Original Sin...

You said what if the parents are telling a child to do something that is a sin...if a child understands "conscious sin" and obeys the parent who instructs them to sin against God..both parent and child will have sinned.

 

Your instinct serves you well in regard to your daughter. We do not need salvation from some inborn taint or corruption.

Recognizing a difference between our inevitable mistakes and some invisible curse inherited through no fault of our own is the difference between common-sense responsibility and beating yourself up for no reason other than you were told you were supposed to.

 

Christ came through Mary's line and his father was God himself..the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary when she was a virgin. ..and the "Word became flesh and dwelt among us" ..Immanuel.".means God with us."

Yet not having sinned, He insisted upon being baptised by John the Baptist which signified confession and repentance..This act marked the beginning of his ministry and His introduction as Messiah to His people. He was identifying and taking his place with sinners and looking forward to his own death burial and resurrection to act as mediator on our behalf.

 

Here's my take on it. This comes from an essay I did upon humanity as both sinful and as created in image of God:

Original sin should be seen as selfishness. In addition to being created in the image of God, we all are imperfect; we all are sinful. We all experience original sin in that we are all, originally, at birth, selfish.

Empathy, the skill of considering the feelings of another, which is essential to deeper senses of love towards another, is a learned behavior. For the first year or so of a child’s life (s)he only perceives the self, even perceiving other persons (such as mother and father) as an extension of self. It is only in the second and third years that children begin to consider other people as distinct from themselves. Considering the feelings of others is learned later, and poorly learned at that by many people.

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The purpose of the Gospel, particularly the purpose of the incarnation (Christ coming to earth in human form), the cross, and the resurrection, is to restore right relationship both between God and humanity and between one another as members of humanity. Remember that verse that was drilled into many of our heads when we were little, John 3:16? How does it begin? "For God so loved the world..." God created us for himself, to be in loving relationship with him.

What are the greatest two commandments in Christianity? To love the Lord your God and to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus followed the instruction of those commandments, at least according to the gospel of Luke, with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10). Christ desire was for divided, separated groups of people (such as the Samaritans and Jews) to be loving towards one another.


But we are born inherently selfish. We are born to think primarily of ourselves, and then of our extended sense of selves within our families and other groups we identify with. We instinctively think first of ourselves and our own.

We can learn to be loving and giving. But only true selfless giving can come from God, though I have seen people who carry a label other than "Christian" embody that selfless giving love...

 

The Bible also says (HB- help me out with the reference) "It would be better to be cast to the bottom of the ocean with a millstone around your neck than to cause one of my little ones to stumble"... or something close to that.

 

I agree with VP. Angie, isn't what you're talking about free will? I just think it's interesting that islam does not believe in original sin and christianity does. Not really sure why I think it's interesting, I just do.

 

You just posted the exact contradiction that I was speaking of. The idea - as I undestand it - is that all men are born with the stain of Adam's sin. Christ was born man. Therefore, Christ was born with the sin of Adam's sin. But the Bible tells us that Christ was without sin, right?

Maybe I am not understanding Original Sin correctly though.

 

I don't see it as a contradiction. Jesus was the 2nd or last Adam (i.e. he came into the earth without a sin nature). I've heard (and don't know for certain that it is true) that our blood type is determined by the father's sperm, so therefore Jesus was man in that he was born of the flesh of Mary but also God in that His blood was sinless because the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary.

As to Him having never sinned (even though He was tempted in every way), That is what uniquely (sp?) qualifies Him to bear our sin and to redeem us from the curse of the law.(i.e. be our Savior)

 

There is a scripture that says something to the effect that "life is in the blood" so since Jesus blood was not from Mary but from God (refer to previos post), He was not born with a sin nature like us.

 

Doesn't the Bible say that he was "made man?" Or is that the Nicean Creed?

Anyway, like I said, I could be wrong, but it seems like a contradiction to me.

If you change the whole, he was a man to, he was not a man but born of man, then it kinda lessens the sacrifice, don't you think?