THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN by Jim Denison
Ps 51:5 David says “ Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me. This verse seems to be the main verse that the generally accepted doctrine of original sin comes from. It is not absolutely clear what David is trying to communicate here.
One of the basic principles of interpreting scripture is that the unclear passages should be interpreted by the more clear passages. The following are scriptures that are much easier to understand concerning this subject, In other words let scripture interpret scripture.
God commanded us to marry, conceive and give birth., Genesis 1:27-28 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number”.

Why then would David say marriage and child bearing is sinful, and that we are born sinful when the whole process is clearly blessed by the Lord?

If children are sinners, why did Jesus say we must become like them to enter into the kingdom of God? Matthew 18:1-3 “unless you become as a little child you cannot enter
The kingdom of God. If children are totally depraved as some say, then Jesus gave a very poor example of how adults must become to enter the kingdom.

Because of the clear meaning of these scriptures could it be that David was simply saying that he was conceived and born into a sinful world? Or was this simply a hyperbolic statement?
This world is made sinful by adults, not babies or God.

Adam and Eve were created with the God given freedom to choose to sin or to choose to trust and obey Him. God knew they would choose to sin but without this freedom love would have been meaningless. Obviously this does not make God the author of sin.

In the same way every child is born with the freedom to choose to sin or to choose not to, and is sure to choose to sin if they live long enough.

This does not mean they are born sinners, any more than Adam and Eve were created sinners.

Original sin simply means that as human beings we are sure to fall into sin if we live long enough just as Adam and Eve did.

Therefore we can see that blaming Adam and Eve for sin and saying we are born sinful is to completely miss the fact that we all become guilty for our own sin the exact same way they did (by disobeying God). This sin is credited to Adam simply because he was first and it is common to all humanity except one, Jesus! Thank God that through Him we have the solution to this problem!
Isaiah 7:16
For before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken.
(NAS95)

The bible teaches that the children are punished for the sins of their fathers, to the third & fourth generation, if they are guilty of the same sins, Exodus 20:5 (of those who hate me) and if they do not repent, Numbers 14:18 (forgiving sin and rebellion).This is made very clear in Ezekiel 18, when the Jews accuse God of “sour grapes”. Consequently no one is a sinner just because Adam was a sinner, we all become sinners the same way Adam became a sinner, by sinning and not repenting.