I’m Not Guilty of Adam’s Sin – How Can We Be Called Sinners?

by Michael Shackleton · July 28, 2017

Original sin is the sin of disobedience to God committed by Adam, yet we his descendants are tainted by that sin: “By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners” (Romans 5:19). Our first parents were guilty of sin but we are not guilty of the same sin. How can we, therefore, be called sinners? Simone

We know from reading Genesis that God created man and woman, blessed them and told them to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. With this blessing, they lived in holiness and happiness. Their lives were perfectly in harmony with one another, with nature and with their creator.

Imagine if they had never sinned. We cannot really comprehend how beautiful and fulfilling their lives would have been and how their children would have shared in this magnanimous blessing.

We don’t need much imagination to know how things turned out. Original sin destroyed that perfect balance blessed by God between creator and creation, and this is the situation we experience in our daily lives.

We have not committed the sin that was personal to Adam and Eve. But we have been born into a condition of being deprived of the holiness and righteousness they were first blessed with.

This deprivation means that our human nature is wounded and made weak. We have lost our compass and easily stray and collapse into all sorts of errors and sins and, eventually, death.

The power of sin is seen in everyday relationships around us and wherever there is social activity.

Redeemed By the Life and Death of Jesus

Basic to the whole doctrine of original sin is the need for the world to be redeemed from it by the life, death and resurrection of Christ.

Reading the whole of Romans 5 is a help in understanding the mystery of original sin. It also shows Christ’s essential role in redeeming the children of Adam from it. St Paul emphasises that Christ died for the “ungodly”, all of us deprived of our first parents’ blessed lives.

In redeeming the world Christ brings us forgiveness and the presence of his grace to transform us in the Holy Spirit. This means that, yes, we feel the effects of sin, but we also are embraced by his forgiving love. This cannot be doubted because Jesus Christ is one of us, true man as he is true God. Christ is forever a part of us.

The world is still marked by sin and its effects but the power of Christ’s love exercised through his Church and its members demonstrates that sin and evil have not conquered human nature or separated us from God, one another and the blessings of creation.