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Hello, I'm Kevin DeYoung, pastor at Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, and you are listening to Doctrine Matters. We want this podcast to equip Christians with a better understanding of the rich theology that undergirds our faith. And hopefully, along the way, we'll be looking at some that have even been misunderstood or maybe threatened in the church's history. We'll point out the biblical evidence, the arguments, and work together to reshape our thinking, be transformed by the renewal of our minds with scripture and reason as we think theologically together. Because, as the title of the podcast tells you, Doctrine Matters. This week we come to the doctrine of sin. This is a subset in the wider doctrine of anthropology, that is the doctrine of man. We've been looking at what it means to be made in the image of God, what it means to be male and female, and now we come to the doctrine of sin. In particular, I want us to think about the essence of sin, the origin of sin, and the transmission of sin. So first, the essence of sin. In simplest terms, sin is lawlessness. That's the definition from First John 3. 4. It means we have broken God's commandments. We have fallen short of his glory. But sin goes deeper than just missing the mark. Scripture often refers to sin as idolatry. It's worshiping false gods, whether those gods can be seen or not. It's also considered spiritual adultery, a kind of whoring after other lovers looking for other means of satisfaction. Sin is pollution. Sin is pervasive. Sin is the. The problem in the universe. Now, where did this sin come from? Well, we don't know a lot about where the first sin comes from. Now we do in Genesis about the first human sin. But even before that, the fact that there's a crafty serpent, the devil in the garden, means there was some other sin in the spiritual realm before we see Adam and Eve there in the material world. Jude six explains that some angels, quote, did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling. And it says these he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day. There are other passages, first Timothy, for example, Ezekiel 28, that suggest the devil's fall was the result of pride. Now, we don't know, and sometimes you have to be careful because we think we know things, and it actually comes from John Milton's Paradise Lost. But what we can tell from the Bible is that prior to Adam and Eve's sin, there was some kind of angelic rebellion led by Lucifer, Satan, the devil and they have been bound over. There is no hope of their redemption. And now they ever live to death, tempt and entice and accuse and bring men and women into sin. There's a number of different words for sin. Iniquity, rebellion, transgression, wickedness, evil, trespass. And it's important, by the way, I think, to use these strong, angular biblical words. Sometimes we slide over into therapeutic language, brokenness, or people will say I'm messed up. Well, of course there's an element of truth that we are broken and that things don't work the way they should. But that can make it sound like our sin is. It's just something that passively happened to us. These words are more than just messed up, or I'm not perfect, or I wish I could be better. I have growth curves or learning edges. No, it's iniquity, reason, rebellion, idolatry. There's a directness when the Bible speaks about sin which tells us the heart of the matter, the essence, the problem in the world. It's not simply that we make mistakes or that we're generically imperfect, or that there's a lack of education or economic vitality. The problem of all problems is sin. This God hating rebellion that is endemic to fallen human nature. Second big heading then, the origin of sin. Well, here we're talking about the origin of human sin. You can go back to the garden. There's a tree, it's a probationary tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And Adam failed that test. He disobeyed. And as a result of the fall, we see all of these cataclysmic consequences. Shame enters the world. Adam and Eve realize they're naked. Fear enters the world. Adam and Eve hide from God, Blame enters the world. The man blamed God for giving him the woman. The woman blamed the serpent for deceiving her. Pain entered the world. Relationships turn sour. Work becomes a chore. All of these things are a result of the fall. And because of Adam's sin, God cursed the serpent and cursed the ground. Now, the man and the and the woman were not directly cursed. Sometimes we use that language, and I think I've said that before, a bit carelessly, that Adam and Eve were cursed. Now in a way that's true because they were made to experience the effects of the curse, to live in a cursed world. But it is telling that in Genesis the serpent in particular is cursed and the ground is cursed. But men and women are not called cursed, even though they have to suffer the effects of the sin. That they committed so that women have pain in childbirth, men are frustrated by work. The earth produces thorns and thistles. Romans 8 tells us, now all creation is subjected to futility. You may have heard the term original sin. Now, that as a theological term does not refer usually to the first sin in the garden. Now, you could say that, well, that was the original sin. Now, it's what we mean theologically by original sin is bound up in that. But that's not so much what we're talking about. We're not. We're not talking about. Name for me the very first human sin. No, more precisely, original sin refers to that hereditary depravity and corruption that makes us guilty before God and then yields in us sinful thoughts, sinful desires, sinful actions. So original sin is what clings to us as fallen creatures because the whole human race was bound up in Adam. So think inherited sin and not just inherited bad behavior, an inherited pollution and an inherited guilt. That's what we mean by original sin. It's important to distinguish that from what theologians called actual sin. Now here we have to be very careful, because actual in this context does not mean real sin as opposed to supposed sin, and it doesn't refer to external sin as opposed to internal sin. So when you see this, it's in the Westminster Confession, for example. It's in a lot of old theologies and confessional statements, the distinction between original and actual. Actual sin is the sin we commit by our volition in thought, in word and deed. So internal sin is actual as external is. When you think something or feel something wrongly or you have a wrong desire, all of that is actual sin. It doesn't have to manifest itself outwardly or in actions in order to be actual. It's called actual sin because it's contrasted to original sin, which is hereditary. That now, in a way, we are. Our wills were all bound up in Adam, but. But we might say we didn't choose to be born with original sin. That's the effect of having Adam as our federal head. This actual sin, thought, word and deed, internal and external, are those things that come out of us. Now. We may not even be aware that it comes. It may arise in us unbidden. It may not feel like we chose to lust after that woman or after that man. And yet those are actual sins because they arise from an act of our soul. This doctrine of original sin, from which springs actual sin is taught so frequently in the Bible. We have over and over this strong language. No one is righteous, all have sinned and fall short. Of the glory of God. The human heart, Jeremiah says, is deceitful above all things. Desperately sick. The natural man is dead. Trespass in sin. We are conceived in sin, brought forth in iniquity. Genesis 6. We are inclined toward evil. All like sheep, we have gone astray. Isaiah 53. There is no one who does not sin. On and on and on. We are born with this inherited guilt and depravity. There is virtually no doctrine in the Bible taught more forcefully and more frequently than the natural persons inherited all pervasive sinfulness. And if we're honest, there's no doctrine. We can see more clearly with our own eyes from our children who do not need to be taught how to sin to people in every culture, at every time and in every place, in every language. We are all dealing with this problem called sin. The essence of sin, the origin of sin. And now, real briefly, the transmission of sin. So the essence of sin is answering the question, what is the nature of sin? And then where does our sin come from? That's the origin comes from Adam. And now we come to the transmission. How does sin spread in some people's minds? There are only sinful acts, not sinful dispositions. That is, we don't inherit a sinful nature. We simply copy bad behavior. But the Bible says that we sin not only by imitation. Now, that's true. Bad company corrupts good character. But we sin also by imputation. Or to put it another way, we sin because we are sinners. And we are sinners because, to give the little quip, in Adam's fall, we sinned all. Romans 5 is the key text in dealing with the transmission of sin. Romans 5:12 says, Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so death spread to all men, because all sinned. And when Paul says, there all sinned, he doesn't mean all have sinned in our lifetimes, though that's true. He means all sinned in Adam. Death spread to all, because all sinned that we were bound up in Adam. Death came as a result of sin. Death spread to everyone in the human race because. Because everyone in the human race was in Adam. Now, this is what Paul means. We know, because in verse 18 he compares the one trespass, Adam eating the fruit from the wife from Eve, that's the one trespass, with the one act of righteousness, which is Christ's death on the cross. Just as the one act of disobedience brought condemnation and death through our union with Adam, so also the one act of obedience brings Justification and life through our union with Christ. In both cases, it is by imputation. Sometimes people say you can tell the story of the Gospel with three imputations. That word means to count or to reckon, to credit to someone. So first there is the imputation of Adam's sin. We are bound up in Adam so that his sin was our sin. His consequence is our consequence. But then there's a second imputation, which is, our sin is imputed to Christ. He took human nature, and though he had no sin, he takes upon himself to be counted sin. And then the third imputation, that because of Christ's work on the cross, then his righteousness is imputed to us. His act of obedience is then credited to our account. Here's the very homely analogy I will use. Sometimes it's like fantasy football. Now, some of you do this, some of you are very puzzled why your, your son or father or husband wastes time on fantasy football and gets emotionally invested like he did something to win or lose this game. In fantasy football, you pick your players, and this is American football I'm talking about. Sorry, my British friends. In fantasy football, you pick your players, and if they get yards or receptions or score a touchdown, you get points. If they fumble, if they throw an interception, you lose points. Now, you're not physically doing anything. You're not breaking a tackle. You're not running into the end zone. But you talk about your team. How many points did you get? Your wins, your losses, your championships? Because these players are your representatives, and what they do counts to your credit or demerit. Similarly, Paul's argument in Romans is that every human being, past, present and future, had Adam on their fantasy team, which means we all lost. And the only way now to win, to be righteous, to be acquitted, to have eternal life, is that we would be in Christ. I might say that Christ is on our fantasy team. Or better, we could say that we are on his team. All human history is a tale of two Adams. The question is whether by faith we are transferred from the dark kingdom of the first Adam and brought into the eternal kingdom of the second Adam. Romans 6:23. The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Thanks again for joining us on Doctrine Matters. I'm your host, Kevin DeYoung. Our hope and prayer is that this has been helpful to you as you look at Scripture and try to understand the best of our theological tradition as Christians, Please consider subscribing to Doctrine Matters. And if this has been encouraging, consider passing it on to others. If you'd like to learn more about this week's doctrine can ask your pastor for good resources or check out my year long mini systematic theology book called Daily Doctrine to Available in print or audio from Crossway.org the doctrine matters podcast is produced by Crossway. To learn more, visit Crossway.org.