Romans 5:12-21 Why, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed on all men, for that all have sinned:… This doctrine may be regarded as it respects the disposition to sin, and as it respects the guilt of it. These two particulars are distinct. The corruption of human nature means its tendency to sin. The guilt of them who wear that nature means their evil desert on account of sin. I. THE FACT OF THE SINFUL DISPOSITION — 1. Can only be gathered from man's sinful doings or desires. We do not need to dig into a spring to ascertain the quality of its water, but to examine the quality of the stream which flows from it. We have no access to the hearts of the inferior animals, and yet we can pronounce from their doings on their disposition. We speak of original ferocity in the tiger. This means that, as the fountain on the hillside is formed and filled up before it sends forth the rills which proceed from it, so a ferocious quality of nature exists in the tiger before it vents itself forth in deeds of ferocity; and it is a quality not due to education, provocation, climate, accident, or to anything posterior to the formation of the animal itself; it is seen, both from the universality and unconquerable strength of this attribute, that it belongs essentially to the creature. There is no difficulty in understanding here the difference between original and actual. Could the cruelties of a tiger be denominated sins, then all the cruelties inflicted by it during the course of its whole life — then would these be its actual sins. These might vary in number and in circumstances with different individuals, yet each would have the same cruel disposition. It is thus that we verify the doctrine of original sin by experience. Should it be found true of every man, that he is actually a sinner, then he sins, not because of the mere perversity of his education, the peculiar excitements to evil that have crossed his path, the noxious atmosphere he breathes, or the vitiating example that is on every side of him; but purely in virtue of his being a man. And to talk of the original sin of our species, thereby intending to signify the existence of a prior and universal disposition to sin, is just as warrantable as to affirm the most certain laws, or the soundest classifications in natural history. 2. There is not enough, it may be thought, of evidence for this fact, in those glaring enormities which give to history so broad an aspect of wicked violence. For the actors in the great drama are few, and though satisfied that many would just feel and do alike in the same circumstances — there is yet room for affirming that, in the unseen privacies of social and domestic life, some are to be found who pass a guileless and a perfect life in this world. Now it is quite impossible to meet this affirmation by passing all the individuals of our race before you, and pointing out the actual iniquity of the heart or life, which proves them corrupt members of a corrupt family. You cannot make all men manifest to each man; but you may make each man manifest to himself. You may appeal to his conscience, and in defect of evidence in his outward history you may accompany him to that place where the emanating fountain of sin is situated. You may enter along with him into the recesses of his heart, and there detect the preference to its own will, the slight hold that the authority of God has over it. We dispute not the power of many amiable principles in the heart of man, but which work without the recognition of God. It is this ungodliness which can be fastened on every child of Adam. From such a fountain innumerable are the streams of disobedience which will issue; and though many of them may not be so deeply tinged, yet still in the fountain itself there is independence of God. Put out our planet by the side of another, where all felt the same delight in God that angels feel, and are you to say of such a difference that it has no cause? Must there not be a something in the original make and a constitution of the two families to account for such a diversity? 3. We are quite aware that this principle is but faintly recognised by many expounders of human virtue. And therefore it is that we hold it indeed a most valid testimony in behalf of our doctrine, when they are rendered heartless by disappointment; and take revenge upon their disciples by pouring forth the bitterest misanthropy against them. Even on their own ground, original sin might find enough of argument to make it respectable. 4. The existence of man's corruption, then, is proved from experience; how it entered into the world is altogether a matter of testimony. "By one man," says our text, "sin entered into the world." He came out pure and righteous from the hand of God; but Adam, after he had yielded to temptation, was a changed man, and that change was permanent, and while God made man after His own image, the very first person who was born into the world, came to it in the image of his parent. This is the simple statement, and we are not able to give the explanation. The first tree of a particular species may be conceived to have come from the Creator's hand with the most exquisite flavour. A pestilential gust may have passed over it, and so changed its nature, that all its fruit afterwards should be sour. After this change it may be conceived to have dropt its seeds, and all the future trees rise in the transformed likeness of the tree from which they sprung. If this were credibly attested, we are not prepared to resist it; and as little are we entitled to set ourselves in opposition to the Bible statement that a moral blight came over the character of our great progenitor; and that a race proceeded from him with that very taint of degeneracy that he had taken on. 5. Another fact announced in this passage is the connection between the corruption of our nature and its mortality. This brings out in another way the distinction between actual and original sin. All have not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, i.e., by a positive deed of disobedience; infants e.g. The death that they undergo is not the fruit of any actual iniquity, but of that moral virus which has descended from the common fountain. And what is this but the original and constitutional aptitude that there is to sinning, a disposition that only yet exists in embryo, but which will come out into deed so soon as powers and opportunities are expanded. The infant tiger has not yet performed one act of ferocity, but we are sure that all the rudiments of ferocity exist in its native constitution. The tender sapling of the crab tree has not yet yielded one sour apple, but we know that there is an organic necessity for its producing this kind of fruit. And whether or not we should put to the account of this the boisterous outcry of an infant, the constant exactions it makes, and its spurning impatience of all resistance and control, so as to be the little tyrant to whose brief but most effective authority the entire circle of relationship must bend, still the disease is radically there. Original sin, then, as it respects the inborn depravity of our race, is at one with the actual experience of mankind. II. We should further proceed to show in how far original sin, AS IT RESPECTS THE IMPUTATION OF GUILT TO ALL WHO ARE UNDER IT, IS AT ONE WITH THE MORAL SENSE OF MANKIND. Experience takes cognisance of whether such a thing is, and so is applicable to the question whether a depraved tendency to moral evil is or is not in the human constitution. The moral sense of man takes cognisance of whether such a thing ought to be, and whether man ought to be dealt with as a criminal on account of a tendency which came unbidden by him into the world. 1. To determine the question we should inquire how much man requires to have within his view, ere his moral sense be able to pronounce conclusively. One may see a dagger projected from a curtain, grasped by a human hand, directed against the bosom of an unconscious sleeper; and, seeing no more, he would infer that the individual was an assassin. Had he seen all he might have seen that he was in fact an overpowered victim, an unwilling instrument of the deed. The moral sense would then instantly reverse the former decision and transfer the charge to those who were behind. 2. Now, the mind of man, in order to be made up as to the moral character of any act, needs to know only what the intention was that originated the act. An act against the will indicates no demerit on the part of him who performed it. But an act with the will gives us the full impression of demerit. How the disposition got there is not the question which the moral sense of man, when he is unvitiated by a taste for speculation, takes any concern in. Give us two individuals — one of whom is revengeful and profligate, and the other kind and godly, and our moral sense leads us to regard the one as blameable and the other as praiseworthy. And in so doing it does not look so far back as to the originating cause of the distinction. 3. What stumbles the speculative inquirer is this, he thinks that a man born with a sinful disposition is born with the necessity of sinning, which exempts him from all imputation of guiltiness. But he confounds two things which are distinct, viz., the necessity that is against the will with the necessity that is with the will. The man who struggled against the external force that compelled him to thrust a dagger into the bosom of his friend, was operated upon by a necessity that was against his will; and you exempt him from all charge of criminality. But the man who does the same thing at the spontaneous bidding of his own heart, this you irresistibly condemn. The only necessity which excuses a man for doing evil, is a necessity that forces him by an external violence to do it, against the bent of his will struggling most honestly and determinedly to resist it. But if the necessity be that his will is bent upon the doing of it, then such a necessity just aggravates the man's guiltiness. 4. It is enough, then, that a disposition to moral evil exists; and however it originated, it calls forth, by the law of our moral nature, a sentiment of blame or reprobation. If it be asked how this can be, we reply that we do not know. It is not the only fact of which we can offer no other explanation than that simply such is the case. We can no more account for our physical than for our moral sensations. When we eat the fruit of the orange tree we feel the bitterness; but we do not know how this sensation upon our palate stands connected with a constitutional property in the tree, which has descended to it through a long line of ancestry. And when we look to the bitter fruit of transgression, and feel upon our moral sense a nauseating revolt, we do not know how this impression stands connected with a tendency which has been derived through many centuries. But certain it is that the origin of our depravity has nothing to do with the sense and feeling of its loathesomeness wherewith we regard it. 5. There is an effectual way of bringing this to the test. Let a neighbour inflict moral wrong or injury; will not the feeling of resentment rise immediately? Will you stop to inquire whence he derived the malice, or selfishness, under which you suffer? Is it not simply enough that he wilfully tramples upon your rights? If it be under some necessity which operates against his disposition, this may soften your resentment. But if it be under that kind of necessity which arises from the strength of his disposition to do you harm, this will only stimulate your resentment. And thinkest thou, O man, who judgest another for his returns of unworthiness to you, that thou wilt escape the judgment of God? 6. These remarks may prepare the way for all that man by his moral sense can understand in the imputation of Adam's sin. We confess that no man is responsible for the doings of another whom he never saw, and who departed this life many centuries before him. But if the doings of a distant ancestor have in point of fact corrupted his moral nature, and if this corruption has been transmitted to his descendants, then we can see how these become responsible, not for what their forefathers did, but for what they themselves do under the corrupt disposition that they have received from their forefather. According to this explanation, every man still reapeth not what another soweth, but what he soweth himself. Every man eateth the fruit of his own doings. III. IN ATTEMPTING TO VINDICATE THE DEALINGS OF GOD with the species, let us begin with the portion now within hearing. What have you to complain of? You say that, without your consent, a corrupt nature has been given you, and that so sin is unavoidable, and yet there is a law which denounces upon this sin the torments of eternity. Well, is this an honest complaint? Do you really feel your corrupt nature, and are you accordingly most desirous to be rid of it? Well, God is at this moment holding out to you in offer the very relief which you now tell us that your heart is set upon. Does not God wipe His hands of the foul charge that His sinful creatures would prefer against Him, when He says, "Turn unto Me and I will pour out My Spirit upon you"? Who does not see that every possible objection which can be raised against the Creator is most fully and fairly disarmed by what He offers to man in the gospel? And if man will persist in charging upon God a depravity that He both asks and enables us to give up, did not we firmly retain it by the wilful grasp of our own inclinations, is it not plain that on the day of reckoning it will be clear that the complaints of man, because of his corruption, have been those of a hypocrite, who secretly loved the very thing he so openly complained of. We may conceive a man murmuring at being upon a territory over which there is spread a foul atmosphere charged with all the elements of discomfort and disease, and at length to be wrapped in some devouring flame which would burn up every creature within its vortex. But let God point his way to another country, where freshness was in every breeze, and the whole air shed health and fertility and joy over the land that it encompassed — let Him offer all the facilities of conveyance so as to make it turn simply upon the man's will, whether he should continue in the accursed region or be transported to another. And will not the worthless choice to abide rather than to move, acquit God of the severity wherewith He has been charged, and unmask the hypocrisy of all the reproaches which man has uttered against Him? What is true of the original corruption is also true of the original guilt. Do you complain of that debt under the weight and oppression of which you came into the world? What ground, we ask, is there for complaining, when the offer is fairly put within your reach, of a most free and ample discharge, and that not merely for the guilt of original, but also for the whole guilt of your proper and personal sinfulness. (T. Chalmers, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: |
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