The Problem With Original Sin

A better way of seeing Genesis 3.

One of the most quoted verses in the American church is Romans 3:23, which states, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

Technically, those words are in the verse, but this is highly misleading. There is no period at the end of the verse. This is not a statement in and of itself but part of a more significant statement. The entirety of the statement reads (verse numbers have been removed for context):

For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith.

When read in its entirety, this sentence speaks to the redemption that has justified all who have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. When taken out of context, verse 23 says something is broken within us on an identity level.

I point this out to show you how our skewings of ideologies have led us away from the gospel and, in many ways, scripture. We have become a people identified by sin, which, ironically, we also believe was defeated by Christ through the Incarnation, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. How often have you heard someone say, “I’m just a sinner saved by grace.” No, you are a son/daughter saved by grace. This might seem like splitting hairs, but when you see that this is the foundation of all other theological leanings in much of the modern expression of the church, you see this is critically important.

Much of this flows from what is called the Doctrine of Original Sin. In short, this is the belief that all human beings are inherently sinful from birth due to a sinful nature we inherited from Adam. There are variations of this doctrine, but for the sake of this article, we’ll move forward with this definition. St. Augustine of Hippo defined the principle in its earliest and most straightforward form (354-430 AD). Augustine was the first to use the Latin phrase peccatum originale for original sin.

Later councils, influenced by Augustine, such as Cathage and Orange, “brought theological speculation about original sin into the official lexicon of the church.”¹

Augustine is the most influential early voice in the Western church. Many have called him the Father of the Western Church. Augustine was highly influenced by Plato and Greek philosophy, which, unfortunately, plagued many great thinkers in the early church. Being influenced by philosophy alone isn’t wrong. In my opinion, what is inadequate is allowing secular philosophy to change theology. I can honor the brilliance of Plato, but I do so from a solidified theology, not the other way around. Philosophy can add to a theological conviction, but philosophy alone cannot change a theological conviction.

Therefore, Gnosticism and Dualism are still great enemies the church faces. Again, without going deep into either of these, thinking such as the physical being evil and the ghostly spiritual being good, heaven being at a distance and the goal of life getting there (and away from here), there being some secret knowledge that we can attain through the spiritual, etc. fall under Gnosticism and Dualism.

We’re getting away from the main subject, but it is necessary to see the root system on which the doctrine of original sin is built.

Within the doctrine of original sin, you must believe that Jesus was incarnate primarily to deal with sin. You also must believe, as many do, that because of Adam’s “fall,” humanity was separated and alienated from God. Yet, God found them immediately after Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command. The rest of the Old Testament is spent telling us the story of a God who makes his home with his people (the Temple), who goes out of slavery with his people (pillars of cloud and fire), marries his people (Sinai), speaks to them constantly and consistently (the prophets), raises kings after his own heart (David), goes with Israel out of exile when they disobey (Ezekiel’s vision of the presence of God leaving the Temple in Ezekiel 10), and on and on.

I contend you were never separated from God, and the context of Genesis 3 speaks to a condition rather than a single event that put us at odds with God. Historically speaking, Genesis 1-11 was written much later than many of the books in the Old Testament and the rest of the book of Genesis. Evidence suggests that these were probably written during or around Babylonian exile and by multiple sources making sense of Israel's situation.

Think about it: What would a story of the first humans (the first named Adam, which in Hebrew is the word for man—generically) who are told to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (commandment), who failed to be obedient to the command of God, who was removed from the Garden (or promised land), and kept from eating of the tree of life (which was guarded by Seraphim who were also sewn onto the fabric that guarded the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant was which contained the Ten Commandments that were called a tree of life in Jewish wisdom literature) mean to the people of Israel in Babylon? Everything! It would have given context to what went wrong and, more importantly, what not to do when they were restored.

Israel was in exile to Babylon for failing to depend on God. They took control of the story. Rather than enjoying the tree of God-dependent life, they wanted the knowledge to command life for themselves. And as Genesis 3:19 says, Adam (humanity) will eat by the “sweat of his brow,” which isn’t a statement of hard work that makes you sweat but is a Hebrew idiom for anxiety-induced sweat. Whereas they were once recipients of God’s faithfulness, they now must depend (by their own choice) on their faithfulness, which has a relatively low track record. Isn’t this where a lot of our anxiety comes from? Dependence on ourselves where we are supposed to be dependent on God?

Nevertheless, the condition described in Genesis 3 is not an ontological condition in which we were changed from the image of God to the image of something else (sin?). The condition described in Genesis 3 is a stewardship condition in which we very poorly handle the image and likeness that make us who we certainly are.

Sin is a problem for us not because it moved us from children of God to enemies of God; sin is a problem for us because it hides our ability to live out our childlikeness. Sin isn’t missing the mark because you are a terrible shooter (works-based). Sin is missing the mark because you are standing in the wrong direction of the target. It doesn’t matter how good of a shot you are; you’ll always miss it because you’ve gotten turned around (lost). Jesus steps into our humanity to fix our placement and direction, not to teach us how to have a better shot.

Still, the most significant evidence against the original sin doctrine is Jesus himself. Are we to believe that Adam (a possible symbolic figure at that) had more power over the identity of the human race than God himself, whom we were created in, through, and for with his image and likeness? Paul, in Romans 5, answers not in the least. God first defined us as very good in Genesis 1:31. That supremacy of the first declaration of God is the permanent say over the human race. We were declared very good before we ever had an opportunity to do good (or bad). Our identity is not based on our efforts but on the desire of God. Therefore, as Romans 5:14 shows, Adam was nothing but a “type of the one to come.” In other words, the effect of Adam on the human race symbolizes the impact of Christ, our Lord, on the human race. That’s why “Just as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man's act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.” (Romans 5:18 NRSV)

That’s also why “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more…” (Romans 5:20 NRSV). Adam and sin did not present a new challenge to God's purposes that God had to address suddenly. The Incarnation was plan A. “…He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world…” (Ephesians 1:4). Therefore, rather than hold to a doctrine with little scriptural, theological, soteriological, or ontological evidence, what if the doctrines of reconciliation and atonement guided us? God has restored our placement. We ran from home, but he found us and brought us home by becoming sin so that we could become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Living in or out of step with who we are has always been a stewardship issue. Rather than asking if you are his, ask yourself if you are living in the fullness of the truth that you are his. Then, we can begin to experience what Jesus came to give us—life more abundantly.

The most accessible entrance into properly seeing the story of history and the truth of scripture is to see from the perspective of a family. A child can run from home, spit in their parent’s faces, waste everything they have, and disown them. Nevertheless, when you study their DNA, you see they are the child of their parents. No matter how hard they try, they cannot change who they are. In the same way, no matter how much sin has created a problem in the story of humanity, sin cannot change who we are: God’s.

1. Wiley, Tatha (2002). Original Sin: Origins, Developments, Contemporary Meanings. Paulist Press. ISBN 978-0-8091-4128-9.