Origin of Sin
Text: (No specific text; topical — Gen. 3:1-6; Rom. 5:12; I John 3:4 as governing texts)
Series: Restoration Sermons
Date:
Speaker: Ed Rangel
Location: Waupaca Church of Christ
Bible Version: NASB 1995
Sermon Type: Topical
Learning Objectives
By the close of this lesson the hearer should be able to:
- Distinguish between physical evil and moral evil — explain why both exist and why God is not the author of moral evil.
- Explain the claim that sin originated with angels before it originated with man, and identify the Scripture references.
- State the position on "original sin" as a theory — what is true in it and what is in error.
- Define "actual sin" from I John 3:4 and explain why this definition is preferable to the alternatives.
- Explain the seductiveness of the first temptation — the four specific elements — and identify which of them the outline says was most characteristic of the Tempter's method.
Thesis
Sin did not originate with God. God created beings with the power to choose; some chose to disobey. The origin of sin is the misuse of freedom, not a failure in the design that produced the freedom. The first sins were angelic; the first human sin was Adam and Eve's deliberate disobedience in the garden. The theory of original sin contains some truth — the pervasive influence of sin's consequences — but is in serious error when it teaches that Adam's guilt was inherited as guilt by his posterity. Actual sin, committed by the individual (I John 3:4), is the biblical category.
Burden
The origin of sin is a question that has generated a great deal of bad theology: theories that make sin eternal, that make sin a limitation rather than a moral evil, that make God responsible for it, or that make the individual responsible for the guilt of Adam's sin. The burden is to work through the theories honestly — acknowledging what is true in each — and to arrive at the biblical definition.
Introduction
"The Bible is a history of sin." Every other story the Bible tells is set against this background. The creation narrative of Genesis 1-2 exists as the before-picture; Genesis 3 is the moment that everything after it is responding to. Before the biblical record was made, sin was already present — the serpent in the garden presupposes a sin that predates the garden. The origin of sin is behind the first page.
Many theories have been offered. The sermon examines the most significant, evaluates them against the evidence, and arrives at the biblical position.
I. Where Did Sin Originate?
The question requires the prior question: what is sin?
The distinction between evil and sin. Not all evil is moral evil; not all suffering is the direct consequence of individual sin. Physical evil is a category of its own: "I am the Lord, and there is no other; the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these" (Isa. 45:7). The physical calamities that God creates — drought, earthquake, pestilence, the suffering of the innocent alongside the guilty (Luke 16:25) — are not the same as moral evil. They exist in the world that sin has damaged, but they are not themselves sin.
Moral evil is the category in question. Its content: the violation of the last six commandments (against neighbor), and the thoughts and purposes of the heart that precede and produce external acts of sin (Mark 7:21-23; Rom. 1:30; I Cor. 10:6). Physical and moral evil are closely related — moral evil produces physical consequences — but they are not identical, and science, which attempts to treat them independently, cannot address the category of moral evil at all.
Sin did not originate with God. The standard arguments for the contrary are refuted by the nature of the case: God created beings with the power to choose; some chose to disobey; this disobedience is the origin of sin. The freedom to choose is not the same as the cause of the choice. God gave freedom; freedom was misused. The responsibility for the misuse belongs to the misuser.
Angels sinned first. "God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment" (II Pet. 2:4). "And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day" (Jude 6). The sin of angels preceded the sin of Adam and Eve; sin entered the creation before the garden. The Adversary who appears in Genesis 3 is already a fallen creature.
On Lucifer (Isa. 14:12): the passage in Isaiah 14 addresses the king of Babylon in terms that may or may not apply to the fall of Satan; careful exegesis does not permit the confident identification of Lucifer with Satan's fall that popular tradition has made. The outline is correct to note this without developing it.
Human sin began with Adam and Eve (Rom. 5:12). "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned." The causal sequence is Paul's: through one man — Adam — sin entered the world; death came with it; and death spread to all because all sinned. The "all sinned" at the end of the verse is the biblical basis for actual sin: each person sinned, not merely inherited the consequence of another person's sin.
"When lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death" (James 1:15). The mechanism of actual sin: desire (lust) conceived, not suppressed or redirected; the conception produces the act; the act produces its consequence.
II. History of First Human Sin
Only the Bible gives the account of first human sin. Every other ancient culture has creation narratives; none has the specific account of moral failure that Genesis 3 provides.
Adam and Eve disobeyed God's law in the garden (Gen. 3:1-6). The account is specific about the mechanism of the temptation — which is important because the same mechanism operates in every temptation since.
The seductiveness of the temptation had four elements. The fruit was pleasant to look upon — the appeal to aesthetic pleasure, to the beauty of the thing desired. It was good to eat — the appeal to physical appetite, to what the body wanted. It was desired to make one wise — the appeal to intellectual ambition, to the desire to know what was beyond what had been given. And the tempter used the half-truth method: "You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Gen. 3:4-5). The half-truth is the most seductive form of deception: the statement that "your eyes will be opened" was accurate; the statement that they would be "like God" was misleading; the statement that they would "not die" was false. The mixture of true, misleading, and false — presented as a unified claim — is the structure of every effective temptation.
The disobedience was willful. Man was created a free agent; he was not forced to disobey. The environment was not corrupted; the knowledge of the prohibition was clear; the freedom to comply was present. The disobedience was a choice — which is exactly what makes it a sin rather than merely a misfortune.
III. Original Sin
This is the most theologically contested section of the sermon, and the outline handles it carefully.
Original sin is a theory — an interpretation of the data, not the data itself. The theory holds that Adam's sin was transmitted to his posterity in three specific ways: his original righteousness was lost; the corruption of his entire nature was passed on; and his guilt was transferred to his descendants.
The third point — inherited guilt — is where the theory contains the most serious error. The individual accountability passages directly contradict the inheritance of guilt: "The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father's iniquity" (Ezek. 18:20); "Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin" (Deut. 24:16). These texts appear in the next section under "actual sin," but they apply here as well: the guilt belongs to the person who committed the act.
What is true in the theory: the pervasive influence of sin — the corruption of human nature that makes every person susceptible to sin from the beginning of their life — is real. The theory is correct that the fall had consequences for all of Adam's descendants. It is in error when it treats those consequences as guilt to be forgiven rather than as a condition to be contended with.
IV. Actual Sin
The contrast with "original sin" makes the biblical definition sharper.
"Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness" (I John 3:4). Sin is the individual's practice of lawlessness — the personal, deliberate violation of God's law. "To one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin" (James 4:17). "The person who sins will die" (Ezek. 18:20). "Everyone shall be put to death for his own sin" (Deut. 24:16).
The individual accountability of actual sin is both the more challenging and the more hopeful doctrine: more challenging because it admits no excuse (I cannot blame my environment, my ancestry, or Adam's guilt), and more hopeful because it is specific enough to be forgiven. The forgiveness of guilt requires the identification of the guilty person; actual sin is committed by the individual and forgiven by the individual's obedient response to the gospel.
Application
The origin of sin matters practically for two reasons.
First: it places responsibility correctly. Sin is not a fate, not an inherited guilt, not a force independent of God that operates without the person's involvement. It is the misuse of freedom — which means the person who sins chose to sin, and the person who has not yet repented is still choosing.
Second: it identifies the entry point of the solution. Sin entered through the misuse of freedom; it is addressed through the exercise of freedom in the right direction — the obedient response to the gospel that chooses Christ over the pattern that Adam chose in the garden.
Conclusion
Sin is not eternal, not God's creation, not a limitation of being, not a necessary component of the greatest good. It is the misuse of the freedom that God gave to creatures who were given the power to choose. The angels who sinned chose to sin; Adam and Eve chose to sin; every person who has sinned has chosen to sin. The good news is that the freedom which was misused can be redirected: the person who chose sin can choose repentance. The gospel presupposes freedom as fully as sin does.
Invitation
The first human sin was a choice between what God had said and what the Tempter was promising. The invitation is the same choice, reversed: God has promised forgiveness; the path to it is clear; the freedom to take it is present.
Believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Repent. Confess his name. Be baptized for the remission of your sins (Acts 2:38). The freedom that was misused to produce sin is available to be rightly used in response to the gospel.
Word Study
| English Term | Greek Term | Basic Meaning | Usage in This Sermon | Sermon Significance | Key Texts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lawlessness | anomia | Without law — a- (without) + nomos (law). The state or act of operating without regard to God's law. | Used in I John 3:4: "sin is lawlessness (anomia)." | The definition is relational: sin is not simply harmful behavior or psychological dysfunction — it is the violation of a specific law, the law of God. No law, no sin; this law, this sin. The definition places sin in a context of relationship with God and responsibility to God. | I John 3:4; Rom. 3:20 |
| Actual sin | (Conceptual) | Sin committed by the individual — contrasted with the inherited corruption of "original sin" theology. | Used as the biblical category that Ezek. 18:20 and Deut. 24:16 establish: each person bears the punishment for their own sin. | The category of actual sin is both the more demanding (no inherited excuse) and the more hopeful (specific enough to be forgiven). The gospel addresses actual sin: specific guilt, specific forgiveness, specific obedience. | Ezek. 18:20; Deut. 24:16; I John 3:4 |
| Lust / Desire | epithumia | Strong desire — can be positive or negative; in the context of sin, the desire that conceives and produces the sinful act. | Used in James 1:15: "when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin." | The biological metaphor (conception, birth) describes the process of sin's emergence: the desire that is not redirected or refused becomes the act. The origin of each individual sin is in the desire that was allowed to conceive. | James 1:15 |
| Hardened / Petrified | pōroō | To make callous or hard — the same root as the hardness of heart in Mark 3:5. | Used conceptually for the condition that repeated sin produces: the heart that becomes progressively less capable of responding to the truth it has been refusing. | The mechanism of spiritual hardening is relevant to the doctrine of sin's origin in each individual: the first sin is a choice; repeated sin produces a condition in which choice becomes progressively more difficult. The origin of sin is freedom; the consequence of habituated sin is diminished freedom. | Mark 3:5; Heb. 3:13 |
Scripture Interlock Table
| Theme | Boles' Outline | Supporting Scripture |
|---|---|---|
| "God creates calamity" — physical evil from God, not moral evil | I.2a | Isa. 45:7 |
| Thoughts and purposes of heart — source of moral evil | I.2b | Mark 7:21-23; Rom. 1:30 |
| "God did not spare angels when they sinned" | I.6 | II Pet. 2:4; Jude 6 |
| "Through one man sin entered" — human sin from Adam | I.6c | Rom. 5:12 |
| "Lust conceives, births sin, sin births death" | I.6d | James 1:15 |
| The seductiveness of the first temptation | II.4 | Gen. 3:1-6 |
| "Son will not bear father's iniquity" — individual accountability | IV.2 | Ezek. 18:20; Deut. 24:16 |
| "Sin is lawlessness" — actual sin defined | IV.1 | I John 3:4 |
| Baptism for remission — the rightly-used freedom | Invit. | Acts 2:38 |
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Converted from H. Leo Boles, Outline 156. Primary text: none stated; topical (Gen. 3:1-6; Rom. 5:12; I John 3:4 as governing texts). OCR corrections: "mora l" → "moral"; "cl)" → "d)"; "lll." → "III." Doctrinal audit: the origin of sin placed correctly in the misuse of freedom by creatures (angels first, then humans) — God is not the author of moral evil; the "original sin" theory evaluated honestly — the inherited corruption acknowledged as real, the inherited guilt specifically rejected from Ezek. 18:20 and Deut. 24:16; actual sin developed as the biblical category with specific definition from I John 3:4; no Calvinist total inability or inherited guilt developed; invitation retains full obedient response (Acts 2:38).
