Dan Olinger

"If the Bible is true, then none of our fears are legitimate, none of our frustrations are permanent, and none of our opposition is significant."

Dan Olinger

Chair, Division of Biblical Studies & Theology,

Bob Jones University

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On Sin: I’m Guilty of Adam’s Sin? How Is That Fair?

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Part 1

In my last post, on the way to making another point, I briefly mentioned the biblical truth of original sin.

In its simplest terms, original sin is the sinful guilt that you came into the world with. Babies are born guilty. Specifically, they’re born guilty of Adam’s sin.

Babies? Really? But they’re so … cute, with their little round bottoms and their little pearly toes and their gas-induced smiles. We paint cherubs as babies just because they’re so, um, cute, and innocent, and stuff.

What do you have against babies, anyway? What are you, some kind of monster?

I can assure you that I like babies as much as the next guy. I worked with my wife in the church nursery for more than 20 years. And for what it’s worth, I learned there that I like my own babies better than other people’s, but I still like them a lot.

But like it or not, the Bible teaches that all of us, at birth, bear the guilt of Adam’s sin (Rom 5.12). We’re not just born with an inclination to sin; we’re born already guilty of having sinned.

I know what your response to that will be; everyone has the same response.

It’s not fair!

And, perhaps surprisingly, I’m going to agree with you on that. Back to that in a moment.

In the Mosaic Law, God said that a child could not be held guilty of his father’s sins (Dt 24.16). So why should I be guilty of Adam’s sin? How can that be just?

The answer—a partial one—is that Adam was representing us in his sin, just as a legislator can bind us with laws because his vote in Congress represents us.

But I didn’t vote for Adam! I never had a say in this!

True. Though I will note that you’ve spent your life demonstrating with your sinfulness that Adam’s apple didn’t fall far from the tree now, did it? So there’s that. Whether you’re held guilty of Adam’s sin or not, you’re still in deep, deep trouble, and Adam’s guilt isn’t going to make your outcome any worse. But that still doesn’t seem to justify holding you guilty for an act that you didn’t actually commit.

So why? Why has God set me up like this?

Ah, my friend, because what you’ve heard so far is not the whole story. When you were still a (sinful) child, you learned that waiting for the end of the story is always worth it.

So what’s the end of the story?

The official name for what we’ve been talking about so far is imputation. Adam’s sin has been imputed to you—placed on your account, like a credit-card charge—so that you are in debt for it.

But there’s more to imputation than just this.

In God’s gracious plan, your sin has been imputed, too. Your sin—every last bit of it—has been placed on the account of Jesus of Nazareth. He’s guilty of everything bad you’ve ever done.

That wasn’t fair, either.

And while you didn’t agree to receive the guilt of Adam’s sin, Jesus absolutely agreed to receive your sin.

How do you feel about the deal now?

And there’s more.

When Jesus came to earth, born as a man, he came as the Second Adam (Lk 3.38; Rom 5.18-21). Because the first Adam was your representative, you can now be represented by the Second Adam. And what benefit does that bring?

Well, when Christ willingly took your sins upon himself and bore their penalty, that wiped out your sin debt, but you were still broke. You went from owing a bazillion dollars to debt-free, but you still didn’t have any money in the bank.

The Second Adam changed all that.

In the third great act of imputation, all of Christ’s righteousness was placed in your bank account (2Co 5.21). All his perfect obedience to the Father throughout his earthly life is now your record. The Father has not only forgiven your sin, but the very record of that sin has been expunged. It’s not there. That’s why he “will remember it no more” (Jer 31.34). You are rich in righteousness, as rich as it’s possible to be. God sees you through Christ-colored glasses.

Now, you can complain about the unfairness of being guilty of Adam’s sin if you want, but that’s a stupidly short-sighted perspective.

Adam’s sin has traveled from him, to you, to Christ, who has burned it in the fires of eternal judgment. And what he has given us in its place is beyond reckoning.

Grace.

Part 3 Part 4

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I Was Born That Way

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I was.

And so were you.

I’ve never understood why many of my fellow believers apparently reflexively argue with those who say that they were born with an inclination that my friends view as immoral. Why couldn’t that be the case?

Now, I’ll grant that it’s difficult to imagine particularly sexual orientation being present from birth, since it seems to take some time for any child to develop any sexual orientation whatever. But I’m happy to concede to my (e.g.) gay friends that they have felt inclined toward same-sex attraction from their earliest memories.

Two reasons for that. In reverse order of importance.

Personal experience

No, I haven’t wrestled with same-sex attraction, and I’ve never felt like a woman trapped in a man’s body. But from my earliest days, I’ve known that there was something seriously wrong with me.

My older sisters could tell you that I was a difficult child. Loud, obnoxious, without self-discipline, generally a pain in various parts of the anatomy. I drove them to tears, more than once.

And here’s the thing. I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to be good. I wanted to add to the joy rather than the misery of whatever the event was. I wanted, as my mother would often admonish me, to “be a help, and not a hindrance.” Every year, right after getting a new crop of school supplies, I would tell myself that this year I was going to be good.

But I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t. Things would just pop out of my mouth, and I would see the hurt on the face of a loved one, or the frustration on the face of a teacher, and I would feel my own frustration with myself rise.

I couldn’t do the good that I could aspire to.

I was born that way.

Scripture

Not surprisingly, the Scripture endorses my experience. It tells me that I shouldn’t be surprised by what I find in my heart.

  • It tells me that everyone is a sinner (Rom 3.23).
  • It tells me that all of us start out as sinners, from the very beginning; it’s nature, not nurture (Ps 58.3). My children could lie (with their expressions) before they could speak, and so could I.
  • It tells me that even Paul the Apostle felt the great internal double-mindedness that I do (Rom 7).

But the Scripture tells me something that my experience doesn’t.

It tells me that there’s a solution.

  • The solution is not in good intentions. Peter denied Jesus even though he intended not to (Mat 26.33).
  • It’s not in gritting my teeth and trying harder. Paul demonstrates that (Rom 7).

The solution is not in me at all. I’m bereft.

The solution is in Christ. My righteous Father, the Scripture tells me, has placed my voluminous sin on His righteous Son: All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned–every one–to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isa 53.6).

How does that happen? By faith.

What does that mean?

I believe in Christ; I trust the effectiveness of his action on my behalf, and I trust that he will forgive me as he has promised. Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 5.1).

I was born that way. But I’m forgiven. None of that garbage counts against me. “My sin … is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more!”

And, remarkably, that’s not the end of the story.

The Scripture tells me 3 more really encouraging things, even as my struggle with my dark heart continues.

  • God has not only forgiven my sin debt, but he has deposited in my account all the righteousness of Christ himself (2 Cor 5.21). He sees me as not just sinless, but the producer of all kinds of good. He sees me through Christ-colored glasses.
  • God has placed in me his Holy Spirit, who enables me to do better; as a believer, I now have the ability, if I will but use it, to do those things that I aspire to (Rom 6). I don’t have to lose anymore. He who lives in me is stronger than my own evil impulses (1 Jn 4.4). I’m still struggling, as is everyone I know; but we have strength that we weren’t born with, and that’s very good news.
  • The present struggle isn’t going to last forever; my current frustration is temporary. The day is coming when God, as he promises, will make me like his Son (1 Jn 3.2). There really is light—great light—at the end of this very dark tunnel.

Yes, I was born that way. And so were you. And there is not only some amorphous “hope,” but there is an answer. A solution.

By faith.

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Created. Now What? Part 3: Recognizing the Image of God

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Part 1 Part 2

So the first major takeaway from creation theology is the fact that we’re special—specifically, that we’re in the image of God.

Before we get to what that means, I’d like to take a post to note whom it involves.

It involves every human—everyone who’s descended from Adam and Eve.

First, it includes sinful humans, and that’s all of us, of course. Every descendant of Adam and Eve is sinful, in at least three ways:

  • We’re guilty of Adam’s sin, because Adam was our representative in the Garden. Paul tells us that in Adam, “all sinned” (Rom 5.12)—not “all sin,” or “all will sin,” but “all sinned.” There are different theories as to how that works, but no orthodox theologian denies the fact that the guilt for Adam’s sin has been imputed to us.

What’s that you say? That’s not fair? Sure seems like it, doesn’t it? But let me encourage you to take a look at the whole picture. Adam’s guilt is imputed to you; that really hurts. But your sin is imputed to Christ (Is 53.4-6), and that’s not “fair” either. And the coup de grace is that Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us (2Cor 5.21), so that God sees us through Christ-colored glasses.

That’s quite an arrangement.

You can whine about fairness if you want, but this is the best deal in the history of ever, and you’d be a fool not to take it.

  • As descendants of Adam, we’ve inherited his sinful nature, so that we’re inclined toward sin; we naturally lean in that direction (Rom 8.5-8; Eph 4.22). We like it.
  • And we sin. Even if Adam’s sin weren’t on our account, we have plenty of our own to answer for. We’re guilty (Rom 3.10-18), as guilty as sin. And if you don’t think so, consider how you’d feel if your thoughts were broadcast, 24/7, to everyone you know. I sure wouldn’t like it. I’m not the only one like that, am I?

But here’s remarkable thing. Even as sinners, we’re still in the image of God (Gen 9.6; Jam 3.9). God’s image in us is so powerful, so deeply embedded by his sculpting hand, that all the sin in the universe can’t blast it away. God is bigger than sin, and so is his image in us.

And one more thing. At the moment he placed that image in us, he said specifically that it involved both kinds of humans: male and female (Gen 1.27).

No, the woman wasn’t an afterthought. That’s ridiculous; God doesn’t have afterthoughts. She’s in the image of God too. I’d go so far as to suggest that neither sex completely reflects the image of God; the image is most clearly and completely displayed by the two together. Which means, I suppose, that the sexes image God most clearly when they’re friends, not enemies.

So why did God delay the creation of Eve? He didn’t say, but as a teacher, I have a suspicion.

He wanted Adam to realize his own incompleteness before he completed him with Eve. He wanted him to treasure what a remarkable and perfect gift she was. So he set him out to name all the animals (Gen 2.19), and here they came, two by two, each male with his perfect female complement. And Adam noticed the obvious: there’s no one like that for me (Gen 2.20). He recognized his need. (Discovery learning!) And when God met that need, perfectly (Gen 2.21-22), Adam burst into poetry (Gen 2.23).

Men have been writing poems to women ever since, with varying degrees of skill. And reception, alas.

Now, how do you treat the image of God?

Well, suppose I’m in London, and I see a bust of the Queen. And I spit on it.

I’m going to have to do a lot of explaining to a lot of Brits, some of them undoubtedly in an official capacity.

And what if I say, “I didn’t spit on the Queen; I spit on a chunk of marble”?

Nope. That excuse is not gonna fly. It’s a piece of marble that looks like the Queen, and that’s the whole point. My treatment of the image can reasonably be taken to reflect my attitude toward the original, the person depicted.

That’s why murder is wrong, you know. Not primarily because the human has a right to life (which he does), but because murder is an attack on, a defacing of, the image of God (Gen 9.6).

So how do you treat the image of God that you see every day? In the rich? The poor? The white? The black? The male? The female? The stronger than you? The disabled? The respectable? The death-row inmate? The countryman? The refugee?

Images of God. All of them. Better not spit on them, or you’re going to have to answer to the Original, and he’s not going to be happy about it.

You disrespect certain kinds of people? Then you need to ask yourself why you despise God so much. You need to repent, and you need to make restitution. You need to repair the damage you’ve done.

Creation theology means that there shouldn’t need to be #metoo hashtags. Or any other campaigns to end abuse, physical or verbal, or even simple disrespect. It’s all ungodly, and in that sense it’s also subhuman.

Get with the species.

Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

Photo by David Marcu on Unsplash