J 02 Tlie Testimony of Scripture

2. Tlie Testimony of Scripture.

What these general considerations thus render probable is placed beyond doubt by the testimony of Scripture.

(i.) The sacred historian of man’s origin and early experience, after telling us that man was made in the image and likeness of God, tells us that his son Seth was begotten by him " in his own image and likeness." It would not be competent for us to lay much stress upon this expression by itself, but when it is considered that this expression only occurs here, that it occurs on the first occasion that seems suitable after the narrative of Adam’s fall, that it enunciates a marked contrast with what the historian has previously described as the original state of man, and that there seems no reason for its being introduced here, except to mark that man no longer comes into being in the image and likeness of God, but now bears the image of his sinful and fallen parents, there seems strong ground for concluding from this passage that an intima tion of no very doubtful kind is conveyed in it of a connection between Adam’s sin and fall and the sinful and corrupt nature of his posterity. This is confirmed when we find the apostle describing the natural condition of men as a bearing of the image of the earthly (1 Corinthians 15:49). The most natural and satisfactory explanation of this is, that an allusion is made in it to man’s natural condition, as a result of the descendants of Adam being born in his image and likeness, and no longer in the image and likeness of God.

(ii.) There are many passages which distinctly assert that sin is connatural to man: Genesis 6:5; Genesis 8:21; Job 15:14; Job 15:1; Job 15:5, Job 7:20; Psalms 51:5; John 3:6; Bom. 7:14, etc. 1 None of these passages, it is true, asserts any connection between man s sin and that of Adam; but they all more or less clearly intimate that sin is not an accident that befalls this man or the other, not something which is conveyed to man from external sources and grows upon him wholly from without, but something which operates from within, something which is in man as man, something which, if not of the nature of a vitium originis, is at least the result of a privation of which all men are the subjects; and as this can belong to all men only in virtue of their being descended from a common stock, these passages implicitly support the position now before us. To the same effect is that remarkable expression of the apostle, " by nature the children of wrath, even as others " (Ephesians 2:3). Here the being by nature the children of wrath is described as the common condition of the race; the Ephesians were so, " even as others," not by any peculiarity of their state or character, but because all men are so. As regards the phrase rercva 0/377}?, it is best explained by refer ence to the Hebrew idiom, according to which a person was said to be son of any object or quality, when the object or quality exercised a dominant influence on his condition or state; comp. nrnsrpijzi (Psalms 102:21), i.e. persons delivered over to death, exposed to its attack; ol viol rov <&>Romans 9:1-33 (Luke 16:8), i.e. persons under the illuminating influence of divine teaching; Kardpas re/cva (2 Peter 2:14), i.e. persons under the curse of God. Thus taken, the phrase TZKVCL opyfjs is much the same as if the phrase vir opyrjv had been used, i.e. persons under wrath the wrath of God. Now this, says the apostle, all men are fyvo-ei, by nature, i.e. they become so, not by any external influence, ordinance, or power, but by an internal tendency which develops itself in them from their birth. It is impossible to attach to this any clear or consistent meaning but by understanding it of the native sinfulness of the human race, exposing them universally to the divine displeasure and consequent condemnation.

1 On these passages see, on the one side, Taylor On Original Sin, and, on the other, the replies of Edwards and Payne in their respective treatises on this subject.

(iii.) The fact of a connection between Adam’s sin and that of mankind is expressly asserted in several passages of Scrip ture. Isaiah 43:27: "Thy first father hath sinned." This language plainly fixes our regards upon some individual as here referred to; and amongst individuals, our choice lies between Abraham, the progenitor of the Jewish people, and Adam, the progenitor of all men. But the reference to Abraham seems excluded by the thing predicated of the, party here spoken of, viz. that he sinned. This must be looked on as emphatic, as constituting in some way a marked and peculiar fact in his history which distinguished him from others. Now this could not be said of Abraham. He doubt less was a sinner, but only just as other men are. He committed no special and peculiar sin which stands out in contradistinc tion to others as the sin of Abraham. His peculiar distinction among men is rather the eminent piety to which he attained than any eminent sin of which he was guilty. It was other wise with Adam. The great event in his history is the sin he committed. This stands out from all other events recorded concerning him as the peculiar event of his history; and as it has acquired this character not so much from anything in itself as from its momentous bearing on the race, so it is most natural to understand such an expression as that of the prophet in the passage cited as referring to this. In this interpreta tion Hitzig, Umbreit, Knobel, and several others, whose conclusions are guided solely by hermeneutical reasons, and are not in the least swayed by doctrinal bias, concur. In the Xew Testament there are two classical passages on this head, Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:45-47. In the former of these, the fact of a connection between the sin of Adam and the sinfulness of mankind is set forth in the most explicit terms: " By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, because all have sinned. By the offence of one many are dead; by the offence of one [there came] on all men [something which tended] to condemnation. By one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners." In the context Paul also affirms that Adam was the type of Christ, i.e. The official position or relative character of the one bore an analogy to that of the other; and this the apostle still further illustrates by showing that, as the conduct of the one has had results which extend beyond himself to others connected with him, so had the conduct of the other; and that as the results flowing from Christ’s work are for the acquittal and redemption of His people, so those flowing from Adam are for the condemnation and destruction of those connected with him. With this stands closely connected Paul’s allusion to the subject in the other passage referred to. In this passage Paul styles Adam and Christ the first and second man. Now, as he cannot intend by this that Christ was second to Adam either in order of time or dignity, he must intend to convey the idea that Adam and Christ sustain a character peculiar to these two, in which they appeared successively, Adam first and Christ second, and in which they alone appeared. Now the character peculiar to Christ, as we know from the whole of the New Testament, was the character of a public head or representative, in virtue of whose obedience those connected with Him are constituted righteous. It follows that if the position of Adam was the same, mutatis mutandis, with that of Christ, he must have occupied the place of one through whose sin all connected with him were constituted guilty or under condemnation. On these grounds we may set it down as an ascertained truth of Scripture, that the sin of Adam is somehow connected causally with the sin of men universally. We have yet to inquire of wliat kind this connection is; in other words, how it is that Adam’s sin has become the source of sin to the race.