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4 Sermon Illustrations on Original Sin

4 illustrations

Original sin refers to the inherited sinful nature affecting all humanity from birth, shaping tendencies toward disobedience and separation from God (Romans 5:12). Christian preaching often uses imagery of roots, disease, or hidden weeds to illustrate how this unseen corruption grows and manifests over time (Psalm 51:5). It underscores the universal need for redemption through Christ.

Original Sin, Denial of

Original sin is evident by inherited traits and tendencies passed through generations.

Now he who would deny original sin must contradict all experience in the transmission of qualities. The very hound transmits his peculiarities, learnt by education, and the Spanish horse his paces, taught by art, to his offspring, as a part of their nature. If it were not so in man, there could be no history of man as a species; no tracing out the tendencies of a race or nation; nothing but the unconnected repetitions of isolated individuals, and their lives. It is plain that the first man must have exerted on his race an influence quite peculiar; that his acts must have biased their acts. And this bias or tendency is what we call original sin.

— F. W. Robertson

from New Cyclopaedia of Prose Illustrations · Elon Foster human sinfulness

Original Sin, in the Infant

Even infants possess a deep-rooted sinful nature ready to manifest as they mature.

Could we view things in semine, and look through principles, what a nest of impurities might we see in the heart of the least infant, like a knot of little snakes wrapped up in a dunghill! what a radical, productive force of sin might we behold in all his faculties, ready, upon occasion and the maturities of age, to display itself with a cursed fertility! Dr. South.

from New Cyclopaedia of Prose Illustrations · Elon Foster human sinfulness

Original Sin, A Root

Denying original sin is like expecting a tree to grow without roots.

A pious minister, having preached on the doctrine of original sin, was afterwards waited on by some persons, who stated their objections to what he had advanced. After hearing them, he said, "I hope you do not deny actual sin too?"— "No," they replied. The good man expressed his satisfaction at their acknowledgment; but, to show the folly of their opinions in denying a doctrine so plainly taught in Scripture, he asked them, "Did you ever see a tree growing without a root?" J. G. Wilson.

from New Cyclopaedia of Prose Illustrations · Elon Foster

Original Sin, Unseen

Original sin is hidden at first but grows and becomes evident like disease or weeds.

The leprosy, in the beginning, was unseen; and many a one might have looked upon the man, and have said he was not a leper. The seed of the thistle, at first, is hid in the ground; and many a traveller might pass that way, and never observe it. Many diseases of the body commence internally, away from the gaze of men. So with sin. In its original, it exists in the infant, although parents and friends may not perceive it. And as the leprosy, unseen, will in time develop itself, and the thistle-seed spring up, and the disease break out, so will the original sin of the infant grow with his growth, and strengthen with his strength, until no one shall doubt whether he is a sinner or no.

— Bate

from New Cyclopaedia of Prose Illustrations · Elon Foster

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