Hilton Head Island, SC – August 8,2021
The Chapel Without Walls
Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7; Romans 7:13-25
A Sermon by John M. Miller
Text – We know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. – Romans 7:14 (RSV)
The concept of original sin is very old, but it isn’t nearly as old as the Bible. The Genesis account of creation and the so-called “fall of mankind” in the Garden of Eden refers to the notion of original sin, but it doesn’t call it that. In the seventh chapter of Romans, Paul also talked about original sin, but he did not use that particular terminology either, because it hadn’t been invented..
Everything in Genesis, chapters 1 through 11, is mythology. That is, it is made-up human stories intended to portray truths about God and larger issues. One definition of a myth is that it is a temporal story intended to explain eternal truths. There was no historical Adam and Eve in a Garden of Eden, which also did not exist, but when we read about them, we learn things we are meant to understand about ourselves and our own lives.
Even people who know almost nothing about the Bible know the story of Adam and Eve and Eden. If you ask people in Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan or in the slums of Kolkata or in Teheran, Iran what was the forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve ate, they will tell you: apples. The forbidden fruit was an apple. What variety of apple apparently no one ever thought about.
Of course there was no forbidden fruit, because there was no Adam and Eve. But that’s why myths are so powerful: we know the content of the stories, and in our minds we convert the stories into actual history, which the mythmakers never intended to happen. Because we subconsciously do that, it illustrates that myths do what they are intended to do. They portray truths about God and humanity that are forever valid, and we are supposed to implant them permanently in our minds.
Do you know why we say the forbidden fruit was an apple? It is because of a play on words from Latin. In Latin the world for “bad” or “evil” is malus, and the word for apple is malum. Therefore, ten or fifteen centuries ago when European Christians were widely still using Latin, they concluded that the evil fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which the first two residents of Eden weren’t supposed to eat must have been a malum, an apple and a bad apple at that. We call anyone who is a not-nice person “a bad apple.” And now you know why. A malus malum spoils the whole barrel.
As you will remember, God told our “first parents” that they must not eat the forbidden fruit. When they heard that, it was the first thing they went out and did. And thereby is the original explanation of original sin: we do what we know we’re not supposed to do, but we do it anyway. The New England Primer was a seventeenth-century textbook used in primary schools for generations. Among many other dictates it gave to innocent little Puritan kids, when there was no separation of church and state in elementary education, it said this: “In Adam’s fall we sinned all.” In other words, because the first two mythological people in the world sinned, nobody ever after can avoid sinning. Sin is inherent in us genetically; we can’t escape it. Children were warned that they must never forget that.
There are many people who insist that they do not sin. When they say that, what they mean is that they don’t commit murder or robbery or anything of that serious ilk. And it’s true that, as a percentage, very few people do commit such sins. The rest of the Ten Commandments, however, are another matter altogether. Furthermore, when you consider what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, the list of unacceptable sins grows geometrically. If anyone looks lustfully at anyone else, that person has committed adultery in his or her heart, Jesus said. If you’re angry at someone, Jesus said, you have committed murder in your heart. It is wrong to resist anyone who wants to hurt you, said Jesus. Seen in that much broader context, everybody sins, and probably we all sin far more frequently that we are inclined to admit.
When God created each of us, He gave us free will. That means we are free to do whatever we choose to do. God did not make us automatons, who always do only what He wants. He allows us to make our own choices. But through religion and reason and righteousness, God also spiritually encourages us to do what we know we should do. Nonetheless, God never forces us to do anything. For reasons known ultimately only to Him, God chose to allow us the freedom to choose our own actions for ourselves.
In the story of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit, a serpent is the explanation for why they broke God’s commandment. Few of us are favorably disposed to snakes, so it was a clever concept in the plot to have a sneaky snake that caused the Eden dwellers to go awry. And once they had sinned, they knew they were naked, and they sewed “aprons” for themselves. You’d think that even when they had not yet sinned they should have figured out that they were naked, but the Bible has a nervous attitude toward nakedness. People who are naked might do things they shouldn’t do. Traditionally, the Catholic Church said, more or less, that nobody should do what people might do when they’re naked unless they are intending to produce babies. Sex for procreation is okay, but sex for pleasure is probably sinful. No wonder so many Catholics are so strait-laced about so many things. Sin can throw us off so often that it should be confessed at least once a week, according to the Catholic hierarchy, especially if any of those sins might be mortal, as compared to venial, sins.
There was a strand of biblical religion among the Israelites and Jews which also became fixated on the sordid validity of sin, especially original sin. Because we are incapable of not sinning, this line of thinking went, we sin with greater frequency than we are willing to admit. And for those who are fully convinced of the inevitability that they shall sin, it can send them into a spiritual and psychological tailspin.
Saul of Tarsus, later known as the apostle Paul, was just such a Jew. He prided himself on being a first-class upholder of the religious law, the Torah. But he also knew that try as he might, he still fell of the wagon of righteousness on numerous occasions. In the seventh chapter of his letter to the Romans, Paul described this in excruciating, even twisted, detail. He wrote, “Apart from the law sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived” (or, as William Barclay translated it, “sin seduced me,”) “ and I died” (Romans 7:8-9).
What Paul most intended to say in his letter to the Romans is that sin will kill everyone whoever lived unless their sins are forgiven. He further insisted that sins can be forgiven only by the death of Jesus on the cross. Sin dies by Christ’s death, but because Jesus died, we can be saved from death by faithfully accepting Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross. I will address that idea in much greater detail three weeks from now in the sermon entitled The Apostle Paul and Jesus.
Later in Romans 7, Paul says this: “We know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin” (7:14). To state it differently, Paul seems to be saying that the Torah is a spiritual reality, but every human being is a fleshly reality, “sold under sin.” To put that in first-century terminology that his readers would understand, we are all slaves to sin. We are simply unable always to do what we know we should do, because sin makes us do things we know we ought not to do. It is a genetic failing. “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I know that the law is good. So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me” (7:15-17).
Do you wonder what is the origin of original sin? There it is! Sin dwells within all of us, because none can avoid sinning. It isn’t possible! If we live, we shall sin --- often.
When we speak roughly to someone who irritates us, we are sinning. When we are unkind to someone who makes a legitimate request of us, we are sinful. When we say “(Blank) you!” (and you can fill in the blank), we are sinful. In my opinion (and you won’t find this anywhere in the Bible), anyone in a democracy who is capable of voting and doesn’t cast an intelligent vote is committing one of the worst sins of omission. You may not agree with that, so let me give you another example. Anyone who walks by or drives by someone who is begging without giving that person something (and on this affluent island you don’t see many such people) may well be engaging in sin. Jesus said so. “Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you” (Mt. 5:42). I believe Jesus very likely said that, and he really believed it.
There is a good reason to listen to what the doctrine of original sin means. The purpose is not to make you feel bad about yourself. The purpose is to make you understand that it is not possible for you not to sin. If you don’t like double negatives, then let me state it this way: No matter how hard you try not to do so, you are certain to sin. Original sin, genetic sin, guarantees it.
As if what he has already said is not sufficient, Paul adds this: “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin which dwells within me” (7:19-20).
Here is where I think the second-most important person and theologian in the New Testament goes off the track on which he is trying to keep himself and us firmly fixed. Original sin, the proclivity toward sin which is within us when we are born, is not in itself the thing which causes us to sin. It is our free will, wrongly exercised, which causes us to sin. But it is also true that we cannot not sin. Therefore, on many occasions throughout our lives, we break God’s laws.
In an issue of The New Yorker last month, there was a long story about the troubles Minneapolis has faced before, during, and after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. As you will recall, there was a strong movement to “defund the police” after that shocking incident. In fact the largest city in Minnesota did decide to lower the appropriations for the police department per se and to raise the funding for the Department of Social Services and for other community specialists. With respect to original sin, defunding the police would be like all doctors refusing to prescribe antibiotics because on rare occasions they can make things worse for sick people or even kill them. Defunding the police would be like thinking that if there was no one to prevent crime, crime would somehow magically vanish.
I have had two recent telephone conversations with John Melin, our former associate pastor who has moved to Rochester, Minnesota to receive treatment at the Mayo Clinic for two serious medical problems which have confronted him in the last two years. In both of those conversations we happened to get on the topic of original sin. We were talking about all the people who have refused to be vaccinated for Covid. In exasperation, we both agreed that is an exhibition of original sin. John told me that he might reject all other doctrines of the historical Church of Jesus Christ, but he still firmly believes in the doctrine of original sin. To me that suggests that he thinks it is sinful not to be vaccinated, and I strongly agree with him.
For those of you who have been associated with The Chapel Without Walls for a long time, and have heard John in sermons or in forums after sermons, you may or may not have picked up on the fact that John is even more unorthodox than I am. You might even find that hard to believe, but I know it to be true, and he knows it to be true. But John has been a Lutheran pastor for his entire adult life. Lutherans and Catholics absolutely revel in the doctrine of original sin. For generations many Presbyterians also did, although now I suspect relatively few do. Methodists don’t believe in original sin at all, and Episcopalians think that the very notion of original sin is probably quite beneath people of their caste and class. I suspect that most Mormons have not even heard of this longstanding medieval doctrine.
What I am trying to get across here, and am probably doing it badly, is that it is not wise to overstate the power or original sin of sin in its limitless instances. On the other hand, it is a serious mistake to minimize the reality or the effects of sin as well, original or otherwise. We are less than perfect creatures, and we shall never achieve perfection. Thus we shall all sin. But as Christians it is our duty and responsibility to maintain righteousness and to avoid sin to the highest degree of which we are capable. There is really only a single message in this sermon, and it is summarized in this one relatively short paragraph.
To repeat: It is not possible not to sin. But when we know what sin is and we know we shouldn’t do it, what do we about it?