What Is Fallenness?

If you missed our Numbers session last night (Jan. 29th), you missed a foundational discussion on the matter of original sin. The question was: What is fallenness (our propensity to sin), how is it passed down from Adam, and why didn’t Jesus get it?

Several people mentioned that “sin is a choice.” We soon realized, however, that though sins often involve choices, that fact doesn’t explain why “all have sinned” (Rom 3.23). If fallenness were only a matter of each individual choosing to sin, it would (theoretically) be possible to have some people in the world who had never sinned; each individual would be born sinless like Adam and Eve and then get to choose one way or the other.

But David confessed to having been “sinful at birth” (Psa 51.5), and Paul confirms that even infants sin (because even infants die – Rom 5.12). So we had to ask if fallenness was like a germ that gets passed down from generation to generation. The germ theory fails to explain why Jesus didn’t “catch it,” though. Someone suggested that sin (fallenness) is passed down through the human father and Jesus didn’t “catch it” because He had no human father. Well, we Christian men aren’t going to stand for this kind of sexist thinking! (I’m kidding.) But frankly, there is no biblical basis for the “germ” theory. It’s true that fallenness derives from our relationship to Adam (1Co 15.21,22), and it’s also true that Jesus, though a true son of Adam, was not born in a fallen state (1Jo 3.5), but nowhere does the Bible present fallenness as a disease that is transmitted by a biological (or spiritual) substance. So, if it’s not a “germ,” what is fallenness?

I didn’t hear anyone mention the Augustinian view of original sin last night. That view states that we all sinned seminally (biologically) while we were still “in Adam” in the garden of Eden. Nor did I hear mention of the Reformation era Federal theory which states that God simply imputes sin to the whole race because their federal head (Adam) sinned. These two longstanding and orthodox ideas unfortunately raise more questions than they answer (neither of them explains why Jesus was not born fallen).

So, what is fallenness? Rick Dupea won the Dove Bar award last night for explaining that fallenness is a spiritual deficiency. The moment that Adam and Eve sinned, they died spiritually. That component of the human person that was designed to respond to God and sit in the driver’s seat of man’s whole nature, the spirit, died. That spiritual death rendered Adam and Eve forever unable to bequeath a living, vibrant spirit to their progeny. Everyone — but Jesus — has since been born with a deadness of spirit, a deadness that is only deepened each time the unregenerate person sins. That’s why Paul describes the human condition apart from Christ as being “dead in [our] transgressions and in the uncircumcision of [our] flesh” (Col 2.13). That’s also why the cure for human fallenness begins with the new birth; “no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of ... the Spirit.... the Spirit gives birth to spirit” (John 3.5,6).

Why wasn’t Jesus born fallen, with a propensity to sin? Because though His mother was unable to give Him spiritual life, His Father, God, was able to fill Him with vibrant spiritual life from birth!

Dan Thompson asked an important follow-up question: If the new birth of the spirit is the cure to human fallenness, why can’t born-again parents give birth to sinless children? This is a great question. The observed fact that even the children of born-again parents are sinful, tells us that there’s more to the story. We realize that the new birth is not the whole cure for the fall of man, but only the beginning of the cure. Though our spirit is born again, we still inhabit fallen bodies and still battle with the flesh. The rest of the cure awaits the Resurrection (Romans 8.23)!

This discussion was foundational because in coming BC2AD sessions it will help us understand a number of other biblical truths. For example, a clear understanding of our fallenness and its cure will eventually help us more fully grasp what happened (and what didn’t happen) when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost. I look forward to that discussion!

What The LORD Passed Over

Exodus 12.23 explains the dynamic of the Passover event:

When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.

I've emphasized the words in this verse which state that it is the doorway that the LORD would pass over, in the sense of entering the house and passing through the blood in a sign of covenant kinship.

However, the Scripture uses the idea of passing over in a couple of different ways. In an earlier verse, Exo 12.13, God emphasizes that He will pass over (in the sense of upon) the Israelites themselves (the Hebrew is aleichem, as in the familiar greeting shalom aleichem, Peace be upon you). This meaning of God's passing over is beautifully reiterated in Isaiah 31.5 (NIV):

Like birds hovering overhead,
the LORD Almighty will shield Jerusalem;
he will shield it and deliver it,
he will 'pass over ' it and will rescue it.

Looking back to the original Passover in Egypt, this second idea pictures the LORD passing over each covenant home and hovering there like a great, shielding canopy.

Thank you, LORD!