Inheriting the Father's Sin?

You know that the beginning of a journey can be just as important as its end. If you start in the wrong place, you are probably going to end up in the wrong place. Throw one wrong ingredient into the mixture and the recipe is spoiled. Biblical teaching can be corrupted in the same way.

It is often taught that sin is inherited. But is it true? Ezekiel addresses this very point when he says: "the person who sins will die." It is obvious that the prophet is speaking of spiritual death-not physical death which no one can avoid-as resulting from one's own sin(s). Though the Bible speaks the language of personal responsibility, there are mainstream teachers of the Bible who teach eternal damnation through inherited sin. Misunderstanding this will likely lead to other religious errors.

Hal Lindsey, author of the best seller Late Great Planet Earth, said something a couple of years ago that illustrates this confusion. He wrote, "Why is the virgin birth of Christ so important? Since the sin of the human race is passed down through the father, Jesus had to be born without a human father. Otherwise He would have been born with the same curse of sin upon him as the rest of mankind. Thus He would not have qualified to bear the penalty of sin for us. He had to have a human mother to have a true human nature, but as the Scripture clearly states, God Himself was the father of His human nature ("Born of a Virgin", World Net Daily, 12/27/2002, Accessed: Feb. 14, 2003). The implication is that Jesus could have had a human father if they didn't pass on inherited sin!

Without Biblical support, Lindsay said something that is profoundly wrong and he expected that everyone would accept it. He said "since the sin of the human race is passed down through the father...." Jesus' miraculous birth had absolutely nothing to do with circumventing some inherited sin thing.

Lindsey answered a very good question about "why the virgin birth?", but he gave a completely wrong answer for the necessity of it. He answers "why a virgin birth" by saying that if Joseph was his biological father He would have been born with sin. Without explanation, he makes the confident assertion that a "sin nature" is passed on, and only through the father. This false doctrine of "paternal heredity of original sin" is commonly taught by Calvinist and is how Lindsey explains a sinless Jesus.

Sin is not passed down. Anyone who knows Jesus agrees that He was without sin, but it has nothing to do with Joseph not being his biological father. This doctrine is completely unnecessary if you understand that SIN IS NOT PASSED DOWN. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him" (Ezekiel 18:20)

But doesn't the Bible teach that "death spread to all men"? In speaking of the spiritual separation from God, Paul writes that "death spreads to all men, BECAUSE ALL SINNED." Paul doesn't say sin spread to "all men" at conception. Spiritual death does not spread to all men by virtue of "paternal hereditary sin", but death spreads to all men because all men do what Adam did: they disobey God.

Lindsey digs himself into deeper error by saying, "He had to have a human mother to have a true human nature." What, Mary did and Joseph didn't have a true human nature? Does he really believe that only women have a "true human nature" and men don't! According to Lindsey, if a man and woman have a son and daughter, the sin nature and "curse of sin" are transferred through the father and not the mother. Does Lindsey believe that the sin nature is passed on only to the son and not to the daughter, including Mary? Or does he believe that the sin nature is also passed on to the daughters, but they are unable to pass it on to their offspring? Does he believe that sons inherit the sin nature while daughters retain a "true human nature?" If the doctrine of hereditary sin were true, why wouldn't Mary's father have "passed down" the sin nature to her? Catholics believe in inherited sin too, but they explain Jesus' sinless nature by teaching that Mary's own conception was miraculous ("The Immaculate Conception: In the Constitution Ineffabilis Deus of 8 December, 1854, Pius IX pronounced and defined that the Blessed Virgin Mary "in the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin." Catholic Encyclopedia) and therefore they have no need of the "paternal hereditary sin" which Lindsey relies on. Both Immaculate Conception and Paternal Hereditary Sin are false, but one or the other is necessary if you believe that Jesus' sinlessness relies on first his bypassing the so-called "original sin".

The question Lindsey asks is an important one to answer: "Why was Jesus born of a virgin?" The correct answer is that He was born of a virgin so that He could "become flesh." He was "God with us" and He was "flesh and blood." Jesus came to be both the Son of Man and the Son of God: the Son of Man because his mother was a human and the Son of God because He was "the only begotten Son of God" through the Holy Spirit (Mt. 1:20 "the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.") Jesus was not born of God--instead of Joseph--to prevent His being born with sin. Jesus was born of God because God wanted to come and dwell as a man and experience everything that man experiences, 'yet without sin'' (see Hebrews 4:15).

Lindsey is way off the mark when he says, "Since the sin of the human race is passed down through the father, Jesus had to be born without a father." This is an example of one error begetting another error. One error usually creates another one. Lindsey's first error is in teaching that "sin is passed down." His second error is in teaching that a sin nature is passed down through the biological father. And his third error is in the explanation that only the woman had the "true human nature."

Jesus was born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14) because God wanted His Son to be human. Jesus was "the only begotten of God"-and not Joseph's biological son-- because He was part of the eternal Godhead. If both parents of Jesus were human, then Jesus would not be anything other than human. There is no such thing as an inherited sin nature that is PASSED DOWN through the Father, contrary to what Hal Lindsey says.

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