Original Sin
Thursday, May 29, 2008 Labels: religion, sin 9 commentsThere was a question in a Facebook group about original sin. This question also carried over to Jesus' sinless life and His virgin birth. After reading some of the responses I felt urged to look into the matter further. To begin, I will start in Genesis where sin originated and God sets forth His punishments.
Genesis 3:15
"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel."
God says and prophesied a lot in this statement. God is cursing Satan here. This point of enmity between seeds reflects the importance of the virgin birth. If it weren't for the virgin birth Jesus would have been conceived by the seed of Adam (not to mention the curse of Jeconiah which I have yet to study in depth).
Before I get into the second part of that verse I want to skip over to Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus.
John 3:3
"Jesus answered and said to him 'Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.'"
Let me ask, why is it Jesus used the phrase "born again" or new birth? Is it because we are born sinners?
Psalm 58:3
"The wicked are estranged from the womb; They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies."
God's grace is revealed in the second part of Genesis 3:15. Notice that "He" has a capital "H". This means God is referring to Jesus. Lets look at the latter, "and you shall bruise His heel" What is God talking about when He here?
Isaiah 53:5
"But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed."
Now the second part -- "He shall bruise your head"
Romans 16:20
"And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly."
Lastly, let me reemphasize the importance of the virgin birth. The virgin birth not only blocks arguments of Jesus being born a sinner, but also defends His deity and fulfills prophecy (Isaiah 7:14). The Bible refers to Jesus as the "Son of God" and the "Son of Man".
Philippians 2:5-8
"Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross."
Galatians 4:4
"But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law"
It is in my opinion that with the support of these verses I can say that everyone is born a sinner except for one because of conception by the Holy Spirit. It is also essential to believe in the virgin birth for salvation because it was prophesied (Isaiah 7:14) and to understand and know Jesus' deity.
responded on facebook.
My big reservation on this is that the original Hebrew does NOT say virgin and so we have the issue of whether a whole Christian doctrine has been built on a mistranslation.
dp,
That is usually brought up, but after reading the gospel of Luke, Mary's response to the Angel is one of confusion because she does not comprehend how this could have happened. This gives me confidence of a virgin birth.
Good point to look into further, Thanks.
Is that a later gloss by the church?
I was going to make a similar comment. We often have to deal with a later editing process when we read scripture.
I suppose it depends in the end what one's stance on the reliability of scripture is.
Occam's razor would suggest that aside from blatant myth creation by the early church, there are only three realistic possibilities:
1) Joseph got her pregnant.
2) Another man got her pregnant.
3) God made her pregnant.
Her confusion would suggest that the first two aren't candidates...
I agree. But you don't need the virginity bit for that. My hunch is that came later in the story telling.
If we're believing what the bible tells us, we believe Mary was a virgin. Mistranslation aside, Mary and Joseph both testify to her being a virgin.
Mary says, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?".
Mary is obviously confused at having a child, since she's never been with a man.
Joseph had planned to divorce Mary when she told him she was pregnant, until an angel told him, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins".
We can embrace the scriptures given to us through the Holy Spirit, or we can side with the Jews who use this argument to reject Jesus as the messiah.
Hmmm, interesting. I was under the impression that the Bible was quite clear on this topic...
And to stray off topic for a sec, pardon the interruption, thank you Craig for commenting on Nikki's blog. I appreciate it!