Great Doctrines of the Bible—God the Father, God the Son/ Martyn Lloyd Jones

17. Adam’s Posterity and Original Sin 

The immediate consequences of the fall are stated in the following passages: 

a). Genesis 3:14-16, “he LORD God said to the serpent,/ ‘Because you have done this,/ cursed are you above all livestock/ and above all beasts of the field;/ on your belly you shall go,/ and dust you shall eat/ all the days of your life./ 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,/ and between your offspring and her offspring;/ he shall bruise your head,/ and you shall bruise his heel./16 To the woman he said,/ I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;/ in pain you shall bring forth children./ Your desire shall be for your husband,/ and he shall rule over you.” 

b). Genesis 3:19, “And to Adam he said,/ ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife/ and have eaten of the tree/ of which I commanded you,/ ‘You shall not eat of it,’/ cursed is the ground because of you;/ in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;/ 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;/ and you shall eat the plants of the field.” 

c). Romans 8: 20, “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope” 

The universality of sin is asserted throughout the Bible. (See Isaiah 53:6, Romans 3:10 & 3:19; 3:23, James 3:2, 1 John 1:8, 1 John 1:10). 

“What is the character of sin?” 

a). Sin is “a special kind of evil” (191); it is “sin is moral or ethical evil” (192). “It means a positive transgression of law and a deliberate breaking of a covenant” (192). 

b). Sin has “an absolute character”; that is, “Sin is not merely the absence of good, it is a positive something and it has a clearly defined character” (192). 

c). Sin is “always something that is directly related to God and His will and His law” (192); in other words, “it is men and women in a condition in which they do not love God and do not live entirely for God’s glory and honor” (193). 

d). Sin is “something that is in the heart of men and women, not something on the surface of their life but right down in the very depths” (193). (Matthew 15:19). 

e). Sin “does not consist of actions only but essentially it is a condition” (193). 

f). Sin is “guilt and pollution” (193). 

* To sum Up: “sin is lack of conformity to the moral law of God, either in state, disposition, or act” (193). 

How does the sin of Adam affect the whole of his posterity? There are two theories: 

a). The realistic theory: It is that “sin is universal because the whole of human nature was in Adam. . . . when Adam sinned and fell the whole human nature fell with him. But not only that, it all fell in Adam at that one moment” (194). (See Hebrew 7:9-10). However, there are some difficulties: first, it tends to materialize the soul, and it raises a question: Why are we not responsible for all the sins inherited from our ancestors? And, does our Lord also receive the sin? 

b). The covenant theory: Adam is the representative of the entire human race. 

* For Lloyd Jones, “whichever of the theories is true, or if both are true, the fact is, according to the Bible, that it is from Adam directly and from that first sin of Adam, that universal sin has come” (196). 

Original Sin: “sin is derived from the original root of the human race—Adam—that all sin has come out of Adam” (197). There are two parts of original sin: original guilt and original pollution. Humans are actually guilty of the sin that was committed by Adam (197). 

Read Romans 5:12-19: 

“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—13for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. 15But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. 17For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. 18Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.”