See also: Original Sin
📖 Biblical Definition
Original sin is the doctrine that, in consequence of Adam’s first transgression, all his ordinary posterity are conceived and born in a state of sin—sharing both the guilt of his first sin imputed to them and a corrupt nature inherited from him. It comprehends two parts. First is original guilt: because Adam stood as the federal head and representative of the human race in the covenant of works, his first sin is justly reckoned to all whom he represented, so that in Adam all sinned and in him all die. Second is original corruption (or original pollution): the depravity of nature propagated from Adam to all his children, a heart bent from the womb away from God and toward sin, the fountain from which all actual sins flow. David confessed it: “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” This corruption is total in extent—reaching every faculty, the mind, will, and affections, though not making men as wicked as they could possibly be—and it renders the natural man unable to please God or to turn to Him by his own power. Original sin explains the universality of actual sin (why every man without exception sins) and the necessity of regeneration (why every man without exception must be born again). It is denied by Pelagius, who held man born innocent and sin merely imitated; it is confessed by all who read the plain testimony of Scripture and the universal reign of death even over those who have not sinned after the manner of Adam’s transgression.
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
Webster 1828 defines ORIGINAL SIN as the sin which is supposed to be communicated to mankind by the apostasy of Adam, the corruption of nature inherited from him.
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ORIGINAL, a. — ...Original sin, as understood in theology, the sin or corruption of nature derived from Adam to his posterity, in consequence of his disobedience.
SIN, n. — ...Original sin is that whereby our whole nature is corrupted and rendered contrary to the law of God; the depravity of nature transmitted from our first parents.
📖 Key Scripture
Psalm 51:5 — "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me."
Romans 5:12 — "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."
Romans 5:19 — "For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous."
Ephesians 2:3 — "...and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
Original sin is denied by every doctrine of native human innocence—from ancient Pelagianism to the modern dogma that children are born good and corrupted only by society, a creed that makes the new birth needless.
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Original sin is among the most resisted doctrines in all of Scripture, for it strikes at the flattering myth of native innocence that the human heart loves to believe. The ancient form of the denial was Pelagianism, which held that men are born morally neutral as Adam was, that Adam’s sin harmed only himself, and that we sin merely by imitating bad examples—so that sinless living is possible in principle and grace is merely helpful, not necessary. The modern form is the romantic and secular dogma that children come into the world innately good and are corrupted only afterward by poverty, oppression, or a bad environment, so that the cure for human evil is better social conditions rather than the new birth.
Both denials founder on the same rocks. They cannot explain why sin is utterly universal—why every culture, every family, and every child, however nurtured, produces sinners without a single exception—nor why death, the wages of sin, reigns even over infants who have committed no actual sin after the pattern of Adam. Scripture answers what experience confirms: we are not sinners merely because we sin; we sin because we are, from our origin, sinners. To deny original sin is to render the work of Christ unnecessary, for if our nature is sound we need no Redeemer to give us a new one. The doctrine humbles man to the dust precisely so that he will flee to the second Adam, in whom alone the ruin of the first is undone.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
The doctrine rests on the parallel of the one man (Adam) through whom sin entered, against the one (Christ) through whom righteousness comes—Adam as the tupos (type) of Him to come.
Usage
"Original sin teaches that we sin because we are sinners, not that we become sinners merely by sinning."
"Pelagius denied original sin, holding men born innocent and sin merely imitated—a creed that makes grace optional."
"The reign of death even over infants witnesses to original sin against every dream of native innocence."