Jim_M said:
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.
Actually, there are many other verses. But two other important verses are Gen. 6:5 and Rom. 5:19.
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?
David is not saying that marriage and childbearing are sinful. He is saying that he was a sinner from the first moment of his existence. He was brought forth in iniquity, not that the bringing forth was itself iniquitous, but he was iniquitous as he was brought forth. His mother conceived him in sin, not that her conceiving him was sinful, but he was sinful when he was conceived.
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.
We are to become like children, not because they are sinless, but because they humbly depend on and trust in others, as in Ps. 131:2: "But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me." We are told to emulate a child's
humility, never a child's "innocence."
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.
Hm. Do you believe that God is free not to love? If He must love us, then is that meaningful love? The meaningfulness of love comes from doing something for the sake of another, not from having the ability to do evil.
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.
And where is this teaching in Scripture? Where does Scripture say that all men choose sin given a long enough period of time? And how long is long enough?
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!
If we all become sinful only in the same way Adam and Eve do (by disobedience), then we can be righteous only in the same way the Last Adam, Jesus Christ, is: by perfect obedience. And if that's the case, Jesus isn't much of a solution to the problem. Not to mention, apparently you think babies don't need Jesus.
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.
We are all sinners because we inherit Adam's guilt and his corruption. We all sin because we are all sinners.
