The Bible is a collection of sixty-six different books composed by about forty human authors over a period of approximately fifteen hundred years. Its subject matter covers things we would never possibly understand without God’s revelation. The origin of sin is just one of the many things that would remain unknowable without inspired revelation. The combined testimony of both the Old and New Testaments is that together they form the inspired Word of God. The revelation of the supernatural world, the creation of earth, the end of time, and many thought-provoking stories make the Bible the most fascinating book of all time.
God revealed things to mankind in stages. These stages are reflected in the current arrangement of the books of the Bible. Students of the Bible refer to this as a progressive revelation. One stage is established, then another, and so on. The key to an accurate understanding of the individual stages is to rely on the Apostles’ teaching as recorded in the New Testament. God chose these men and gave them authority to formulate sound doctrine for us to believe.
In the beginning God created the earth, and there is a wealth of revelation contained in that amazing feat. Later, many exciting truths were spoken through the prophets in various ways. Eventually, God sent Jesus Christ, whose testimony is authoritative and true. God raised Jesus from the dead which validates the fact that the holiness of God had been propitiated. God is satisfied with the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ, but He did not stop there – God went on to choose the Apostles to evaluate, interpret and proclaim the proper conclusions for us. Of course, the Holy Spirit accomplished that by working through the chosen Apostles, but the point is that their writings correlated all previously revealed truth into sound doctrine. We must not ignore what they recorded.
The origin of sin for mankind provides an excellent opportunity to demonstrate this point. Since the Bible is accurate and true in its entirety, then some believers would turn right to Genesis and identify the origin of sin for mankind (Genesis 2:15-3:24). The narrative would reveal that Satan tempted Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Though she knew better, she ate some of the forbidden fruit and then gave some to her husband who ate it too. Those facts are accurate, but the Apostles’ teaching combine some other facts along with those and come out with a doctrine that we probably would have otherwise missed. A careful study of the whole Bible is necessary when affirming sound doctrine.
In his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul refers back to the temptation in the garden and adds light to the subject. “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man [Adam], and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned — To be sure, sin was in the world before the law [of Moses] was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come [Christ]” (Romans 5:12-14).
There are two main points to observe regarding this passage. Notice that Eve is not mentioned. The sole source of sin coming to all people is identified as Adam and his decision to eat the forbidden fruit. We are able to understand why this is stated by turning back to the Genesis passage. Adam was formed from the dust of the earth, received the breath of life, and was directly addressed by God. Eve was not formed until after God’s command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was spoken. In the beginning, all mankind was contained within Adam, and this one person represented the whole of mankind. He was the first and the head of the natural race. When the head sinned, we all sinned.
This introduces the doctrine of imputation. Adam’s sin resulted in Adam’s immediate spiritual death (the fall of mankind) and led eventually to his physical death. The Apostle states, “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned”. Not only does he identify Adam alone, he also states that death comes to all people because “all sinned”. In other words, we all sinned when Adam sinned. Exactly why God explains it that way is not entirely clear. Either we were all in Adam because he was the seminal (original) man, or he acted as the head of the race representing all of us as he sinned. In either case, the result is the same. Sin entered the world through Adam. Therefore, death comes to everyone because of the imputation of that original sin.
The second main point to observe is that the Apostle then references a period of several thousand years. By using two significant public figures, he identifies a large group of people who lived from the time of Adam to the time of Moses. He stated that people from this period died because Adam disobeyed God’s command, not because of their own sins. God’s command to Adam was not to eat the forbidden fruit. God’s law was revealed through Moses many generations later. The period in question is the several thousand years between these two events. The Apostle stated that the people who lived in this period did not sin by breaking a command as did Adam. Additionally, personal sin was not counted against them because there was no law. Nevertheless, they died. Now we can begin to understand that when God warned Adam that he would die if he ate the fruit, God meant not only Adam, but the entire race of mankind. At the end of time, God will destroy the created heavens and earth, judge mankind, and human life as we know it will cease to exist. Therefore, the Apostles’ teaching affirms that all mankind was represented in Adam and the human race will certainly die because of his original sin.
We will expand on this concept as we continue. The main point will conclude that the origin of sin was the disobedience of Adam, the one man God created from the dust, the head of the race.
Next Section: The Law of Sin and Death
Table of Contents: The Last Adam
Text for this post has been borrowed from my Kindle eBook The Last Adam (Book 1 of the Grace and Knowledge Series), by Brother Woody Brohm. Copyright 2012.
I’ve included the full text of the book on this blog and you are free to read the book in this format if you please. Just follow the Next Section Link or view the Table of Contents to skip to wherever you prefer.
All Scripture quoted from:
New International Version (NIV)
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