Guilt

The Bible says if I sin, I am guilty of that sin.

The Bible says that if I am capable of stopping someone from sinning and do not do it, I bear at least partial responsibility/guilt for that sin.

We know that the consequences of a sin can be far reaching. That is not in dispute, I don't think. Dishonesty at the higher levels in financial institutions can cause others who have invested there to go broke. That has happened. Those who have gone broke are not guilty of what happened. They are considered victims.

A child born blind because the mother has active syphilis is bearing a rough consequence. But there is nothing that child could have done to stop the mother and nothing that child did which caused the mother to contract syphilis. The child, while suffering, is not guilty.

I was not in the Garden of Eden. I did not eat what was forbidden there. Nor is there anything I could have done to prevent Adam and Eve's choice to disobey God. So though I have endured the consequences of their sin -- their decision -- since I was conceived; borne the consequences physically, mentally, and spiritually, there is nothing I did or could have done which influenced them in their choices.

Therefore, while I was born with a sin nature as a consequence of their sin, and I have certainly sinned enough of my own to create a load of guilt (which, thank God, Jesus has removed!), there is no possible way I could be held responsible or accountable for what the first man and woman did. Nothing I ever did or could have done had any influence in the matter, and it is that which determines culpability.

 

I am not answering back to God or challenging Him. I am simply not calling Him double-tongued:

The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son.
Ezekiel 18:20

We are sick because of Adam; we are born with hearts that TEND toward evil because of Adam (which is a guarantee that we will sin); but it defies all logic, justice and every internal sense of fairness God has given us to say that we are born guilty of something we never did and had no influence over.

However, if you carry that logic you men are using to its conclusion, if Adam repented, then we have also repented in him and therefore there is now no problem!

However, what I quoted you is in the middle of a rather long discourse from the Lord, as QUOTED by Ezekiel, regarding each man being responsible for himself in terms of his own sins.

Did God change His mind? Hardly!

Yes, we have suffered the consequences with or without the law. Who is arguing that? We have all been born with sin natures BECAUSE of Adam (not Eve, interestingly enough, who was considered deceived and therefore not the usher of sin into the world!), and we have all been subject to the consequences of the fall of Adam, and we all will sin as soon as any of us knows the law -- that is what we have been bequeathed. But one is never bequeathed the guilt FROM someone else's actions -- as per God in Ezekiel!

Let's look at the verses Craig quoted.

12. Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned--

We have all sinned on our own. Sin nature is a disease we were all born with and thus there is a guarantee that as soon as any of us knows the law, sin springs to life and we die (Romans 7)
Sin ENTERED the world through Adam. We are infected because of him, like some giant pandemic touching everyone conceived. Therefore, because all sin, we all die.


13. for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

"Sin is not imputed when there is no law." Therefore sin was not imputed until Moses? We have this giant skip generations trust of imputation????


14. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.

Ah, there are those not guilty of Adam's sin! And yet, they, too, suffered the consequences. But not the guilt, according to verse 13. This is the point he is making. We all die because of Adam's sin, but not because we are guilty of that particular sin, but because, being born with sin natures, we each are guaranteed to sin ourselves as soon as the law is known to each. But sin is not imputed where there is no law. Exactly what Paul repeats on a personal basis in Romans 7.


15. But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.

"the transgression of the one" -- interesting phrase. Not of all of us. Only one person was guilty of that transgression which ushered sin and death into the world. IN THE SAME WAY, it is only through the righteousness of Christ that we are saved. ONLY HE is righteous and all righteousness is in Christ Jesus. I am NOT responsible for His righteousness any more than I am responsible for Adam's sin! However I was born infected by the first but cleansed by the second.

In other words, if I am born personally guilty of Adam's sin, then, using what Paul has said here, I am also responsible for the righteousness of the second Adam, Christ. And that, my friends, is blatent heresy and I reject that completely.

16. The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification.

"many transgressions". We were infected spiritually by one. Therefore we all sin as soon as the law is known to any one of us. We are each accountable for our own sins, Adam included. He is/was accountable for his own sin, which infected us all. But we are not accountable for something we could never have influenced. Infected, yes. All of us. Accountable for our own sins alone, though, yes. As the Lord told Ezekiel, "The soul who sins is the one who will die."


17. For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

Amen and praise to our Lord Jesus Christ!


18. So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.

That condemnation is the result of the natures we have because of that one sin. The soul who sins will die. On the second part of that verse, isn't it sad that so many don't realize they stand justified before God because of Christ and yet refuse it and condemn themselves to an eternity without Him?


19. For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous. (NASB, 1995)

...which pretty much sums it up. We were made sinners because of the sin nature we were born with because of Adam's sin. When you miss that middle step, you make God out to be a liar when He declares that the son will not share the guilt of the father! Adam was the father to all of us, but we do not share his guilt.

We have enough of our own!

 

Dale, dead does not mean unconscious, or hell would have no meaning. Dead means separated. Physical death means we are separated from our bodies. Spiritual death means we are separated from God.

When Jesus declared the little kids His, He was saying they were not yet separated from Him, therefore they were still spiritualy alive. Yet they were all sick unto death with sin natures. Given time, they would die spiritually because of that sickness.

But we are not born separated from God because we are not yet guilty of any sin. Sick with sin natures, yes, but guilty of anything we have done, no.

Again, you cannot be guilty of something someone else has done unless you had the influence to stop or moderate it and you did not use that influence or try to use whatever influence you might think you had. That's biblical.

 

Dale, let's look at those verses you quoted, because I don't think they are saying what you think they are saying...

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. (Psa 51:5 ESV)

This has to do with the mother, not the child. This indicates the condition of the child, but not the fault of the child.


The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies. (Psa 58:3 ESV)

This is not in argument. What is in argument is whether or not, then, at that age (birth at least if not a few more years!), they can be accountable for what they are doing naturally, without any conscious decision to do so. I am not arguing that they are sinning, but they are sinning unconsciously and thus, as Paul says in Romans 7, sin, although there, is 'dead', or has no power to separate them from God at that point.

Why? Because Jesus paid the price for ALL sin, conscious and unconscious, for He was the one-time Sacrifice for all, as Hebrews states. If we look back in the OT, we will find that there were a special series of sacrifices for unknown and unintentional sins. So the babies and kids are covered and not yet dead in their sins, not yet separated from God. If they were, then Jesus lied when He stated that the children are His.

About Adam. My husband brought up something during one of his and my Bible studies here at home that deserves thinking about. God is clothed in light, right? Adam and Eve were first created in the image of God, and although we know that means having a spirit, might it also not mean that they, too, were originally clothes in something akin to the Shekinah glory? When Moses wanted to see God's glory and was only allowed to see the back of God in passing, his face was nevertheless shining and had to be covered for awhile to hide it from the Israelites. Adam and Eve walked with God. Did they not, too, shine just the way Moses did? And then, when they sinned, did that glory not depart from them? This would not, then, be self-centeredness to see that things were radically different...

Just something to think about.

Now, on to babies. First, can or do animals sin? No. Not at all. Nevertheless, they are 1) affected by the fact that we have sinned and 2) as infant (mammals are in my mind right now) have the instinct to survive by going for food and warmth and mommy. This is not selfishness. This is not sin. This is not self-centeredness in the way you seem to be presenting it. Babies -- human babies -- go for food and warmth and mommy, too, as a matter of survival. This is not a sin!

Then you quoted 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 ESV)

Absolutely. No argument. But the point is accountability, not wandering astray. Please note that Eve, adult though she was, is not the one through whom sin entered the world. Why? Because she was deceived. She was therefore not held responsible for ushering sin into the world even though she sinned. And sinned first.

And we have all gone astray. But there are those who lead and those who follow, first of all. Many of those who follow are deceived by those who lead. What is their position before God? Their sin is covered by Christ. We know that. As you quoted, the iniquity of us ALL has been laid on Him.

Something to think about.

You see, I have no argument with the fact that everyone is a sinner. The argument is whether or not that has caused their spiritual death, or separation from God, until such time as they know the law.

The argument is also that spiritual death is not spiritual unconsciousness. It has never been about the fact that we are all sinners.

By the way, you will note that the Jeremiah verse also mentions that the heart is sick, not dead.

One needs only become born again if one has died in sin. If one has become separated from God, then one needs to be brought back. Deliberate sin is what separates us. Our sin nature does not, or the children would not be the examples of 'such is the Kingdom of Heaven'. Babies have not yet died spiritually. They are not born dead in sin, for they have not yet sinned and are in no way responsible for the nature they are born with. A rat cannot help being a rat; a horse cannot help being a horse; a sparrow cannot help being a sparrow; and a human cannot help being a sinner.

Being a sinner, we will all go astray, even from birth. But that, according to Paul in Romans 7, is not what causes our spiritual death, or separation from God. He states clearly that without the law, sin is dead. Does that mean sin does not exist? Of course it exists, for we are all born with sin natures! What it does mean, however, that sin is powerless to separate the person from God. That is because Christ died for all those sins. It is only when the sin is deliberate in response to knowledge of the law (again, Romans 7) that the person is then separated from God spiritually, or becomes spiritually dead. How could Paul say it more clearly or plainly? "Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died." When he was first alive, he was still a sinner! But he was not yet separated from God!

Then the law came, or became known to him. It came into his life. Then his sin nature exerted itself, as it does with all of us at that time in our lives, and he deliberately and consciously obeyed his sin nature and disobeyed God. Then he was separated from God, and died spiritually.

He says that so clearly!

There is only one way to reconcile with God and from this sinfulness and that is through regeneration.

The only way that we are reconciled with God is through Christ Jesus. That is why children are not estranged from God yet. They stand reconciled at conception and do not die spiritually until they follow their sin natures deliberately. It is then that they must be born again, regenerated. They were generated by God from the first, and then need to be regenerated when they die spiritually. Yes they are born sinners, but Jesus died for them, too, and they have not yet consciously sinned.

Please, please notice I am not claiming righteousness for anyone apart from Christ. In fact that was one of my points in the Gospel in the Stars argument! I am not claiming life for anyone apart from Christ. I am not claiming that anyone is not a sinner.

I am claiming that Paul said we are alive spiritually before the law causes our sin natures to intentionally disobey, giving sin, finally, the power to estrange us from God, which is spiritual death.

Thus, while all sin, intentionally or unintentionally, sin is not given the power in a person to cause spiritual separation from God until the law is known.

Thus, and finally, to get back to the topic of the thread, we hold no culpability for sin unknown to us, even though we are sinners. We also are not responsible for the sin of others unless we did something to encourage or support that sin or did not attempt to stop it when we could have.

 

I have not denied that we all get a sin nature from Adam and Eve. That has been a major point I have tried to establish. What I have argued is that there is no way any of us are personally guilty of their sin, just as our children are not guilty of our sins.

It is not a matter of whether or not I could have influenced Eve if I had been there, but rather whether or not I would have tried to warn/stop her.

In addition, I think you have a wrong view of Eve. Paul says clearly she was deceived. I have wondered if she was deceived because Satan, who was then Lucifer, was originally the guardian cherub of Eden (see Ez. 28:11 on -- hint, the King of Tyre was never in Eden!), and she had learned to trust him. Whatever, Eve's problem was that she trusted her own 'logic' when deceived and not God's Word. It was Adam through whom sin came into the world, and he was the one not deceived. He is the one who made the choice, not between Satan and God, but between his wife and God!

Nevertheless, arguing about Adam's sin and our supposed responsibility for it becomes a moot argument when you understand that ALL sin is atoned for by Christ. So we are 'guilty' of none of it if we are in Him.