Augustine writes that, ``whoever maintains that human nature at any period required not the second Adam for its physician, because it was not corrupted in the first Adam, is convicted as an enemy to the grace of God'' (On the Grace of Christ and on Original Sin II.34; Fathers of the Church). I agree that if anyone denies humanities need for the second Adam at any point in the life of a person, they are an enemy of grace. But I strongly disagree that one must believe in an inherited corruption in order to be fully convinced of how they are in desperate need of Christ.The doctrine of original sin is in danger (and for some has crossed the line) of offending grace, because the doctrine of original sin implies, as many of its proponents would agree with no scriptural basis, that Adam not only would have but was by all means capable of attaining his own salvation had he never sinned. That he was by all means capable of living in eternal righteousness in his original state. This I believe is offensive to grace, since it asserts that man once existed in a state where he had no need of grace sustained righteousness by the Spirit.
But Augustine contradicts himself when he also writes that ``Only the children of God are righteous, but in so far as they are children of God, they do not carnally beget, because it is of the Spirit, and not of the flesh, that they are themselves begotten." Adam is called "the son o God" in Luke, but Luke did not mean that Adam was "the" or "a" son of God by the Spirit, he was merely referring to the fact that Adam had no human father since he was created by God from the dust. Now if we are only made righteous through being born of the Spirit as Augustine asserts, then how does he also assert that Adam, who did not have the Spirit at first in the New Covenant sense, was righteous? If Adam had the Spirit indwelling him then that means he sinned while being indwelled by the Spirit of God, his nature became corrupt, and then he got the Spirit back after believing the gospel promise of a coming savior, the promise God gave him after he sinned.
We can know this isn't the case because the Apostle Paul tells us that Adam was a man of dust, not the Spirit, but Christ was a man of the Spirit. "Thus it is written, 'The first man Adam became a living being'; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven" (1 Corinthians 15: 45-47).
We are sinful and in need of grace not because we have an inherited corruption, but because, as The Lord said "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all" (John 6:63a).
"that Adam not only would have but was by all means capable of attaining his own salvation had he never sinned"
ReplyDeleteThis is incoherent and no criticism of OS. If Adam never sinned, there was no "salvation" to be had, but regardless, the life he was blessed with was all God's doing, like a child being born into the world.
And there's no scriptural basis to think that every OT believer had the Spirit. Certain saints did, for sure, but not every person. That confuses what it means to be "indwelt" by the holy spirit and "regenerated" by the holy spirit.
The reason I used "salvation" there is in order to convey the idea of what Christ the "savior" does. He saves us from the wrath of God through his own righteousness credited to our account. The idea here is that Adam could have saved himself from the wrath of God by his own works. Yes that wrath was not initially on him, but the idea is that he was able to keep himself from ever being under the wrath of God in and of himself.
DeleteIn either case, switch out the word "salvation" with "eternal life". The idea is that Adam was capable of attaining or maintaining eternal life in and of himself. Now, a regenerated heart means a heart that is not simply ruled by itself, but ruled by the Spirit. So in that sense, Adam was not regenerated, otherwise we are saying that his heart was ruled by the Holy Spirit while he was yet sinless, and yet he still sinned.
Simply because in the opinions of some, better terms could have been used, does not do away with the principle of the argument. The overall point is that original sin states that Adam could have persisted in righteousness in and of his own ability, without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This I disagree with strongly. It is only God who is capable of perfect righteousness, and it is only in being joined to God the Father through the work of the Son by the Holy Spirit that we will someday attain to that perfect righteousness which belongs to God.
My basis for saying that all believers in the OT were born again is Christ' statement to Nicodemus "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). He did not say "From this point forward" or "after I go to the cross." He simply said "unless one is born again." There is no reason to think that Christ isn't speaking to all those who believed before his coming.
Also what Moses says in Deuteronomy 30:6 "And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live." Paul uses the same terminology when he say's "But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God" (Romans 2:29). The circumcision of the heart which Moses say's is done by God, Paul say's is done by the Spirit. So even in the OT there was a category for inner working of the Spirit of God in the heart of man, that's why Nicodemus should have known what Jesus was talking about when he said "you must be born again".