“Since the fall, the whole of humankind is sinful and guilty, so that everyone is subject to God's wrath and condemnation.”
What are we affirming in this statement?
The Christian faith and its doctrine does not consist of a random sampling of everything that is true about reality and the universe, but is explicitly directed by the drama of God’s mission to rescue humanity and reconcile us back to him. Understanding sin and the fall is essential to making sense of the nature of salvation and why there is even a need for salvation in the first place. The doctrine of sin articulated in the Doctrinal Basis (DB) serves as a bridge from contemplating God and creation to looking more closely at Jesus and salvation.
Sin is much misunderstood, even by Christians. It is culturally offensive and often downplayed as a doctrine that is almost as awkward to bring up as hell and eternal judgement. However, we mustn’t shy away from contemplating and speaking about sin.
At its most basic level it is a crucial doctrine to grasp as it forms a foundation for our need for both rescue and justification. But it is also an incredibly fruitful doctrine to explore in all its depth – the pervasiveness of sin and the many facets of its consequences have enormous potential to help us appreciate the rich and varied dimensions of the gospel.
For our purposes we will simply outline a basic sketch of the doctrine.
"Since the fall,"
We begin with the affirmation of an historic fall. Sin has a starting point with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden which marks a move from favour with God to making ourselves his enemies. The positive side of this is that sin is alien to the original created design for human beings. With a fall comes the hope of restoration to what we were meant to be. The negative side we know only too well; the sin of Adam and Eve introduced sin into the world impacting human status (fallen), human nature (subject to death), and the state of affairs in the world (cursed according to Genesis 3:14-19).
"the whole of humankind is sinful"
Romans 5:12 says, “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—” (NIV). Sin is not just something you or I do such that someone could claim to have never sinned, but it is something that has invaded our very nature through Adam so that we cannot escape its stain and influence. Our propensity, the orientation of our will, is now naturally towards sinning, not towards glorifying God. Because of the presence of sin, even the ‘good’ things that we do provide nothing towards securing us a good standing with God or righteous status. We also directly transgress God’s law: we do things which are themselves wicked, we are filled with envy, pride, etc. (‘anyone who claims to be without sin is a liar’)
"and guilty"
A significant consequence of our sin is that we now stand guilty before God. We have been made enemies of God through Adam’s (and our own) rebellion, plunged into an existence as unrighteous law-breakers, bearing a guilt that we cannot shake and cannot atone for ourselves. It might seem unfair that we are condemned for what might be construed as ultimately the action of another. But, aside from asking the sobering question ‘in Adam’s place, would I have done any better?’, it is worth remembering that this is also the nature of our rescue from sin (Romans 5:15,18).
"so that everyone is subject to God’s wrath and condemnation."
Our sin leaves us separated from God, our guilt meaning we are justly deserving of his wrath and stand condemned before his holiness and justice.
The nature of our separation and condemnation is that we live without connection to the source of life. Our sinful natures are corrupt and subject to death. We, and the whole earth with us, are subject to the decaying effects of the curse of the fall which is God’s judgement upon Sin.
And God’s wrath against the wickedness of sin means that he will ultimately undo sin, bring a final end to evil which spells bad news for sinners outside of some means of rescue. This final judgement is a whole topic in itself to be explored in more detail in light of Christ’s saving work.
Where is this challenged or a challenge when studying theology at university?
The doctrine of sin is overlooked and denied in many different ways in academic theology. Both drawing attention to the inherent evil in everyone and calling out specific human actions as contrary to God’s good law is culturally offensive and deeply misunderstood. Yet a tacit understanding of sin, orthodox or otherwise, is in the background of conversations ranging from ethics and human flourishing to the very nature of the gospel itself.
You may come across a desire to deny any underlying sinful nature and simply look to occasions of wrongdoing as the sole basis of our sin. On the negative side there is a rejection of blame for Adam’s sin as being unfair (addressed above) – we should only be blamed in-so-far as we imitate his example. On the positive side, part of the attraction of this is that we can downplay the seriousness of sin as morally debilitating and imagine ourselves able to make things right between us and God. Jesus is thus understood to overcome sin, not through any sort of objective atonement but as an inspiring example of love which might encourage us to do good rather than evil.
On the other side of things you may see an emphasis on ‘Sin’ and ‘Death’ as cosmic enemies of God and His people, emphasising our slavery and victimhood. While these are true dimensions of sin, this can be used to downplay our culpability for sin and our guilty standing before God. Sin is God’s enemy and we are slaves of sin, but that is because we are on sin’s side. We are rescued from sin’s dominion as turncoats or even captives of a conquered city who are now slaves to God and his righteousness. We must never lose sight of our own responsibility and guilt for sin.
How does this help us do Evangelical Christian theology better?
Keeping in mind the doctrine of sin helps us with the content of our theology. It is a crucial lynch pin that makes sense of and shapes so much of our Christian theology, especially in our understanding of what Christ did at the cross and what it means to have been reconciled to God through him.
It is also a caution to us as those who continue to suffer the effects of sin and the fall. We have no grounds for pride or an over-confidence in our own knowledge. Everything, including our intellect and rationality, has been touched by the fall. We are not infallible in our thoughts, and our theological knowledge is thus always in need of growth and refinement. We are in a state of coming-to-know, enabled purely by God’s grace, not a state of already fully knowing. In this way the doctrine of sin calls us to intellectual humility and a reliance upon God (instead of our own intellect or even certain ‘academic’ approaches).
Sin also, perhaps counterintuitively, provides a deep sense of thankfulness and hope in our theology. Jesus said, “her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” (Luke 7:49, NIV). When we know just how much we have been forgiven, our theology will be characterised by thankfulness and joy. A good doctrine of sin also looks back to a time when humanity was not tainted by the fall and forward to a future in which we are fully restored. Thus, our theology will be characterised by the hope that we will not always be subjected to the corruption and decay of this present age, but will one day rise with Christ utterly free from the presence of sin.
Next Up: Jesus, Fully God and Fully Man
Taking it Further:
- Hiding in Plain Sight: The Lost Doctrine of Sin – Simeon Zahl
- The Wrath of God as an Aspect of the Love of God – Tony Lane
- An Introduction to the Fall and Sin, Graham Beynon
- Reading Violence in the Old Testament, Ellidh Cook
- The 3D Gospel: Ministry in Guilt, Shame, and Fear Cultures, Jayson Georges – Read a review here.
