The common belief is that we have all sinned. Does that mean a lot of sins or one sin collectively?

Question

AThe entire totatity of mankind is being held responsible collectively for the murder of a single man. That is my serious thinking. All the other so-called "sins" fall by the wayside and are not even considered.

Answer 1

This is an excellent question.

I am a Christian. I love God with all my heart. God made me an out-of-the-box thinker ... and so I don't just believe something just because I hear it preached. I find myself searching His Word to see if it is so. This particular issue is one of those that sent me digging to find out what the Bible REALLY says.

For the record, I do not, for one minute, believe that anyone is born a sinner. I do not believe that it is Scriptural. O yes, you can pull individual Scriptures out of context to prove it - but that is not the way to study the Bible - or any other non-fiction book at all!

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In a nutshell, this is what I believe regarding this issue:

Adam and Eve were innocent when they were created. In the same way, a baby is born innocent. As we grow up, we are exposed to things both good and evil and we learn the difference between the two. When we get to the stage in life where we are well able to discern what is good and what is evil ... if we THEN choose the evil, we have then sinned.

Isaiah 7:14-16 (NKJV) Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel. Curds and honey He shall eat, that He may know to refuse the evil and choose the good.

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I am not the only one who believes this way. Charles Finney, who is considered by many to be America's greatest revivalist, opposed the doctrine that we are born sinners in his writings and in his sermons, and quite aggressively at that. He called this doctrine "theological fiction" which he "did not hesitate to demolish to the best of his ability.” He said that it had to be eradicated from the Church completely. He said: “These are not the teachings of the Bible. They are the traditions of men rather than the teachings of the Bible.”

Are there others besides Finney who rejected the doctrine of original sin? Yes, there are. One book that deals with this issue is written by Harold R. Eberle. It is called "Precious In His Sight : A Fresh Look at the Nature of Man."

http://www.amazon.com/precious-his-sight...

Another book that addresses this topic was written by A. T. Overstreet. It is called "The Myth of Original Sin." The full text of this book is available for online reading here:

http://www.gospeltruth.net/menbornsinner...

As Christians, we believe that babies who die go to Heaven. But if sin is not allowed into Heaven (and it is not) and we are all born sinners, no babies could ever go to Heaven. They would all have to go to Hell. But babies do go to Heaven. Scripture tells us this clearly because King David said that he would one day be reunited with his son who died.

NO sin will be able to enter Heaven and so NO sinner can go to Heaven. Scripture is clear on that. There is no way that we can compromise the Word of God by implying that somehow God makes an exception for babies, children, or people with mental handicaps IF they were born sinners.

How could any parent honestly believe that the perfectly-formed innocent and helpless creature gazing back at them with misty eyes is a sinner?

Think about John the Baptist. If babies are sinners, how could he be filled with the Holy Spirit even in his mother’s womb?

What is sin? The Bible tells us that sin is “transgression of the law” (i.e. the Law of Moses). A baby does not have the ability to break the law. Imagine a toddler finds a gun and shoots it, killing his friend. Not even a HUMAN court would condemn that child. In fact, the gun owner would be the one charged!

There is so much I have to share on this topic ... but it would end up a whole book (as it will be one day)! But let me leave you with this:

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Imagine a small boy trapped in a burning car. The fire-fighters and other bystanders do everything that they can to get the child out of the car. Eventually, they are successful and the child is rushed to the hospital. Hours go by. Days go by. Weeks go by. At first no one knows if the boy will live because his burns are so severe. To their relief he does. His body is maimed. One ear is missing, his face is disfigured. He has lost fingers and toes. He can never grow hair on his head again but he is alive.

The years go by. The boy grows to be a man. He gets married and in due time his wife becomes pregnant. He finds himself back at the same hospital once again. Only, this time he is not the patient. This time it is a joyous event as his wife's labor pains start and they eagerly anticipate the arrival of their baby. They know that it is a boy because they have seen the pictures from the ultrasound.

The young man finds himself pacing up and down the hospital ward as his parents wait outside. It seems like millions of thoughts rush through his mind simultaneously. He finds himself experiencing emotions that are so large that it feels like he can't possibly contain all these feelings flooding through his entire system.

He tries to envision what his son will look like. Will he have blonde hair like his mother or the black hair that he used to have? Will he have blue eyes or brown eyes? Will his hair be curly or will it be straight? What will it feel like to hold him? The young man won't have his questions answered for a while, though, because the baby is taking its time to arrive.

But the moment does arrive. The doctor announces "He is crowning!" and the little prince makes a grand entrance into this world. He has all ten toes and all ten fingers. He is perfect in every way.

When the baby's grandparents see the little one for the first time they start to weep. "Son, he looks just like you did when you were a baby. He is the splitting image of you! Look, he even has the same black hair and the same ears!"

For the first time that day the young father considers his own physical appearance. His baby has all the things that the fire stole from him. He has both of his ears, his hair, his smooth skin...

"So this is what I used to look like!" the proud father grins and replies. "Wow, I was quite a looker, huh!"

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I think that this is exactly what happened to Mankind. Adam was perfect at the time of his creation. But when he sinned, he was damaged by that sin. It marred him just like the fire marred that little boy in my story. It changed his entire life. Nothing was ever the same after Adam sinned.

In the same way that the fire could not alter the genetic make-up of this young man's son, so too sin is unable to alter the genetic make-up of Adam's descendants. In fact, every baby that is born on this Earth should remind us of how we used to look before we sinned. A child's innocence, love, and trust should make us remember that at one time we were like that too. We are not the richer ones for losing those things. Instead, we are poor and they are rich.

There is Good News for those of us who have found that sin has burnt and damaged us. It is found in Romans 8:29. God says that He has predestined you to be conformed to the image of His Son because He has chosen you to be His child.

Ezekiel 18:4 “Behold, all souls are Mine; The soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine; The soul who sins shall die.

Ezekiel 18:19-20 “Yet you say, ‘Why should the son not bear the guilt of the father?’ Because the son has done what is lawful and right, and has kept all My statutes and observed them, he shall surely live. The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.

Don't ever let 'religion' tell you to stop asking questions. Jesus always encouraged people to ask questions. Keep asking and dig DEEP into His Word because your answers are all there!

God bless you!

Answer 2

"The entire totatity of mankind is being held responsible collectively for the murder of a single man."
Are you speaking of Jesus on the cross? There was sin in the world long before that happened!

As to whether we commit a lot of sins or just one sin collectively, the argument can be made either way. On one hand any time we do something that is opposed to God's will, we have sinned. Think impure thoughts, steal candy from a baby, commit cold-blooded murder -- all are sins.

Some would say, however, that there is really only one sin: not being focused on God. When we are focused on God, we do not sin. When our focus shifts away from God, then we are in sin, and that is when we do all those bad things. Murder, theft, lying, all the others are symptoms of our sin, not sins in and of themselves. The Gospel and Letters of John seem to support this viewpoint.


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Answer 3

Uhm pagans don't believe in SIN it is a repressive philosophy invented by the church so folks would "fall in line". Besides as another person here pointed out it was for a freakin' peice of fruit..but what the church and it's churchgoers seem to so often overlook is the MURDER of LILLITH by a so called loving god because she wouldn't be subservient.... ( lillith is adam's FIRST WIFE ) look her up.
I have my own creation theory based upon celtic beliefs but i still get irked when other religions try and push stuff off on folks, WHEN they don't even subscribe to the correct version of their faith..

yours aye, the bartender.


ps. oh and shazzie? if you think the Bible is non-fiction then you must be smokin' banana peels sunshine. =)

Answer 4

Sin is when you disobey God or Gods word. It is called rebellion. People sin more than once. Some more than others.

The wages of sin is death.

Everyone born into this world has seen the true light. That is why I believe everyone born is a body, soul & conscience. But when one rebels gets hardened conscience (spiritual death). Jesus said that to see the Kingdom of God, you must be born again (spiritually born again). By having faith in ones heart who Jesus is & confessing that to God. Then with an act of faith & believing in ones heart is the miracle of spiritual birth. Gods Way and not by mans will or doing. Then a person is whole, & sins are atoned for. Whole; body, soul & spirit.

Answer 5

It means that you are seriously confused by living in a country that is bombing the middle-east for believing in a religion the type that they believe in, themselves. Look around. God is great. Man is still partly a moron. Things are getting better. Don't look to the past to know the future, not in this sense. Religion is man-made, no matter what the morons tell you. God is not something the morons tell you it is, it is something no one can understand, or it wouldn't be God, it would be a very great thing with a human mind, human sensibilities, anger, jealousy, revenge, abuse of children and women: how can anyone in this day and age in this great country believe verbatim what they thought thousands of years ago??? Socrates and Plato were very, very smart, and you can learn from them, but they didn't know so much of what we know of know, or they would revise their views. I, sometimes DON'T doubt that John saw the future, but if he did, I don't doubt that he was as confused as you.

Answer 6

Sin does not exist. It is impossible to offend or harm God, who is all knowing and all powerful.

If you believe that God is omniscient (all-knowing) then you must accept that God knew every action that every person would ever take, good or evil, throughout their lives. For God to have made us anyway, knowing this, must mean that we are meant to be and do just as we are, and are doing. To dispute that God knew us ahead of time is to say that he is not omniscient, and therefore is not worthy to be called God.

However, It is possible to offend other humans. I do it all the time. To harm others, however is not a sin, it is called a crime. There are standards of human conduct which address this.

Answer 7

You first have to consider what is sin.
I believe it is anything that causes harm or hurt to yourselves or others. Some sins are worst than others, but imagine a world where everyone lived by the following principle,
'Do unto others as you have them do onto you'.
The terms 'others' refers to this generation and the next and even previous generations.
'Imagine'!!!!

Answer 8

As we are identified with JESUS we are not sinners, though we live in a imperfect world. We are judged for evolution & not for sin.
Universal thinking makes us responsible for any bad event happened anywhere in world & committed by anybody, because we are also citizen of the world.

Answer 9

No, we are collectively held responsible for Adam and Eve eating the fruit of knowledge. That was the original sin. If only our original sin was murder, but no....it was eating a friggin' piece of fruit....

Answer 10

If you have peace with God through His Son, then you are inheriting certain things. Your sins are placed is a Sea of Forgetfulness, and as you trust Him your righteousness grows. We sin because we are by nature sinners. And so we are a new creation in Christ Jesus: carnal and fleshly, and divine carriers of the Holy Spirit. That is something which is new in the world. We are those who are typified in this:
Exodus 34
19 "The first offspring of every womb belongs to me, including all the firstborn males of your livestock, whether from herd or flock. 20 Redeem the firstborn donkey with a lamb, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck.

We are still donkeys, but our life is saved because the Lamb was sacrificed in our place.

Answer 11

We are all born sinful because of Adams downfall. Some people sin more that others. It is by the "Grace of God" that we do not sink down to our lowest depraved level of sin. It is our conscience that tell us right from wrong and our inner strength that helps us stay on the path God has laid out for us.