The dark mystery of sin

Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Psalm 51:5

Am I a sinner because I sin, or do I sin because I am a sinner?

This intriguing question was tossed in my direction recently by a friend (thank you, Peter!). I use the word “intriguing”, though possibly “baffling and incomprehensible” might be more appropriate! You may be wondering what the point is: it seems a bit like a theological version of “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”

In essence, it’s a way of approaching the mystery of what the church has traditionally called “original sin” – how to explain the fact that we human beings seem to have a warp in our make-up that leads us to act in ways we instinctively know are wrong. The Bible has many mentions of “sin”; but where did it originally come from? And in what sense are we individually to blame?

Obviously, all of us who try to be honest will recognise that we do wrong in various ways; we may sum those ways up in the traditional trio: “in thought, word and deed”. That seems reasonable. And if we are Christians, we will then accept the description “sinner” as a result: we are sinners because we sin. No problem.

But what about the second part of the question? If I sin “because I am a sinner”, that smuggles into my mind the thought that I am, so to speak, “pre-programmed” to sin; that in turn suggests that I am not alone responsible for my sin; and that in turn suggests that an injustice has been done to me, that “it’s not my fault!”.

Which raises the question, So who precisely has done me that injustice? To which ultimately there can only be one answer: God, for is he not the maker of all things and the lord of all creation?

In short… if I say that “I sin because I am a sinner”, aren’t I in effect accusing God of being the ultimate author of sin? Which, of course, it is impossible for a Christian to do, believing as we do that God is not only all-powerful and all-knowing, but also perfectly pure and holy.

I don’t know if Peter had been thinking about Psalm 51 when he asked the question, but it is certainly a standard “proof text” for the idea of original sin - that the corruption of sin is something we have inherited  from Adam, our first ancestor, something that has been passed down the generations. Something unavoidable…

“I was sinful at birth”. But how could that be so? How can a new-born baby be guilty of sin? I had never yet entertained a thought, or spoken a word, or done a deed!

“Sinful from the time my mother conceived me”? But how can an embryo be regarded as sinful? How can there be any sense of guilt if I wasn’t even a conscious being? Yet the writer seems to be saying that that is so – and the psalm as a whole certainly is full of that sense of guilt.

It could be that the psalm, traditionally thought to be by David, is applicable just to him personally, and is not intended to apply to the whole human race. But the Bible, once again taken as a whole, makes it clear that sin is a universal feature of every man and woman, so that seems unlikely. Paul makes much of this in Romans 5:12-21.

My own feeling is that the psalmist is essentially using “hyperbole”, a figure of speech which means deliberate exaggeration that the reader will immediately recognise as such – no intention to deceive, but an attempt to press home a particular point – and in this case the point is the sheer inescapability of sin.

Putting it in down to earth terms, we as human beings come into this troubled world as “damaged goods”. There is a fatal flaw in our nature which lays us open to what the Bible calls “sin”. The origin of this is described in the Adam and Eve story in Genesis 3, and it traces it back to an “enemy” or “adversary” pictured as a snake, or “Satan”. Whether we like it or not – and no doubt we don’t! - this enemy is something we are destined to grapple with every day of our earthly lives.

That seems to me a reasonable explanation of original sin, and a reasonable understanding of passages such as Psalm 51. But it still leaves open the big question: “Is it fair?” We didn’t, after all, ask to be born, did we?

I would like to share two stories from my own experience which, more or less directly, touch on this question (even if they don’t provide satisfactory answers).

But I’ve run out of space, so they’ll have to wait until next time…

Our Father and our God, we live every day with the reality of sin and temptation. We know our transgressions, and our sin is ever before us. Help us never to make excuses or to treat sin lightly. But thank you that Jesus came to be our sin-bearer on the cross, and that in him we can find forgiveness, purity, hope and victory. So bring us to that day when sin shall be no more, and we will be perfectly like him. Amen.