of which baptism is the sign and pledge. Even the Council of Trent found it necessary to protest against such a manifest perversion of a solemn sacrament, which reduced it to a mockery. The form of baptism as prescribed by Christ, and universally adopted by the Church, supposes that those to whom the sacrament is administered are sinners and need the remission of sin and the renewal of the Holy Ghost. Thus the doctrine of original sin is inwrought into the very texture of Christianity, and lies at the foundation of the institutions of the gospel.

Argument from the Universality of Death.

Another decisive argument on this subject, is drawn from the universality of death. Death, according to the Scriptures, is a penal evil. It presupposes sin. No rational moral creature is subject to death except on account of sin. Infants die, therefore infants are the subjects of sin. The only way to evade this argument is to deny that death is a penal evil. This is the ground taken by those who reject the doctrine of original sin. They assert that it is a natural evil, flowing from the original constitution of our nature, and that it is therefore no more a proof that all men are sinners, than the death of brutes is a proof that they are sinners. In answer to this objection, it is obvious to remark that men are not brutes. That irrational animals, incapable of sin, are subject to death, is therefore no evidence that moral creatures may be justly subject to the same evil, although free from sin. But, in the second place, what is of far more weight, the objection is in direct opposition to the declarations of the Word of God. According to the Bible, death in the case of man is a punishment. It was threatened against Adam as the penalty of transgression. If he had not sinned, neither had he died. The Apostle expressly declares that death is the wages (or punishment) of sin; and death is on account of sin. (Rom. vi. 23 and v. 12.) He not only asserts this as a fact, but assumes it as a principle, and makes it the foundation of his whole argument in Rom. v. 12-20. His doctrine as there stated is, where there is no law there is no sin. And where there is no sin there is no punishment. All men are punished, therefore all men are sinners. That all men are punished, he proves from the fact that all men die. Death is punishment. Death, he says, reigned from Adam to Moses. It reigns even over those who had not sinned in their own persons, by voluntary transgression, as Adam did. It reigns over infants. It has passed absolutely on all men because all are sinners. It cannot be questioned that such is the argument of the Apostle; neither can it be questioned that this argument is founded on the assumption that death, in the case of man, is a penal evil, and its infliction an undeniable proof of guilt. We must, therefore, either reject the authority of the Scriptures, or we must admit that the death of infants is a proof of their sinfulness.

Although the Apostle’s argument as above stated is a direct proof of original sin (or inherent, hereditary corruption), it is no less a proof, as urged on another occasion, of the imputation of Adam’s sin. Paul does argue, in Rom. v. 12-20, to prove that as in our justification the righteousness on the ground of which we are accepted is not subjectively ours, but the righteousness of another, even Christ; so the primary ground of our condemnation to death is the sin of Adam, something outside of ourselves, and not personally ours. But it is to be borne in mind that the death of which he speaks in accordance with the uniform usage of Scripture, in such connections, is the death of a man; a death appropriate to his nature as a moral being formed in the image of God. The death threatened to Adam was not the mere dissolution of his body, but spiritual death, the loss of the life of God. The physical death of infants is a patent proof that they are subject to the penalty which came on men (which entered the world and passed on all men) on account of one man, or by one man’s disobedience. And as that penalty was death spiritual as well as the dissolution of the body, the death of infants is a Scriptural and decisive proof of their being born destitute of original righteousness and infected with a sinful corruption of nature. Their physical death is proof that they are involved in the penalty the principal element of which is the spiritual death of the soul. It was by the disobedience of one man that all are constituted sinners, not only by imputation (which is true and most important), but also by inherent depravity; as it is by the obedience of one that all are constituted righteous, not only by imputation (which also is true and vitally important), but also by the consequent renewing of their nature flowing from their reconciliation to God.