Original sin is not the same thing as the first sin. What follows is a discussion of both terms that will help the reader understand clearly what the difference is.
In the beginning of creation, God created two individuals, a man and a woman, Adam and Eve, in a relative state of righteousness, though not that degree of perfect righteousness that believers will have in heaven at the end of the age. This righteousness would eventually lead to perfection and glory at the end of the age or in a fall from that state of righteousness. God gave Adam and Eve the ability to choose to sin or not to sin. He also created Adam and Eve as immortal meaning that death was not necessarily a part of their nature and this immortality would continue as long as they did not sin. Barring sin in their life, Adam and Eve would live in holy Communion with God forever but if they committed sin they would see themselves separated from God.
THE FIRST SIN
God created a paradise and placed Adam and Eve in it (Gen. 2:8, 15) and He commanded that they could eat from any tree in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and he warned them that if they did eat of that tree they shall surely die (Gen. 2:16, 17). Scripture goes on to tell us in Genesis 3:6 “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” This verse describes the first sin committed by Adam and Eve.
Adam and Eve committed the first sin and at that point God in his perfect righteousness and justice had every right to destroy them at that moment. But God foreordained that this would happen knowing the nature of human beings and he did not exercise his wrath and condemn them to eternal death but instead he exercised a different kind of wrath upon the actors in this transgression.
Therefore, sin came into the world as a result of Adams voluntary transgression (i.e., the first sin) against God by eating of the forbidden fruit.
ORIGINAL SIN
Original sin does not refer to the first sin committed by Adam and Eve. Instead, it refers to the result of the first sin, the guilt of the first sin passed down to successive generations. This guilt is derived from the first sin by Adam and Eve, is passed to every individual descendant at birth, and is the internal source of all volitional sins in life. So, human beings’ sinful natures came down through the generations from one man (Rom. 5:12). Human beings are born sinners because of Adam’s first sin.
However, one should note that the fact that we are born sinners does not mean that God created human beings with a sinful nature because that would imply that God created humans as sinners, and He certainly did not. Sinful ancestors passed this sinful nature to human descendants as a consequence of the imputed guilt of Adam’s and Eve’s first sin. In the beginning, God created the human nature free from a sinful bent. The guilt of Adam’s and Eve’s first sin saddled the human race with their sinful nature and passed it on to their progeny through reproduction.
None of the descendants of Adam and Eve actually committed the first sin and only have the imputed guilt from that sin. Berkhof writes:
Guilt in this sense may be removed by the satisfaction of justice, either personally or vicariously. It may be transferred from one person to another, or assumed by one person for another. It is removed from believers by justification, so that their sins, though inherently ill-deserving, do not make them liable to punishment… The guilt of Adam’s sin, committed by him as the federal head of the human race, is imputed to all his descendants. This is evident from the fact that, as the Bible teaches, death as the punishment of sin passes on from Adam to all his descendants. Rom. 5:12-19; Eph. 2:3; 1 Cor. 15:22.[1]
Human beings, in their depraved state prior to regeneration and conversion, have the absolute inability to seek God and to do good. However, this does not mean that the unregenerate cannot do good in some sense of the word. They can do civil good. They can go to the aid of a person who is in need for example, though they are not a Christian. They may treat people kindly, and help the poor and infirmed. But these are not “good works” in God’s eyes because they are not prompted by the love of God to His glory.
Louis Berkhof, in his Systematic Theology, gives a good summary of absolute or total inability.
When we speak of man’s corruption as total inability, we mean two things: (1) that the unrenewed [sinner] cannot do any act, however insignificant, which fundamentally meets with God’s approval and answers to the demands of God’s holy law; and (2) that he cannot change his fundamental preference for sin and self to love for God, nor even make an approach to such a change. In a word, he is unable to do any spiritual good. There is abundant scriptural support for this doctrine: John 1:13; 3:5; 6:44; 8:34; 15:4, 5; Rom. 7:18, 24; 8:7, 8; 1 Cor. 2:14; 2 Cor. 3:5; Eph. 2:1, 8-10; Heb. 11:6.[2]
In summary, the first sin committed by human beings, Adam and Eve, refers to the actual first human sin against God in the Garden of Eden. Original Sin, on the other hand, refers to the results of that first sin which is the guilt of that sin imputed to all humanity.
[1] Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (The Banner of Truth Trust, 2012), 245.
[2] Berkhof, 246.
