Was Original Sin Wiped Away at the Cross?

I have recently had the pleasure of interacting with a gentleman and his wife in the comments section of one of my older posts. In the original post and the comments, two issues have come up that are causing concern. The first is how I articulate God’s disposition to the sinner when I say something similar to, “God hates the sinner.” The second surrounds my contention that children, from conception, are guilty before God and deserve – deserve – an eternal punishment for our sin in Adam. And the gentleman has come back and stated that it is his belief that original sin was ultimately dealt with on the cross and that we are sinners only when we know right from wrong and choose wrong.

So, in an effort to more fully answer this objection, I am dealing with it here. I will, in effect, be trying to answer this question: Did Jesus’ death on the cross forgive the personal effects for all of humanity of Adam’s sin? In a request for Scripture passages that would positively affirm the position that original sin has been dealt with for all men, I was given the following Scriptural passages that I will deal with: John 1:29; Romans 5:12,13, and Hebrews 9:26.

The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29)

I must honestly say that I was shocked to see this text used to prove the above assertion. No where does this text or the surrounding context specify that the singular use of the word “sin” refers to original sin. Actually, in this context one could just as easily use this verse as a proof text for universal salvation (God forgave all men of all sin for all time so that all will go to heaven) just as easily as my commenter has used it to fit his presupposition to make this verse say that original sin is what the “sin of the world” was that forgiven of all men.

It is true that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world – yes and amen. But we must look through the rest of the Scriptures relating to His ministry as the sacrificial Lamb to find out exactly what was done for whom. John 1:29 is not a passage proclaiming that Jesus’ death forgave original sin for all men of all time. There is no basis in the context to make this assertion.

Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. (Hebrews 9:26)

The context of the above passage in Hebrews is the author’s argument for how Christ in His ministry and sacrifice supersede and replace that of the old Mosaic covenantal system of priests and sacrifices. The old system had a high priest enter a “mere copy” of the holy place and sacrifice with blood not his own on a “year by year” basis, whereas Christ went to the true holy place with His own blood to make His sacrifice once. It seems to me that the context here is referring not to a specific individual sin that was put away, but the fact that sin was put away by His once for all sacrifice, and therefore it does not need to be repeated. Furthermore, the context of Hebrews 9 and the work that is being done is about accomplishing eternal redemption.

and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. (Hebrews 9:12)

Hebrews 9 is a great place in Scripture to look at for the singularity and the finality of the sacrifice of Christ for the salvation His own, but is not saying that Christ was manifested to put away original sin for all men of all time by the sacrifice of Himself. To make that statement would do great disservice to the text and be rending it out of context.

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-- ¹³ for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. (Romans 5:12,13)

In the first few chapters of Romans, Paul goes to great lengths to show how all humanity has sinned. And Romans 5 helps us to put our understanding of sin and death in a comparative context with salvation and redemption. Adam’s sin was imputed to all men, and thus all men are guilty. Christ’s righteousness was imputed to all men who have faith and their sin is imputed to Him, and those men are now not guilty (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:21).

The imputation of sin that seems to be in view in this passage is the sinning against the Law of Moses, and this seems to be brought out in the next verse when Paul writes, “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.” In other words, even though the Mosaic Law may not have been individually transgressed by babies in the womb (those are the ones who die who have not sinned on their own in the likeness of Adam), but they die because they are guilty of sinning in Adam – original sin. Death doesn’t occur except where sin is, and babies die before they can overtly sin. Therefore sin must be reigning in them because of their father Adam and the sin that we are guilty of in him.

John Piper gives a good illustration as to why we should understand the “all sinned” in verse 12 as being original sin or “all sinned in Adam” instead of “all sinned individually”.

Let me try to illustrate what's at stake. If you say, "Through one man sin and death entered the world and death spread to everybody because all sinned individually," then the comparison with the work of Jesus could be, "So also through one man, Jesus Christ, righteousness and life entered the world and life spread to all because all individually did acts of righteousness." In other words, justification would not be God's imputing Christ's righteousness to us, but our performing individual acts of righteousness with Christ's help and then being counted righteous on that basis. When Paul saw that as a possible misunderstanding of what he said, he stopped to clarify.¹

Original sin was not universally dealt with on the cross for all people of all time so that babies are born without original sin. We are conceived in sin (Ps 51:5) every thought of ours is only evil and sinful (Genesis 8:21). The sin of man is dealt with in Christ Jesus on the cross and is applied by faith to those who repent of their sin and trust in Him. However lovely and loveable our children are when they are born, our children are born with original sin and with only the propensity to desire and act upon that sinful nature.

The next common question has to do with babies and what happens to them when they die. To be sure, I don’t have as solid of a case to make for them, but I can tell you that on the basis of what I see in the Scriptures, namely 2 Samuel 12:23, that there is some distinct gracious mercy of God extended to children who die in or before infancy.

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¹http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/ScriptureIndex/10/22_Adam_Christ_and_Justification_Part_2/