Adam's Original Sin: Imputation
1)
The term
“Adam’s original sin” refers to Adam’s first sin. It is not his whole life, it
is the first sin he committed which was the sin of disobedience in eating the
fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That was the issue.
Throughout the Scriptures there is so much teaching about the impact of Adam’s
sin, and it always treats Adam’s sin as a literal historical event. If that did
not occur historically then it takes the foundation completely out from under
what is taught in the New Testament regarding sin and salvation.
2)
Adam was the
designated head of the human race, and that is called federal or representative
headship. That means that is was Adam’s sin and not the woman’s sin that is
determinative. 1 Timothy 2:13, 14, “For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And
Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression.”
So in some sense her sin is not as significant as his, first because he is the
head, and second because she is deceived. Her sin did not impact the creation;
it did not impact their progeny. It was not her sin that was determinative; it
was Adam’s sin.
3)
Federalism is
the view that Adam is the representative of the entire human race. Therefore
Adam’s decision would affect all of the human race. Adam’s decision was set up
to be a representative decision so that whatever he decided, however he went,
that would determine the course for the human race. If he passed the test and
rejected the temptation and did not eat of the fruit if the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil then all of his descendents would be born with
positive, confirmed righteousness. If he failed the test, then all of his
descendents would be born in corruption, in a world of suffering and spiritual
death as well as physical death. Therefore when Adam sinned as humanity’s
representative head the entire race fell. There are many examples in the
Scripture of representative headship at work, where God designates a certain
person as the head of the family or as the head of a people group, and their
decision has ramifications that go down throughout all of history. For example,
in Genesis chapter nine there is a curse announced by Noah on his grandson
Canaan. Actually, it is his son Ham who violates Noah’s privacy, but when Noah
pronounces a blessing and a curse on his sons that curse fell on Canaan. Canaan
wasn’t even the one directly involved in the sin and it is actually his
descendents on whom the curse falls. We can also say that the blessing on
Japheth was one that didn’t actually go to Japheth himself, but went to all of
the descendants of Japheth. Another example is with Esau and Jacob. When Esau
sold his birthright to Jacob all of his descendants from the consequences of
that as they were excluded from the blessing of the promise to Abraham and to
Isaac. And again, the promise to Abraham is a promise of blessing to a
representative head. The promise to Abraham was to all of his descendants. The
principle in the federal headship of Adam is that God in His omniscience knew
that any human being put in that same situation with Adam under any set of
circumstances would end up committing the same sin eventually.
4)
The other view,
which has to do with the transmission of guilt, is called seminalism, which
comes from the Latin word, which means seed. The idea in seminalism, which was
a view originally set forth by Augustine and also held by Calvin and Luther, is
the view that all humanity participated physically in Adam’s sin, that the sin
nature and the guilt of Adam’s sin was passed on physically through
procreation. That is the idea of seminalism. It is not only the sin nature but
also the guilt of Adam’s original sin was passed on physically through
procreation. The biblical support for seminalism comes out of a passage in
Hebrews—Hebrews 7:9, 10, “And as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth
tithes, paid tithes in Abraham. For he was yet in the loins of his father, when
Melchizedec met him.” Levi was one of the sons of Jacob who later became known
as Israel. Levi was the great grandson of Abraham, so there was quite a
distance of time between them. Levi was not physically present when Abraham
paid tithes to Melchizedek, but what the writer of Hebrews says is that he was
there seminally “in the loins of his father.” Therefore you can say that Levi
paid tithes to Melchizedek. So the argument is that this shows that there is a
physical or genetic tie or connection that is passed down physically through procreation
from one generation to the other. When the argument is looked at you have
Romans 5:12 to support federalism and you have Hebrews 7:9, 10 to support
seminalism. The fact is there are elements of both that are true and so we have
to refine our thinking a little bit. Remember that in federalism both the sin
nature and Adam’s original sin are imputed on the basis of the representative
principle. In seminalism the sin nature plus Adam’s original sin are passed on
genetically. But the way both are true is that the sin nature is passed on
genetically and Adam’s original sin on the basis of Adam’s federal headship is
then imputed to that sin nature. So there are elements on both that are true
and this is how you put them together. Adam’s original sin is the result of the
federal headship of Adam; seminalism is the result of the physical connection
the sin nature is passed on genetically from father to the next generation.
5)
Understanding
how the elements of both are true. In seminalism we see that the sin nature is
passed on genetically through procreation. On the male side every sperm cell in
the human body contains 46 chromosomes, which give the blueprint of who you
are. Those chromosomes pass on the genetic physical aspect to the sin nature.
Wee know this because the sin nature is referred to in Scripture with such
terms as “flesh,” “body of sin,” and other terms indicating a physical
dimension to the sin nature. When these chromosomes that contain this genetic
corruption of the sin nature are passed on they go down through the male. The
cell splits into two cells that have 23 chromosomes each, and then those two
cells mature into two mature sperm cells. This is an operation called meiosis.
Then on the female side there is an egg that is produced, and it starts off
with 46 chromosomes but in the process of meiosis it throws off 23 chromosomes
in what is called polar bodies, a process of cell purification, so that when it
is ready for fertilization the egg has only 23 chromosomes and has been
purified. So on the female side is a purified egg but on the male side nothing
is lost and so there is still a sin nature. When the sperm cell fertilizes the
egg then the sin nature is passed on from one generation to the next. This
shows one of the reasons for the virgin birth. When the male side is removed at
the virgin conception and the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, then what
happens in the virgin conception is the Holy Spirit causes the egg to have
parthenogenesis without benefit of the sin nature so that the product is one
hundred per cent true humanity, minus a sin nature and minus Adam’s original
sin. Because there is no sin nature there is no home for the
assignment/imputation of Adam’s original sin. Therefore Jesus in His humanity
is born without a sin nature and without the imputation of Adam’s original sin.
He is born sinless or impeccable. That explains the seminalism side of the
issue. It just deals with the physical transmission of the sin nature. On the federalism side where we see
Adam as our designated head, his guilt is imputed to us, so that at the instant
of birth we are born with a sin nature, and that sin nature is going to be the
home to which God is going to impute Adam’s original sin—the legal (not
emotional) guilt of Adam’s original sin.
There are two categories of
imputation. The first is real imputations and the second is called judicial
imputations. Real imputation is when the justice of God imputes under the
principle of antecedence and affinity. What is imputed has an affinity, which
is an agreement or a correspondence for that to which it is imputed. That means
there is an affinity between Adam’s original sin on the one hand and its home,
which is the sin nature. They are like things; there is no discontinuity there.
So there are two factors involved here: what is imputed from the justice of
God, and the home or the target for the imputation. In terms of antecedence,
that antecedence goes back to Adam’s original sin, the original fall, and the
affinity is the agreement between Adam’s original sin and the sin nature. This
makes it a real imputation.
There are four real imputations. The
first is Adam’s original sin to the sin nature. The second type of real
imputation is eternal life to the human spirit—there is an affinity
there. The human spirit is that which the Holy Spirit creates and imparts to us
at the instant of salvation, and that is what gives us the ability and
understanding to relate to God. The third is blessings in time are imputed to
our perfect righteousness. We have perfect righteousness imputed from a
judicial imputation and blessings in time are imputed to that. Fourth,
blessings in eternity are imputed to the resurrection body. So those four
imputations are real—Adam’s original sin to the sin nature, eternal life
to the human spirit, blessings in time to perfect righteousness, blessings in
eternity to the resurrection body. Those are all real imputations because there
is an affinity between what is imputed and its home.
Then we come to the second category
of imputations, and these are judicial imputations. Judicial imputations take
place where the justice of God imputes what is not antecedently one’s own and
where there is no affinity. In other words, there is no preceding action of event
in the one to whom something is judicially imputed which warrants that
imputation. Therefore there is no affinity, no agreement or inherent similarity
between what is imputed and the recipient. That becomes clear when we look at
the two judicial imputations.
The first is personal sin to Christ
on the cross. Jesus Christ was born without a sin nature. He never committed
any act of personal sin. Therefore there is nothing in Christ, no antecedent
action, nothing preceding the cross which has any affinity or correlation with
sin. The point here is that when personal sins were imputed to Christ there was
nothing in Christ that had any affinity to personal sin, or there was no action
in the life of Christ, which made a basis for that imputation. In the same way
on the second type of imputation, which is perfect righteousness to the
believer at the point of salvation, there is no affinity. The believer is born
with a sin nature. He has three strikes against him: he has a sin nature; he
has been imputed with Adam’s original sin; and he has personal sins. So there
is no antecedent action of perfection in man to make him worthy of salvation.
There is nothing in man that has affinity with perfect righteousness; therefore
it is a judicial imputation.
So to go back to where we started,
there are two ways of explaining the relationship of Adam’s sin to his
descendants. These are called federalism and seminalism. To remember this, a
key word for federalism is “representative”; a key word for seminal is
“physical.” So that one is not physical and is going to be legal and the other
is going to be physical and genetic. They both have elements of truth to them
and they are both supported by passages in the Scripture. Therefore we can say
that federalism deals with the imputation of Adam’s original sin and seminalism
has to do with the genetic transmission of the sin nature. They way they come
together is that at the instant of birth Adam’s original sin is imputed to the
sin nature, and that is called a real imputation. The key passage for this is
Romans 5:12, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and
[spiritual] death by sin; and so death [spiritual] passed upon all men, for
[this reason] all sinned.”
The “one man” of Romans 5:12 is
Adam. Because of Adam’s decision sin entered into the world. Here we have the
aorist active indicative of the verb EISERCHOMAI [e)iserxomai], which means to go into or to
enter. This is a culminative aorist, it looks at the conclusion of a process,
the completion of an action in past time, and that indicates that Adam’s sin
entered the world at one time in human history. That is a completed action that
happened when Adam sinned in Genesis chapter three. That sin ended the age of
perfect environment ended the first dispensation, violated God’s covenant that
had been established with Adam, and plunged the human race into sin. Prior to
the fall God’s love was the basis for man’s relationship with God and the
foundation of his fellowship, but after Adam sinned the point of contact shifted
from God’s love to God’s righteousness and justice. These had to be satisfied
before God could save mankind.
All have sinned because spiritual
death is the situation in man. This takes place because man is born with a
genetically formed sin nature to which Adam’s original sin is imputed. The
result of this is spiritual death. This occurs at the instant of birth. That
explains man’s condition. The reason there is so much suffering in the world is
because man is under condemnation. He is spiritually dead, separated from God,
cannot understand divine things, and he does not understand the truth of God’s
Word.
Romans 5:13, “For until the law sin
was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.” The point that
Paul was addressing here is that there were many Jews who taught that it was
the Mosaic law that condemned man, that because they failed to obey the law
they were under condemnation. But the problem is that the Mosaic Law doesn’t
define sin; it is not the basis for condemnation, it exposes sin. All of the
things defined as sin in the Mosaic Law had been sin for 2000 years before the
Mosaic Law. It was a sin to commit murder in Genesis four, as we will see. So
the Mosaic Law doesn’t define sin, it is designed to expose sin in the life of
the nation Israel. Romans 3:20, “ … by the law is the knowledge of sin.” The
law was designed to expose man’s inability to live up to God’s righteous
standards. Cf. Romans 7:7. The point of this, then, is that personal sin is not
the basis for condemnation. We are not condemned because of what we do; we are
condemned because of what Adam did. Condemnation is based on original sin. As a
result of that we are born condemned, born a sinner.
The conclusion that we draw from all
of this is that Adam’s sin is not just his sin. Adam’s sin is our sin, the sin
of the entire human race. All of Adam’s descendants are born in a state of
helplessness, hopelessness and under condemnation. They are born with a
corruption. That means that there is nothing in any of us that allows us to do
anything to merit salvation.