Section Ten

The Consequence of Sin

One objection to original sin is this question: how can we be made in the image of God, have God work in us from the very earliest ages, and yet be sinful (separated from God) from birth? Some argue that one way to answer this is to understand a specific point about Paul’s teaching - centred around verses 12 and 18 in Romans Chapter 5. There is much debate over the meaning of these, but one way to read them is that the ‘guilt’ of sin is not what Paul is talking about. It is possible to read them to mean that Paul meant the universal problem of sin is death (as he talks about on numerous occassions elsewhere). In other words, Adam sinned against God by not following his command and the consequence of that is that death entered the human race. Therefore, sharing in Adam’s sin means that we all have to die. Just as Adam sinned by choosing to rebel against God and the consequence is death, every human will also die as a result of choosing to rebel against God.