Was It Fair That We Inherited "Original Sin"?

Adam’s choice to sin had serious consequences for the rest of humanity: namely that all human beings became subject to death and eternal condemnation. It may seem unfair to us that sin and death should enter the world through one man. Why should we have to suffer the consequences of one man’s choice? Don’t we get a choice in the matter? Why should we be punished with the death penalty as a consequence for an action we did not choose to commit? And so many gripe and complain that God is unfair. After all, we never chose to be born, let alone be born into a state of condemnation before God. Why such far-reaching consequences for every man and woman who has ever lived and will ever live?

When God created us, He made us morally free persons in His own image (Gen. 1:26-27). He gave to Adam and Eve the capacity to choose whether or not they would obey Him or obey Satan and so, in either case, join themselves spiritually to a power which would then operate them from within. An essential aspect of that moral freedom is that our choices and actions have consequences for ourselves AND for others. In other words, the choices we make effect others. We only need to think of the effect our behavior has upon our children to know this is true. I am sure we can all remember instances where our parents spoke particularly harsh words to us, or perhaps they even neglected or abandoned us. On the other hand, if we are parents, I’m sure we can think of instances where we have done the same kinds of things to our own children.

Why must this effect on others be true? Why did God arrange matters so that our actions could have such devastating consequences for other human beings around us? We must remember, however, that OUR CHOICES CAN ALSO HAVE CONSEQUENCES WHICH EFFECT OTHERS FOR THEIR ULTIMATE GOOD AS WELL.

The reason is that God created us to be social beings, just as He Himself is a social being, since He is a Trinity. God created us with the capacity to love, to have an effect for good on others. God could have created us without the ability to relate to and effect others, but then we would not be persons and would not possess moral freedom. The point of making choices at all is to cause some kind of change. So any choice that does not produce some kind of effect or consequence is ineffectual and irrelevant.

So if we object that God is unfair because Adam’s choice effects all of us, then we must also realize that we are in effect saying that we would rather be non-persons without the ability to choose at all, without the capacity to love. For love is meaningless unless it is morally free and unless it can have an effect on others. When we call God unfair, what we are really saying is Cain’s age-old complaint: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gen. 4:9).

To get angry with God for making us the way we are is an evasion of responsibility as persons to use our moral freedom in a way that benefits others. Instead of complaining about the choice that Adam made and its consequences for us, we ought to be making choices in our own lives that reverse those consequences for others.

But how can Paul say that as a result of one man’s sin, death came to all men? Isn’t that unfair? Absolutely not! Paul says that death comes to all men NOT MERELY because Adam sinned but because we all have sinned. It is for our own sins that the sentence of death is pronounced against us.

But if I am born with a spiritual hook-up to Satan’s nature, isn’t it inevitable that I will sin? How is it that God can condemn me as a sinner when I couldn’t even choose whether or not I would rebel against God? But that is not so. In fact, each of us from the beginning have had glimmers of moral consciousness, knowing at a rudimentary level the difference between right and wrong and have willfully chosen what is wrong. Even at age two or three, we make a rudimentary choice to rebel against our parents, knowing that we were doing wrong. As we live on in the world, we ratify Adam’s choice as our choice, thus sealing our pact with the devil. We were born with a hook-up to Satan’s nature, but that hook-up was sealed by our own choice. BY ADAM’S CHOICE SIN GAINED ENTRY INTO THE WORLD. BY OUR OWN CHOICE SIN GAINED POSSESSION OVER OUR OWN LIVES.

In Romans 5:13-14, Paul deals with the objection that many people have lived who have not had knowledge of God’s law - how can they be held accountable since sin is not taken into account where there is no law? But sin was already in the world even when there was no codified law. Although humanity did not have specific commands from God against which sin could manifest its rebellious character, nevertheless that rebellion or Satanic lie of independence manifested itself clearly, as we see happened before the flood (Gen. 6) and at the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11). And so DEATH reigned from the time of Adam until the time of Moses, even though people in that time did not sin by breaking an explicit command from God as Adam did.

Unless God had set it up that one person’s actions could have consequences for all humanity, Christ could not have died for us. His death on the cross would have no effect on lost sinners. But BECAUSE God created us as social beings whose choices and actions have effects on and consequences for others, that means not only that Adam’s choice led to death for all humanity, but that Christ’s obedience led to eternal life for those who believe.

But the salvation and eternal life that Jesus Christ brought through His obedience are so much greater than the consequences of Adam’s disobedience that they can hardly be compared. We not only live eternally, but we have the nature and the power of God within and are seen by God as His REAL CHILDREN!

And even more, the choice that we make to obey God by not believing Satan’s lie of self-operating independent self has consequences not only for us, but for all those around us. A pebble dropped in a pond creates ripples that spread outward to effect the whole pond, and so our choices have consequences for people we may never know, Our choice of continuing in negative unbelief may mean a person does not get to hear the truth of the gospel from us because we were too busy indulging in self-gratification or self-pity to focus our life on others. But our choice to believe in Christ as our Savior brings His power and guidance from within giving us the ability to effect others for good in many ways.

Like Adam and Jesus Christ, our every choice has eternal and far-reaching consequences, not only for us, but also for those around us.

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