Original sin

Through one man

Original sin is distinguished from actual sins, the particular wrongs we commit. We do not become sinners only when we first sin; we sin because we are born sinners. David confessed, "Surely I was brought forth in iniquity" (Psalm 51:5), and Paul says that all of us "were by nature children of wrath" (Ephesians 2:3). Scripture traces this to the first man.

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, so also death was passed on to all men, because all sinned.

Romans 5:12

"For as in Adam all die" (1 Corinthians 15:22): Adam's disobedience did not stop with him. Matthew Henry puts it plainly: "Adam sinning, his nature became guilty and corrupted, and so came to his children." Matthew Henry John Wesley glosses Paul's "all sinned" with two words: "In Adam." Wesley

But Paul's comparison does not end with Adam. "For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous" (Romans 5:19). The doctrine is not meant to leave us in despair; it shows how great the grace of Christ, the second Adam, must be: "where sin increased, grace increased all the more" (Romans 5:20).

How the church came to say it

The early Fathers taught that Adam's fall brought death and corruption on the human race, but it was Augustine who made the phrase ‘original sin’ (peccatum originale) at home in the Western church. In the early fifth century Pelagius urged that by the nature God gave, a person can keep the commandments Pelagius, Letter to Demetrias; Adam's sin, he held, harmed his descendants by its bad example. Augustine answered that by misusing free will man lost both himself and his freedom, and that only grace renews the will Augustine, Enchiridion 30. In 418 the Council of Carthage confessed that Adam's sin reaches his descendants and condemned Pelagius' teaching Council of Carthage (418) (see Pelagianism).

The Reformation churches received this teaching. The Westminster Shorter Catechism defines it:

The sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell, consists in the guilt of Adam's first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature, which is commonly called original sin

Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 18

Original sin, on this account, includes both guilt and a corrupted nature; the teaching that this corruption reaches every part of us is called total depravity.

Where the traditions differ

The historic churches agree that Adam's sin damaged the whole race; they differ over what we inherit. Lutheran and Reformed churches teach that we inherit both guilt and corruption, and that this inborn disease is truly sin Augsburg Confession, art. 2. On how Adam's sin becomes ours, some say that all humanity was present in Adam as its root; others, that Adam acted as our covenant head, so that his guilt is imputed to us (see the covenant of works).

The Catholic Church describes original sin as a state we contract, not a sin we commit. Having lost original holiness and justice, human nature is not totally corrupted but wounded and inclined to sin Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Council of Trent taught that baptism remits the guilt of original sin, and that the inclination which remains, concupiscence, is not itself sin in the true and proper sense Council of Trent, Decree on Original Sin.

The Orthodox churches usually speak of ‘ancestral sin’: from Adam we inherit death, corruption and a weakness that makes us prone to sin, but not his personal guilt Romanides, The Ancestral Sin. Augustine read the end of Romans 5:12 in a Latin Bible that said all sinned ‘in him’; many Orthodox theologians read it to mean that death spread to all, and all who are subject to death go on to sin.

The Wesleyan tradition teaches original sin firmly and holds it together with prevenient grace, given to every person so that they can respond to the gospel Wesley, The Scripture Way of Salvation. For all their differences, these traditions agree that no one can save himself and that everyone needs Christ. See the lesson Original sin and its effects and What is sin?