The concept of the original sin

[Peterlag]

I believe God gave us a new nature when we are born again and that this is what the apostle Paul taught. Then where did this idea come from that we are still sinners by nature, and that the spirit of Christ makes our flesh spiritual, but still alive to sin whereby we must with much effort, frustration, and failure be in a battle with our sin nature the rest of our lives? Who taught us that it's not the spirit that has become our new nature, but that after we received Christ within, we still have the old sin nature left as we live the rest of our lives trying to restrain it? If the apostle Paul taught that we do experience a death to our old sin nature once we are baptized into Christ, and that it’s dead and gone and therefore we are dead to sin? Then where did this idea come from that we are still alive to sin? Could it have come from these guys...

The concept of the original sin was first alluded to in the second century by Irenaeus, (Bishop of Lyon) who was working for the Catholics and not for the apostle Paul. Some two hundred years later another church father who went by the name of Augustine, (Bishop of Hippo) whose writings shaped and developed the doctrine of sin as he considered that humanity shared in Adam's sin. Augustine's formulation of the original sin after the year of 412 was popular among protestant reformer's such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, who equated the original sin with a hurtful desire meaning that it persisted even after baptism and therefore completely destroyed the freedom to do good. At first Augustine, said that free will was weakened, but not destroyed by the original sin. But after the year of 412 this concept changed to a loss of free will except to sin, and it's this Augustine's concept that influenced the development of the western church and western philosophy and indirectly all of western Christianity.

The Catholic church declared baptism by imparting the life of Christ's grace, and thereby erasing the original sin, and then that would allow one back toward God. The thinking that the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist and summon the human to spiritual battle, and therefore weakened and diminished by Adam's fall, and still free will was not destroyed in the human race. Irenaeus, put forth his doctrine of the original sin, which is rather mild compared with what would later be found in the writings of Augustine. One recurring theme in Irenaeus, is his view that Adam, in his transgression is essentially a child who merely partook of the tree ahead of his time. For Irenaeus, knowing good and evil was an integral aspect of human nature; the "sin" of Adam, was snatching at the fruit of the tree rather than waiting for it as a gift from God.

In the years of 354 to 430 Augustine, taught that Adam's sin is transmitted by concupiscence, or a "hurtful desire" resulting in humanity becoming condemned with an enfeebled, though not destroyed freedom of will. When Adam sinned, human nature was therefore transformed, and Adam and Eve via sexual reproduction recreated human nature. Their descendants now live in sin, in the form of concupiscence, a term Augustine, used in a metaphysical and not a psychological sense. Augustine, insisted that concupiscence was not a being but a bad quality, meaning a wound. He admitted that sexual concupiscence (libido) might have been present in the perfect human nature in paradise, and that only later it became disobedient to the human will as a result of the first couple's disobedience to God's will in the original sin. In Augustine's view (termed "realism") all of humanity was really present in Adam, when he sinned and therefore all have sinned.

Augustine, was the first to add the concept of inherited guilt from Adam, whereby an infant was eternally damned at birth. Augustine, held the traditional view that free will was weakened, but not destroyed by the original sin until he converted in 412 to the Stoic view that humanity had no free will except to sin, which was the result of his later thinking on infant baptism. Augustine, believed that unbaptized infants go to hell as a consequence of the original sin. The Latin church fathers who followed Augustine, adopted his position, which became a point of reference for Latin theologians in the middle ages. In the later medieval period, some theologians continued to hold Augustine's view and others held that unbaptized infants suffered no pain at all.

Augustine, states that God's grace and not human free will is responsible for everything that pertains to salvation and that includes even our faith. We are often told that people suffer because they deserve it. And we seem to be able to go into great explanations expressing a confidence in God's absolute sovereignty, defined here as control, that seems to provide many believers with a great deal of security. We teach in our churches that everything is under God's control, and thereby everything is proceeding as divinely planned, and that somehow it all fits together. This concept did not attain the status of a universal explanation until years after a man was born on the planet who was called Augustine.

It's indeed historically true that what has constituted the most frequent explanation in the church and in western culture for why people suffer is due to the fact that a man was born on the planet called Augustine. And so this concept of God being in control of both good and evil is why we often consider a secret "divine blueprint" behind everything that is both good and evil being somehow an extension of God's good (but very mysterious) will. Opposition to Augustine's ideas about the original sin, which he had developed arose rapidly, and after a long and bitter struggle several councils, especially the second council of Orange in the year of 529, confirmed the general principles of Augustine's teaching within western Christianity. However, the church did not entirely endorse Augustine, and even some of Augustine's followers identified the original sin differently even after Augustine's authority was accepted.

I see the "sin nature" as something that existed before Jesus Christ destroyed it when the spirit of Christ came within the believer. This spirit is indeed a life form that is in all Christians and it seems to me one cannot understand and therefore function or be in the spirit if our old nature (which is dead) thinks in it's unrenewed mind that it suppose to be fighting against the new nature. Paul wrote in Galatians 2:20, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:" That's what I'm talking about. I now understand being in Christ is being in the spirit and neither of them (in Christ or in the spirit) has anything to do with the darn flesh. It now seems perfectly clear to walk in the spirit is the same as putting on the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so in my mind the 4 verses below fit perfectly. Every single person I know has told me about Romans 7 when I tell them I do not believe Paul taught about a "sin nature" for the Christian. What Paul talks about in the seventh chapter of Romans is what occurs to the believer who still thinks the Law applies to them. They end up spiritually dying by the commandment and realize that the commandment does not produce life. The war is with their flesh because they are still believing the Law has power over them. In the eighth chapter of Romans is where it explains how we overcome this whole issue by living in the spirit and being dead to the Law. We cannot live by faith in what Christ has done for us and still think our obedience to written laws are necessary. To do so takes away from the perfect work of Christ and places salvation and righteousness back in our own hands.

Romans 6:2
How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?

Romans 6:6
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

Galatians 5:16,18
This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.

[Justin Adams]

http://gospeltruth.net/aug/sinsofaug.htm

Seminaries still teach from Augustine.

Edited March 31, 2021 by Justin Adams

[Waggles]

So if Christians, especially Spirit-filled Pentecostal Christians, are dead to sin, then how is it that Spirit-filled Christians can still sin? 

Some even depart from the faith and go back into the world. 

Why does my Father in Heaven have to chastise me from time to time to parent me away from sin that I am not overcoming? 

[David1701]

14 minutes ago, Waggles said:

So if Christians, especially Spirit-filled Pentecostal Christians, are dead to sin, then how is it that Spirit-filled Christians can still sin? 

A born again Christian's spirit is dead to sin, whether he is Pentecostal or otherwise; but, his flesh is not.  This is why we have a constant battle against temptations.

Quote

Some even depart from the faith and go back into the world. 

Not if they have been born again they don't.  Genuinely saved Christians are overcomers; they do not return to a life of sin.

1 John 3:8,9 (EMTV)

 8 He who practices sin is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. For this reason the Son of God appeared, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
  9 No one who has been born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God.

Quote

Why does my Father in Heaven have to chastise me from time to time to parent me away from sin that I am not overcoming? 

Overcoming is about the general tenor of your life, not about individual instances of falling into temptation.  The flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.  Get closer to the Lord and the victories will increase, although your perception will become enhanced, so that you realise better how much sin there is in your flesh.  This will make you humbler and less holy, in your own eyes, while those observing you see you become more and more holy.

[Bible_Gazer]

I don't think people are born with  their parent sin nature.

People create their own sin nature, everybody don't have the same working of sin. Not everybody is a killer or a fornicator.

 

[Peterlag]

7 hours ago, Justin Adams said:

http://gospeltruth.net/aug/sinsofaug.htm

Seminaries still teach from Augustine.

@Justin AdamsThanks for posting this.

[Peterlag]

6 hours ago, Waggles said:

So if Christians, especially Spirit-filled Pentecostal Christians, are dead to sin, then how is it that Spirit-filled Christians can still sin? 

Some even depart from the faith and go back into the world. 

Why does my Father in Heaven have to chastise me from time to time to parent me away from sin that I am not overcoming? 

It's real easy to understand. Walk by the spirit and we have the fruit of the spirit. Walk by the flesh and we have the works of the flesh.

I finally know why when you follow after the spirit you will not walk after the lust of the flesh.

The reason I cannot lust in the flesh when following after the spirit is because it's impossible to do so since the spirit of Christ does not lust after the flesh. Religious people don't follow after the spirit, but rather they follow after their flesh and call it spiritual. The religious folks lead with their flesh and call it Christian. The church folks clean up their flesh by making themselves nice. Then they say this is Christian because we are being nice like the way Jesus was. In contrast to that, I believe we should walk after the spirit of Christ.

[Waggles]

7 minutes ago, Peterlag said:

It's real easy to understand. Walk by the spirit and we have the fruit of the spirit. Walk by the flesh and we have the works of the flesh.

I do walk in the Spirit and I do have fruit of the Spirit in my life ... I am not the person I was before I came to know God, but someone keeps strewing banana skins for me to slip up on in my walk. 

[Peterlag]

37 minutes ago, Waggles said:

I do walk in the Spirit and I do have fruit of the Spirit in my life ... I am not the person I was before I came to know God, but someone keeps strewing banana skins for me to slip up on in my walk. 

Our difference is we both see "walking in the spirit" differently.

[Peterlag]

3 minutes ago, Walter Goraj jr said:

"Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”                (1 John 3:9)

Being born from above means that our soul is made alive or "resurrected" and it will no longer sin. The flesh will continue to sin, but through Jesus we can turn away from it. I don't think it could be said any easier.

I believe our difference is that we both see "walking in the spirit" or "through Jesus" differently.