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CHAPTER 4
THE MISUNDERSTANDING OF THE NEED FOR SALVATION
In this chapter, it will be shown how the need for salvation has been misunderstood and partly obscured by the intrusion into Christian theology of legalism. According to legalism, sin is regarded as primarily a falling short of a standard or the breaking of rules, the transgression of the law. This legalistic view of sin was combined in the theology of Augustine with another view of sin derived from the Greek view of reality. According to this view of reality, sin is intrinsic to human nature. The result of this combination is the doctrine of original sin. This doctrine is a misunderstanding and distortion of the Biblical doctrine of sin and death. It obscures the real need for salvation and leads to a misunderstanding of the Biblical doctrine of salvation through Christ and His death.
The intrusion of legalism into Christian theology has lead to a misunderstanding of sin and death. Since, according to legalism, sin is basically a transgression of the law, the breaking of the rules and a falling short of the universal divine standard, sin is considered to be a crime against God, and the penalty for these crimes is spiritual, physical and eternal death. Until the penalty is executed at the last judgment, man is under the burden of an objective guilt or condemnation which must be satisfied by the execution of the penalty. But in addition to this objective guilt there is a subjective guilt of a bad conscience, which may or may not correspond to the objective guilt. This objective guilt has been conceived in terms of a debt which man owes and/or as demerit on man’s record.
This is not the Biblical concept of sin. From the Biblical point of view, sin must be understood and defined in terms of the true God and not just in terms of the law. Sin must be defined as any choice that is contrary to faith and trust in the true God. “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Rom. 14:23). Since sin existed before the law of God was given, sin must not be just a transgression of the law.
“For until the law sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed where there is no law” (Rom. 5:13).
That is, in the period before the law, “sin was in the world.” Men were sinning and sin existed where the law did not exist. Therefore, sin must be more than just a transgression of the law. If sin is just a transgression of the law, then all would not have sinned, since all did not have the law. Not only those before Moses did not have the law, but also the Gentiles did not have the law.
“When the Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law” (Rom. 2:14).
But all have sinned ( Rom. 3:23). Therefore, sin is not just a transgression of the law. The Greek word translated “have sinned” in Rom. 3:23 means “missing the mark.” The mark is not the law as the divine standard, but God Himself. Man misses the mark when he puts his trust and faith in a false god, a substitute for the true God. The falling short of the glory of God in the last part of Rom. 3:23 does not mean falling short of the standard of God’s perfection given in the law. The Greek word here translated “falling short” means “to be in want of” or “to be in need of”. [1] In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, this same word is used in Psa. 23:1. “The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want.” (See also Mt. 19:20; Mark 10:21; Luke 15:14; 22:35; John 2:3; I Cor. 1:7; 8:8; 12:24; II Cor. 11:5, 9; 12:11; Phil. 4:12; Heb. 4:1; 11:37; 12:15). The glory of God in the Old Testament is the manifest presence of God. Therefore, according to Rom. 3:23 man does not have this presence of God; he is in want or need of it. In other words, he is spiritually dead, separated from God’s presence. And all have sinned because they are spiritually dead (Rom. 5:12d ERS). Thus Rom. 3:23 should be translated,
“All have sinned and are in need of the glory [the presence] of God.” (Rom. 3:23 ERS)
The legalistic concept of death is a misunderstanding of the Biblical concept of death. In the Scriptures, death is not always the result of each man’s own personal sins. All men have received spiritual and physical death from Adam (Rom. 5:12) but not eternal death. Man is not responsible for being spiritually dead because he did not choose that state. He received spiritual death from Adam just as he received physical death from Adam (Rom. 5:13-14). But man is responsible for the god he chooses. The true God has not left man without a knowledge about Himself (Rom. 1:19-20). This knowledge about God leaves man without excuse for his idolatry. He knows that his false gods are phonies. But this knowledge does not save him because it is knowledge about the true God, and not a personal knowledge of the true God which is life eternal (John 17:3). But even though man is not responsible for being spiritually dead, he is responsible for remaining in the state of spiritual death when deliverance from it is offered to him in the person of Jesus Christ. If he refuses the gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus, he will receive the wages of his decision, eternal death ( Rom. 6:23). If a man refuses the gift of spiritual and eternal life in Christ Jesus and continues to put his trust in a false god, remaining in spiritual death, then after he dies physically, at the last judgment he will receive the results of his wrong decision or sin, eternal death, separation from God for eternity. Romans 6:23 does not mean that sin must be punished and that death is the penalty of sin. The meaning of this verse must be determined by considering its context, the previous verses from 15 to 23.
“15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it not be! 16 Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves as slaves for obedience, his slaves you are to whom you obey; whether of sin to death or of obedience to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that you were slaves of sin but you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were delivered; 18 and having been freed from sin you became slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For as you presented your members as slaves to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness unto sanctification. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 Therefore, what fruit had you then, because of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now having been freed from sin and having been enslaved to God, you have your fruit to sanctification and the end eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:15-23)
The context of this verse is not the law-court but slavery. Sin is personified as a slavemaster. Verse 14 says sin will no longer have dominion or lordship (kurieusei) over the Christian, because he is now under grace. Verse 16 speaks of yielding oneself as a slave — either to sin or to obedience [to God]. Verse 17 speaks of having been slaves to sin but now ( verse 18) being slaves of righteousness. Verses 20-21 asks what return did they get from the things that they did as slaves of sin. Paul says that the end of the slavery to sin is death. Verse 22 says that the end result of being a slave of God is eternal life. Then in Verse 23, Paul summarizes his argument by saying that the wages of sin, that is, the wages paid by sin as a slavemaster, is death. But God does not pay wages, but gives a free gift, eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
It is very plain from verses 17 and 18 that the slavery of sin was a past experience for the Christian. He has now changed masters. If he had remained under his old master, sin, that master would have eventually paid off in only one kind of coin, death. But since they have changed masters, they are not now in a position to collect wages from the old master, sin. And it does not say the they get wages from their new master, God. But from God they get a free gift, something that could not be earned, eternal life. What kind of death did they receive from their old master? Eternal death, eternal separation from God, is the wages of sin. That eternal death is meant here is clear from the second half this verse: “…but the gift of God is eternal life…” Paul is not talking here about spiritual or physical death but only of eternal death, the end result of the slavery of sin.
Romans 6:23 says nothing about the penalty of sin, that is, that sin must be punished. True, the result of sin is eternal death. But that does not mean that sin must be punished before the sin can be forgiven. If the sinner repents and turns from his idolatry and to the true God in faith, he will be freely forgiven. If he does repent and believe, he will not still be liable to be punished for his sins.
“21 But if a wicked man turns away from all his sins which he has committed and keeps all my statues and does what is lawful and right, he shall live; he shall not die. 22 None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; for the righteousness which he has done he shall live. 23 Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord God, and not rather he should turn from his way and live? … 32 For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God; so turn, and live.” (Ezek. 18:21-23, 32; see also Ezek. 33:11)
Here is the error of legalistic understanding of death. It says that sin must always be punished even if the sinner repents and believes (trusts) God. This contradicts the plain and clear teaching of God’s Word (Ezek. 18:21-23; 33:10-20; Lam. 3:31-33; Isa. 55:6-7; II Chron. 7:14; II Pet. 3:9). Do not misunderstand what I am saying here. I am not saying that God does not punish sin. He does. This is not the error. The error is to say that God cannot forgive sin before or until he has punished sin. The error is that God must always punish sin before sin can be forgiven. That is, that before God can in love forgive the sinner, He must of necessity punish the sin. This is false. Man needs to be forgiven but paying the penalty of sin is not forgiveness. When sin is punished, it is not freely forgiven. The punishment of sin is the execution of the consequences of sin; forgiveness is free dismissal of the effects of sin. If sin is forgiven, it is not punished. Forgiveness through punishment is a contradiction.
According to this legalistic theology, this necessity is grounded in the justice of God. This justice requires, it is said, that the penalty must be paid before guilt can be removed. The guilt of sin cannot be freely forgiven, but it only can be taken away by paying the penalty, which alone can satisfy God’s justice. His justice demands that sin must be always punished. According to this legalistic theology, God is not free to forgive the repentant sinner until the sin is punished. God’s freedom is thus limited and his love is conditioned by his justice. As we saw above, this legalistic concept of justice is a misunderstanding of the righteousness of God.
The legalistic preoccupation in Christian theology with death as the necessary penalty of sin has distorted the Biblical concept of spiritual death as separation from God and of eternal death as eternal separation from God. Separation from God is far more serious than the penal consequences of sin as God is more important than the law. But not only is death misunderstood but life is also misunderstood as the reward for meritorious works. Life as fellowship and communion with God, a personal relationship to God, is lost sight of in the legalistic preoccupation with the law and its meritorious observance.
END NOTES FOR “THE MISUNDERSTANDING OF SIN AND DEATH”
Legalism understands righteousness to be a keeping of the rules, a conformity to the law in thought, word and deed, a living up to the divine standard; righteousness is moral perfection. Since man is created, according to legalism, under the law and for the law, man’s highest good and final goal is this moral perfection, this legal righteousness. To stand spotless and without blame before the law is thought to be man’s ultimate hope. This righteousness is often conceived in terms of merit; each good deed has a certain quantity of righteousness or merit associated with it. During the course of his life a man acquires merit by his good works or demerit by his sins, transgressions of the law. At the final judgment these will be weighed in the double-pan balance of justice (dike). And justice will render to each impartially that which is due to him (he has earned it). If the merits outweigh the demerits, the man is legally declared righteous and legally entitled (he has earned it) to eternal life and blessedness. On the other hand, if the demerits predominate, he justly deserves and receives eternal death, punishment, pain and suffering.
This legalistic concept of righteousness is a misunderstanding of the Biblical concept of righteousness. The Biblical concept of righteousness is revealed in the story of Abraham. After God revealed His promises to Abraham, the Scripture says, “then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it [his faith] to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6; see also Rom. 4:3; Gal. 3:6). Abraham believed the promises of God and his faith was reckoned to him as righteousness (Rom. 4:5, 9). And Abraham’s faith was reckoned to him as righteousness because faith in God is righteousness, the righteousness of faith (Rom. 4:16-22). Righteousness is not a quality that we possess, neither is it merit that we have earned or have imputed to our account, but a right relationship to God. Faith in God relates us rightly to God. A man is righteous when he is in right relationship to God. And faith in God, believing the promises of God, trusting in God is being in right relationship to God. The righteousness of faith is the opposite of sin; sin is trusting in a false god and righteousness is trusting in the true God. Just as man’s basic sin is idolatry, so man’s basic righteousness is allegiance to and worship of the true God from the heart. It has nothing to do with merit just as sin has nothing to do with demerit.
This legalistic misunderstanding of sin and death as well as of righteousness and life, leads to a misunderstanding of the need for salvation. Since according to legalism, sin is basically a transgression of the law, the breaking of the rules and a falling short of the universal divine standard of perfection, sin is considered to be a crime against God, and the penalty for these crimes is spiritual, physical and eternal death. Until this penalty is executed at the last judgment, man is under the burden of an objective guilt or condemnation which must be punished. Thus according to this legalistic theology, man needs to be saved because he is a guilty sinner. But according to this theology, man also needs to be saved because he does not have a righteousness or merit which God can reward with eternal life. As we just saw, this righteousness is conceived legalistically as merits, that is, that quantity of righteousness which entitles its owner to a reward of eternal life. Thus man needs to be saved, not only because he is a guilty sinner liable to eternal death, but also because he does not have this legal righteousness which entitles him to eternal life.
This legalistic misunderstanding of the need for salvation underlies both Roman Catholic and orthodox Protestant theology. It is true that they both in their own way teach that salvation is by the grace of God. But they do so in such a way that this basic legalistic conception remains intact. This legalistic misunderstanding came into Christian theology through Tertullian (3rd century) and Cyprian (4th century) and was fixed upon Christian theology by Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in North Africa, in the early fifth century A.D. This came about in connection with his controversy with a British monk, Pelagius. Pelagius had come to Rome teaching and zealously exhorting his fellow Christians to good works. He was especially disturbed about those who endeavored to excuse themselves, when charged with their sins, by the inability of their sinful natures. He was outraged by these excuses and Pelagius cried,
“Oh, blind madness! We accuse God of a twofold ignorance, — that He does not know what He has made, nor what He has commanded, — as if forgetting the human weakness of which He is Himself the Author, He has imposed laws on man which he cannot endure.”
Pelagius “himself tells us that it was his custom, therefore, whenever he had to speak on moral improvement and the conduct of a holy life, to begin by pointing out the power and quality of human nature, and by showing what it was capable of doing. For (he says) he esteemed it of small use to exhort men to do what they deemed impossible: hope must rather be our companion, and all longing and effort die when we despair of attaining.” [1] Upon hearing Augustine’s prayer — “Give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt” — repeated in his hearing, Pelagius became particularly incensed. The powers of man, he held, were gifts of God; and it was, therefore, a reproach against God as if God had made man weak or evil, to believe that they were insufficient for keeping of His law. Pelagius began to teach and write against this Augustinian view, and when Augustine heard and read these Pelagian teachings, he engaged Pelagius in a lengthy controversy by writing many treatises opposing his teachings.
The legalistic misunderstanding of sin and death and of righteousness and life underlies this controversy. Both Augustine and Pelagius assumed that eternal life was something that had to be earned by meritorious works; it was a reward for righteousness or good works. But Augustine and Pelagius differed on whether man was able or free to do such good works. Augustine denied that man since the fall was able apart from God’s grace not to sin and do good works. Adam’s descendants, he held, were not able to earn salvation by their good works because they had lost their freedom not to sin. Consequently, apart from God’s grace, they were not able to do good works and hence to merit eternal life as a reward for their good works. Only by God’s grace was man enabled to do good works and thus receive the reward of eternal life. Thus according to Augustine eternal life is both a gift and a reward: a gift because only by the grace of God is man enabled to do good works and a reward because these good works merit eternal life as a reward for these good works. Augustine wrote:
“If eternal life is rendered to good works, as the Scripture openly declares: ‘Then He shall reward every man according to his works,’ (Matt. 16:27), how can eternal life be a matter of grace, seeing that grace is not rendered to works, but is given gratuitously as the apostle himself tells us: ‘To him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt’ … ? (Rom. 4:4) … ? How, then, is eternal life by grace, when it is received from works?… This question then, seems to me to be by no means capable of solution, unless we understand that even those good works of ours, which are recompensed with eternal life, belong to the grace of God… It follows, then, beloved, beyond all doubt, that as your good life is nothing else than God’s grace, so also the eternal life which is the recompense of a good life is the grace of God; moreover, it is given gratuitously, even as that is given gratuitously to which it is given. But that to which it is given is solely and simply grace; this therefore is also that which is given to it, because it is its reward; grace is for grace, as if remuneration for righteousness; in order that it may be true, because it is true, that God ‘shall reward every man according to his works.'” [2]“Nevertheless, since even that eternal life itself, which, it is certain, is given as due to good works, is called by so great an apostle the grace of God, although grace is not rendered to works, but is given freely, it must be confessed without any doubt, that eternal life is called grace for the reason that it is rendered to those merits which grace has conferred upon man.” [3]
Pelagius, on the other hand, affirmed man’s freedom not to sin and to do good works because the denial of human freedom undermined man’s responsibility for his acts. According to Pelagius, by the grace of creation God had given man the freedom not to sin and to do good works. By these man could gain eternal life as a reward for his good works. Thus also for Pelagius eternal life is both a gift and a reward. But the gift was by the grace of creation. Nature and grace are the same. For Augustine, nature and grace are separate and distinct from each other because what was given to man in creation, the freedom not to sin, was lost by the fall and could be restored only by the special grace of Jesus Christ. Apart from this difference concerning nature and grace (and the doctrine of original sin), Augustine and Pelagius both assumed that eternal life was basically a meritorious reward, and freedom to do good works was given by God’s grace in order that man might receive eternal life as a reward for his meritorious good works that grace made possible. The conception of salvation of both of them is basically legalistic: eternal life is something that has to be earned by meritorious good works. But because the grace of God makes good works possible, salvation is also by grace.
ENDNOTES FOR “THE MISUNDERSTANDING OF THE NEED FOR SALVATION”
[1] Benjamin B. Warfield, “Introductory Essay on Augustin (sic) and the Pelagian Controversy,” in Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, vol. 5 (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1971), p. xiv.
[2] Augustine, “A Treatise on Grace and Free Will,” ch. 19-20, in Schaff, pp. 451-452. See also chapters 6, 13-15, of the same treatise.
[3] Augustine, “A Treatise on Rebuke and Grace,” chap. 41, in Schaff, pp. 488-489.
The difference between Augustine and Pelagius concerning nature and grace centered in the doctrine of original sin. Pelagius contended that since nature and grace are the same, the freedom not to sin and to do good works was a gift by the grace of creation. Augustine denied this freedom; man since the fall was “not able not to sin” (non posse non pecarre) apart from the special grace of God. What was given to man in creation was lost by the fall and could only be restored by the special grace of Jesus Christ. Nature and grace are separate and distinct from each other. The natural freedom that was given in creation was lost by the fall, and since the fall, man is not able to do good works apart from the grace of God. Augustine appealed to the doctrine of original sin to support his denial of human freedom not to sin. The whole race, he held, was corrupted in the first or original sin of Adam; from Adam each member of the human race has inherited a sinful nature. By the process of natural generation each individual member of the human race is “tainted with the original sin” of Adam. And because of this inherited sinful nature man is not able not to sin. The nature that man possesses is the same nature that corrupted itself in Adam. This nature expresses itself in actual sins. The will is an expression of one’s nature, he held. And since human nature is sinful, man sins. Man is not a sinner because he sins but he sins because he is a sinner by nature. Thus man needs to be saved because he is a sinner by nature.
According to this Augustinian doctrine of original sin, which is sometimes called the natural headship theory, not only did the whole race corrupt itself in the first or original sin of Adam who is the natural head of the human race, but the whole race is guilty of Adam’s sin and has inherited the penalty of that sin, death. In the same way that the whole tribe of the Levites was in Abraham’s loins when he paid tithes to Melchizedek, and thus each Levite paid tithes with him (See Heb. 7:9-10), each member of the human race was seed in Adam when he sinned, and thus each participated in the first or original sin by “seminal identity.” Because of the organic unity of the race in Adam, his act of sin was the act of every member of the human race, even though they were not conscious of this sin and were not even persons at the time. Following the Latin Vulgate translation of the last clause of Romans 5:12: “in quo omnes peccaverunt” (“in whom all sinned”), Augustine concluded that because all men literally sinned in Adam, their natural head, they are all guilty and have all inherited the penalty of that sin — physical, spiritual and eternal death. Men are under condemnation not only because of their own personal sins, which each commits as an expression of his sinful nature, but because of the guilt of the original sin in which they participated in Adam before they were born.
After the Reformation, many Protestant theologians reinterpreted the doctrine of original sin. God appointed Adam, they said, to be the federal head or legal representative of the whole race. God then entered into a covenant with the whole race through Adam as their legal representative. According to the terms of this covenant of works, God promised to bestow eternal life upon Adam and the entire race if he, as federal head, obeyed God. On the other hand, God threatened the punishment of death, that is condemnation and a sinful corrupt nature, upon the whole race if he, as their federal head, disobeyed. Now since Adam sinned, God reckoned his descendants as guilty, under condemnation to eternal death. Adam’s sin is imputed to each member of the race as his own guilt. And because of this imputation of guilt, each member of the race has received by inheritance a sinful or corrupt nature. This sinful nature, which is itself sin, leads invariably to acts of sin. And each man in addition to the racial guilt is also guilty for his own personal sins. Thus, men carry a double burden of guilt, of both objective and subjective guilt and condemnation. This theory of the relationship of Adam’s sin to the rest of the human race is known in Christian theology as the federal headship theory to distinguish it from the natural headship theory of Augustine. But in spite of the difference between them, these two theories lead to the same view of man’s need for salvation. Man is a guilty sinner because of Adam’s original sin and also because of his own personal sins which he commits because of an inherited sinful nature. Both theories view man’s relationship to God as a legal relationship and sin as a violation of that relationship as well as intrinsic to human nature. They are both basically and essentially legalistic.
In this doctrine of original sin, Augustine combined the legalistic conception of sin and death with another view of sin as intrinsic to human nature derived from the Greek view of reality. Augustine absorbed this view of sin as intrinsic to human nature from his pre-Christian days when he studied and taught philosophy first as a Manichean and later as a Neoplatonist. Although after his conversion he opposed this view of sin in the controversy with the Manicheans, he later drew upon these views, unconsciously perhaps, in developing his doctrine of original sin during the heat of the Pelagian controversy. They were ready-made concepts to be used as tools in the heated debate with Pelagius and the Pelagians. He reinterpreted them in a Christian framework and reclothed them in Biblical terminology.
This conception of sin as intrinsic to human nature follows from the Greek conception of God as divine reason and is an essential part of the Greek view of reality. Since a concept of God entails a concept of sin, the Greek concept of reason as the divine involves the concept of sin as intrinsic to human nature. According to the Greek view of reality, the senses are the opposite of reason, and since the objects of reason are good, the objects of the senses, the world of change, are evil or, at least, not good. Although Plato and Aristotle did not explicitly draw this conclusion, that the changing world of sense was evil, it was implied in their assertion that the good and the real is the rational. This conclusion was drawn by later Greek thinkers, the Neoplatonists and the Gnostics in particular. Time, matter in general, the body in particular, and all physical desires whatever are evil. Since the realm of time is the realm of change, time is inferior to eternity, which is the realm of the unchanging and hence the timeless. [1]
Temporal existence is itself a stigma. Man is a prisoner of time and change; he yearns to escape the bondage of change for the eternal realm that never changes. Not only is time an evil to escape from, but matter in general, the mere fact of there being physical objects, is an obstacle to the good. It is opaque, inert, intractable stuff, impenetrable to thought and to the clarity of intellectual vision. In addition, matter is the source of multiplicity and diversity. In contrast to the realm of truth which is one and unity, the realm of the senses is many and disunity. Change is possible because there are many different physical things. Eternity is unchanging and timeless because there is no plurality of being but only one. Being and truth are one. The opposite of the one of being is the many of non-being; between them is the realm of becoming where the non-being seeks to become being, the many to become one. Matter, non-being, is the “principle of individuation” which splits reality into myriad fragments. Matter is the source of finiteness and evil. Material existence with its distinctions between one thing and another, including the distinction between the subject and object, the self and the non-self, must be overcome, abolished, transcended, so that all the different things of the world become one, become identical with one another. [2]
When applied to man, this view disparages his body. This attitude was given expression in the maxim so popular among the Greeks, “The body is a tomb” (soma sema). The body is the prison-house of the soul. Man’s reason (rational soul) which is a fragment of the divine cosmic reason is held captive contrary to its nature in the fetters of sense. The body’s worst offense is that, by means of the five senses, it attracts the mind to the world of temporal and physical objects, thereby plunging it into ignorance and illusion. Plato’s famous allegory of the cave in the seventh book of the Republic clearly expresses this view. In this allegory our position here in the world of sense is compared by Plato to that of men sitting chained in an underground cave, facing away from the entrance of the cave. They are able only to see the shadows of the outside world on the back wall of the cave. Having never been able to see the outside world, the prisoners believe these shadows to be true reality. So men imprisoned in the body are able only to see through the senses the shadows of true reality of divine reason. This disparagement of the senses in favor of reason leads to a negative view of the body as well as of matter and time. Aristotle only echoes this Greek view of reality when he complains that man’s rational nature is impeded by the exercise of bodily functions.
“There seems to be also another irrational element in the soul — one which in a sense, however, shares in a rational principle. For we praise the rational principle of the continent man and of the incontinent, and the part of their soul that has such a principle, since it urges them aright and towards the best objects; but there is found in them also another element naturally opposed to the rational principle, which fights against and resists that principle. For exactly as paralyzed limbs when we intend to move them to the right turn on contrary to the left, so is it with the soul; the impulses of incontinent people move in contrary directions.” [3]
The disparagement of the body by the Greek world view centers on the desires of the body and in particular the sex impulses. The physical desires of the body are incompatible with love for the divine reason, the longing to participate and become one with it. They prevent the knower from being completely “objective” and “disinterested”; they introduce a “subjective” factor to distort the clarity of the intellectual vision. [4]
Although opposing this view of sin and evil on the grounds of the goodness of creation (Gen. 1:12, 18, 21, 25, 31), Augustine never completely escaped this influence, and in the heat of the Pelagian controversy it emerged reclothed in Biblical terminology in the doctrine of original sin. Combined with the legalistic misunderstanding of sin and death, this Greek view of sin as intrinsic to human nature was introduced into Western Christian theology and has been at the bottom of many doctrinal controversies in the Christian church. [5]
The doctrine of original sin, although containing elements of the Biblical doctrine of sin and death, is a legalistic distortion and misunderstanding of the Biblical doctrine of sin and death. That spiritual death, the separation from God which was spread with physical death upon the whole race from Adam (Rom. 5:12), is the condition for sin is not understood. This more primary and basic relationship of sin-because-of-spiritual-death is ignored. Most Protestant and Roman Catholic theologians ignore this relationship, not recognizing its existence. But Augustine could not ignore it because there were contemporary theologians in the 5th century, Mark the Hermit and Theodore of Mopsuestia, for example, who held to this view. Theodore of Mopsuestia in his treatise “Against the Defenders of Original Sin” apparently held to such a view. Jaroslav Pelikan says, “Theodore often attributed sin to the fact of man’s mortality, although he sometimes reversed the connection.” [6] Pelikan quotes Theodore as follows:
“Since sin was reigning in our mortality, and conversely death was growing stronger in us on account of sin, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ came… and destroyed death by his death, he also destroyed the sin which was rooted in our nature by reason of mortality.” [7]
Concerning Mark the Hermit, Edward Yarnold says:
“What we have inherited from Adam, he maintained, is not his sin, because in that case we should all be born sinners, which is not true. What is inherited is his death, which consists in separation from God.” [8]
Other early Greek church fathers such as Irenaeus and Athanasius also placed the emphasis on death rather than sin as what we received from Adam and from which Christ saved us. [9] Augustine attempts to refute this view of sin-because-of-death in his “A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians,” bk. IV, chapter 6-8. He writes concerning those who held this view.
“For where the apostle says, ‘By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so passed upon all men,’ they will have it there understood not that ‘sin’ passed over, but ‘death.’ What, then, is the meaning of what follows, ‘wherein all have sinned’? For either the apostle says that in that ‘one man’ all have sinned of whom he had said, ‘By one man sin entered into the world,’ or else in that ‘sin’ or certainly in ‘death.’ For it need not disturb us that he said not ‘in which‘ [using the feminine form of the pronoun] but ‘in whom’ [using the masculine] all have sinned; since ‘death’ in the Greek language is of the masculine gender. Let them, then, choose which they will, — for either in that ‘man’ all have sinned, and it is so said because when he sinned all were in him; or in that ‘sin’ all have sinned, because that was the doing of all in general which all those who were born would have to derive; or it remains for them to say that in that ‘death’ all sinned. But in what way this can be understood, I do not clearly see. For all die in sin; they do not sin in death; for when sin precedes, death follows — not when death precedes, sin follows …. But if ‘sin’ cannot be understood by those words of the apostle as being that ‘wherein all have sinned,’ because in Greek from which the Epistle is translated, ‘sin’ is expressed in the feminine gender, it remains that all men are understood to have sinned in that first ‘man,’ because all men were in him when he sinned; and from him sin is derived by birth, and is not remitted save by being born again.” [10]
Note that the Latin translation of Rom. 5:12 which Augustine quotes omits the word “death” from the phrase “and so passed upon all men.” On this basis, Augustine incorrectly assumed that it was sin that passed upon all men, and that this sin is a sinful or corrupt nature that was passed. But the original Greek that Paul wrote includes the word thanatos [death] in the phrase, and our English versions correctly translates it, “and so death spread to all men.”
Augustine took the relative pronoun ho in the last clause of Romans 5:12 as masculine referring to “man” in the first clause and at the same time he gave the preposition the meaning of “in.” Thus he gave the prepositional phrase eph ho the meaning in lumbis Adami (“in the loins of Adam”). However, this interpretation must be rejected. For
(a) the Greek preposition epi does not here have the meaning of “in” and
(b) while the Greek relative pronoun ho may be taken as masculine, it is too far removed from anthropou (“man”) for that to be its antecedent, being separated from it by so many intervening clauses. [11]
The Latin Vulgate translation is obviously not correct. Most theologians today accept this conclusion but many still hold to Augustine’s interpretation while rejecting his grammatical analysis of this phrase as its basis. John Murray says,
“It is unnecessary at this stage in the history of exposition to argue that the Vulgate rendering, ‘in quo omnes peccaverunt,’
though, as we shall see, it is theologically true, is nevertheless grammatically untenable.” [12]
How can a translation be theologically true and at the same time grammatically untenable? Does not exegesis determine theology and not theology exegesis? Murray’s legalistic theological presuppositions, like Augustine’s, determine for him the meaning of the phrase and not the rules of grammar. According to the legalistic presuppositions, death is always the penalty of sin, the penal consequence of the transgression of the law. Death, therefore, cannot produce sin. So according to them, the Apostle Paul cannot be saying that “all sinned because of death.” Their legalistic theological presuppositions has made this interpretation impossible and meaningless for them.
In the doctrine of original sin, sin is misunderstood as intrinsic to human nature as an inherited sinful nature, an intrinsic inability to do righteousness and a definite necessity to do sin. This doctrine of the sinful nature is nowhere taught in Scripture. None of the passages of Scripture usually cited in support of this doctrine (Psa. 51:5; Job 14:4; Eph. 2:3) say that man since the fall has a sinful nature, that is, that man sins because he is a sinner by nature. On the contrary, all men sin because they are spiritually dead and they sin because they choose to sin. According to Rom. 5:12d (ERS), all men sin because they are spiritually dead. Death is not the sinful nature. These are two totally different concepts. The sinful nature is the nature of man that is sinful and the nature of man is what man is – that which makes man what he is and what he does. The nature of anything is that essence of the thing that determines what it is and how it acts. The sinful nature is that nature of man, because it is sinful, makes him sin. Death, on the other hand, is a negative relationship of separation. Physical death is the separation of man’s spirit from his body, spiritual death is the separation of man’s spirit from God, and eternal death (“the second death,” Rev. 20:14) is the eternal separation of man’s spirit from God. Spiritual death is the opposite of spiritual life, which is to know personnally the true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent (John 17:3). That is, spiritual death is not to know the true God and His Son whom He has sent. Knowledge is the relationship between the knower and that which is known. Knowledge is not a nature but a relationship. It should be clear now that death as this negative relationship is not the sinful nature. A relationship is not a nature. According to the Doctrine of Original Sin, the sinful nature causes death, but this does not mean that death is the sinful nature. Nowhere in the Scriptures does it teach this doctrine. Man’s nature is neither sinful or good; it is what a man chooses it to be. If he chooses a false god as his ultimate criterion of choice, then his choices will be sinful. On the other hand, if he chooses to follow the true God, then his choices will be righteous and good. And a man makes the choice of his god, upon the basis of whether he knows personally the true God and His Son whom He has sent, or not. If he does not know the true God and His Son Whom He has sent, he will choose a false god, that is, he sins because he is spiritually dead (Rom. 5:12d ERS). And all men are sinners because they sin by choosing a false god as the ultimate criterion of their choices since they are spiritually dead, not because they are sinners by nature.
Psa. 51:5, which says,
“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me,”
means either that David’s birth was an act of sin (that is, his birth was illegitimate, which clearly it was not) or that he sins from birth as Psa. 58:3 says:
“The wicked go astray from the womb, they err from their birth, speaking lies.” (See also Isa. 48:8)
Job 14:4, which says,
“Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? There is none.”
means that righteousness can not come from the unrighteous and that a sinner can only bring forth sin; from its context this verse does not seem to be referring to the birth of the sinner. None of these passages say why man sins from birth. Paul explains that in Romans 5:12d: “because of which [death] all sinned” (ERS).
In Eph. 2:2-3 Paul says,
“2 In which [sins] you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air,
of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lust of our flesh,
indulging the wishes of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”
The “flesh” here is the body, which Paul contrasts with the mind; “the wishes of the flesh and of the mind.” The NIV totally mistranslates this phrase as “the craving of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts.” The RSV correctly translates it: “the desires of body and mind.” Also Paul says, “we were by nature children of wrath”, not “by nature sinners”. Paul is here not saying why men sin, but only that men are naturely objects of God’s wrath, since they have sinned.
The flesh is not the sinful nature. The Apostle Paul, like the other New Testament writers, never use the word “flesh” (sarx) to mean the sinful nature in the sense of that in man which makes him sin; that is, that man sins because he has a sinful nature. Man does not sin because he has a sinful nature, but he is a sinner because he chooses to sin; he sins by choice, not by his sinful nature. When the Apostle John wrote, “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14 NAS), he clearly was not saying that the Word of God became a sinner by nature and had a sinful nature. Clearly he means that the Son of God became a human being, a man. Paul uses the word (sarx), usually translated “flesh,” like the rest of the New Testament writers (the word “sarx” occurs 151 times in the Greek New Testament), with the following different meanings:
1. The soft tissue of the body (Rom. 2:28; I Cor. 15:39; Col. 2:13),
2. The body itself (II Cor. 12:7; Gal. 4:13-14; Eph. 2:15; 5:29; Col. 1:24),
3. The physical union of man and woman (“one flesh” I Cor. 6:16; Eph. 5:31),
4. Body contrasted with the human spirit (I Cor. 5:5; II Cor. 7:1; Col. 2:5; Rom. 7:18),
5. Man or human being (Rom. 3:20 and Gal. 2:16 quoting Psa. 143:2; I Cor. 1:29; John 1:14;
“flesh and blood” Gal. 1:16 and Eph. 6:12; Rom. 7:18; John 1:14),
6. Human life on earth (Gal. 2:20; II Cor. 10:3a; Phil. 1:22, 24; Col. 2:1),
7. Human nature ( Rom. 6:19; 8:3; II Cor. 4:11; I Tim. 3:16),
8. Human (“according to the flesh” Eph. 6:5; Col. 3:22;
“body of flesh” Col. 1:22; 2:11) or worldly (II Cor. 1:17; 10:2, 3b),
9. Human descent or relationship, kin (Rom. 9:3; 11:14),
10. Human point of view (I Cor. 1:26; II Cor. 5:16),
11. Human contrasted with divine (Rom. 1:3; 9:5; Philem. 16),
12. Unsaved (“in the flesh” Rom. 7:5; 8:8-9),
13. That which is not God or of God (Gal. 5:13-24),
14. Anything that is an object of trust instead of God
(Isa. 31:1-3; Jer. 17:5; Rom. 8:4-7; Phil. 3:3, 4;
Compare Phil. 3:19; Col. 3:2). [13]
The Greek word sarx usually translated “flesh” in our English translations (KJV, RSV, NAS) is incorrectly translated in the New International Version (NIV) as “sinful nature” in Rom. 7:18, 25; 8:3, 5, 8, 9, 12, 13; Gal. 5:13, 16, 17; Eph. 2:3. In Romans 7, Paul never identifies the flesh with sinful nature. And neither is the “indwelling sin” in Romans 7:17, 20 the sinful nature. Paul explains in verse 7:18 what “indwelling sin” is; it is that “the good does not dwell in [him], that is, in [his] flesh.” The “flesh” here is that part of man that is not spirit. (See 4 above). Neither is the “law of sin” in verses 7:23, 25 and 8:2 the sinful nature; he defines the “law of sin” in verse 21: “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do the good, evil is present with me.”
And also in Romans 8, Paul never identifies the flesh with the sinful nature. In Romans 8:3, the word “flesh” is qualified by the word “sin” because flesh is not inherently sinful. The flesh here is human nature (see 7 above) and the flesh may be designated as sinful when a man chooses to sin ( Rom. 6:16-18).
The Greek word sarx in Romans 8:4-7, 12-13 designates anything that is an object of trust instead of God (see 14 above) and it is not the sinful nature. This use of sarx in verse 5 is just Paul’s way of saying that “those according to the flesh,” put their trust in something other than the true God, that is, “set their minds on the things of the flesh”. The word translated “set the mind on” indicates a “conscious spiritual orientation of life,” an attitude or disposition of the will. [14] See Paul’s use of this word phroneo in Rom. 12:16; Phil. 2:2, 5; 3:15; and Col. 3:2; see also Matt. 16:23. This orientation toward the flesh, to that which is not God who is spirit, is what we have been calling the basic sin of idolatry. This is not the sinful nature and it is misleading to call it that.
The phrase “in the flesh” in Romans 8:8-9 is clearly equivalent to “unsaved” as in Rom. 7:5 (see 12 above); it is opposite to being “in the Spirit” which is to be “saved”.
Sometimes it is argued that if the doctrine of the sinful nature is rejected, then how can salvation by works be logically opposed and rejected? If man does not have a sinful nature, then won’t he be able to save himself by his good works? Won’t he be able to earn his salvation by his meritorious works? Thus it is argued that the doctrine of the sinful nature must be accepted if salvation by works is to be rejected. Since the Scriptures clearly teaches that salvation is not by works but by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8-9; Titus 3:5; etc.), then, it is argued, the doctrine of the sinful nature must be accepted in order to oppose and reject salvation by works.
Now the curious thing about this line of reasoning is that it assumes that if man is to be saved, he will be saved by works. That is, it assumes that if man were able to do good works, then he could save himself by his good works. But that is not true. Man can not save himself, even if he was able to do the good works to earn it. Salvation is not earned; it is a gift (Eph. 2:8-9; Titus 3:5). Whether man is able to do good works or not has nothing to do with salvation since salvation is not something which can be earned with good works. The controversy between Augustine and Pelagius is beside the point; their disagreement over whether man is free to sin or not, free to do good works or not, has nothing to do with whether salvation is by works or not. It was because they both assumed that salvation was by works that their disagreement over man’s free will had any point to it. And the doctrine of original sin and the sinful nature is also not necessary in order to reject salvation by works. It was only because Augustine made the legalistic assumption that salvation was something to be earned by works that he brought in the doctrine of the sinful nature to deny that man was able to save himself. Under the skin, Augustine was as much a legalist as Pelagius who explicitly taught that man could be saved by his meritorious works.
A legalistic Christian theology requires the doctrine of an inherited sinful nature. It says that if man did not have an inherited sinful nature, he would be able to do good works and then he could save himself by his meritorious good works. Thus it must teach that man must have an inherited sinful nature otherwise he could save himself. But this is not why man cannot not save himself. Man cannot save himself because he is dead and he cannot make himself alive, not because he is not able to do meritorious works. A legalistic Christian theology does not understand this. As long as Christian theology thinks of salvation legalistically as something earned by merits, it will need the doctrine of original sin to explain why man cannot save himself.
ENDNOTES FOR “THE MISUNDERSTANDING OF THE ORIGIN OF SIN”
[1] Plotinus, The Six Enneads, Third Ennead, VII, 11 in vol. 17 of Great Books of the Western World, ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins
(Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952), p. 126.
[2] W. T. Stace, Religion and the Modern Mind (New York: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1952), p. 230.
[3] Aristotle, “Nicomachean Ethics” I, 13, 1102b in vol. 9 of Great Books of the Western World, ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins
(Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952), p. 348.
[4] Cherbonnier, Hardness of Heart, pp. 69-71.
[6] Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian tradition: vol. 1, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600) (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1971), pp. 285-286. See also Joanne McWilliam Dewart, The Theology of Grace of Theodore of Mopsuestia (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1971), pp. 33-37.
[7] Theodore Mopsuestia, “Exposition of the Gospel of John 1:29”, trans. from Corpus scriptorum christianorum orientalium, 116:29 (115:42)
(Paris, 1903- ) quoted by Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, p.286.
[8] Edward Yarnold, The Theology of Original Sin (Notre Dame: Fides Publishers, 1971), p.64.
[9] J. N. D. Kelley, Early Christian Doctrine (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1960), pp. 170-174, 346-348.
[10] Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, vol. 5 (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1971), p. 419.
See also Augustine’s “A Treatise on Merits and Forgiveness of Sins,” and on the “Baptism of Infants,” bk. III, chapter 20.
[11] William Sanday and Arthur C. Headlam, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans in The International Critical Commentary (New York: Charles Scribner Sons, 1915), p. 133.
[12] John Murray, The Imputation of Adam’s Sin (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1959), footnote 10. p. 9.
[13] Eduard Schweizer, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Vol. VII, pp. 129-131.
[14] Georg Bertram, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Vol. IX, pp. 220-235.
In conclusion, the following statements will summarize our findings concerning the origin of sin.
1. The origin of sin is twofold:
a. the historical origin of sin is the sin of Adam, the Fall of man,
b. the immediate, contemporary and personal origin of the sin for each of Adam’s descendants is the transmitted spiritual death from Adam to his descendants.
2. The analysis of human freedom shows that man must have a god as the ultimate criterion of his choices.
3. Because man is spiritually dead and does not personally know the true God as a living reality, he choses a substitute for the true God as his god. Thus man sins because he is spiritually dead.
4. Man has not lost his freedom of choice as the result of the Fall of man in the sin of Adam; he is able to choose not to sin. But since he cannot make himself alive to God, he cannot save himself.
5. Man needs to be saved basically from death, spiritual and physical; salvation from death is man’s primary problem. Salvation from sin is a secondary problem, since man sins because of death.
6. Salvation is not something to be earned by meritorious works but is the gift of a personal relationship with the true God — spiritual and eternal life. Salvation by meritorious works to earn eternal life is in principle contrary to Scripture.
7. The problem of original sin is a pseudo problem arising from a misunderstanding of the Biblical teaching concerning the origin of sin and the need for salvation. This misunderstanding arises from legalistic concept of salvation as something to be earned by meritorious works and a legalistic misinterpretation of Scripture, particularly Rom. 5:12.
8. The sinful nature was introduced into Christian theology to explain why man cannot save himself by his meritorious works. But since salvation has nothing to do with meritorious works (it is a gift), the doctrine of the sinful nature is unnecessary to explain why man cannot save himself. Furthermore, it is not taught in the Scriptures.