I believe Jesus has the power & will to forgive all sin. But I think you see original sin different to the way Fundamental Christianity would view it.
Here's another analogy, rather simplistic but it's the principle that I'm trying to convey.
A man leaps off a high cliff to end his life (suicide). He realizes his wrong actions (suicide is considered a sin to Fundamentalist Christians) & asks God's forgiveness. God can forgive him but that won't stop him falling & the consequences of that fall.
Original sin as I understand it came as the RESULT of Adam’s sin in the garden. In that day he died spiritually, his spirit was corrupted or spoiled & it's like a "spiritual defect" that runs down from him through all humanity (we are his decendants). Almost like a genetic disorder that will pass from parent to child. We don't actually need forgiveness for original sin because we are not accountable for Adam’s sin & it's not our fault that we are "fallen / defective" by nature. BUT we all are affected by it & need restoration spiritually. God has provided redemption through the sacrifice of his Son. If we reject his provision then we will be held to account for that on the Day of Judgment & will be cast into the lake of fire.
Zulkiflim’s response:
I don’t think you are right, according to the church we are responsible and accountable for original sin. That is why god cursed the entirety and the offsprings of adam and eve.
If we are just cursed spiritually then surely a spiritual cleansing is enough but now we are cursed according to the bible, both spiritually and physically so as you say, Christians supposedly have received the spiritual forgiveness but not the physical forgiveness.
For that scenario you have said about the man jumping down, consider the same fact, he commits suicide and before death he asks for forgiveness and receives, but still is punished into hell.....
Is then that forgiveness truly meaningful? It is the same with the curse on woman kind, would god say you’re forgiven but then still leave the curse behind...
For one, there are many Christians in the world whom are more then 10 generation long, but still with every female born, the curse remains....so that mean that the curse resides in every woman despite the first generation receiving forgiveness...
I think Glo and Chief1 (above) have stated the meaning and effect of “original sin” very nicely. We might look first at the commandment that Adam and Eve broke:
Gen. 2:17 "but of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it
you shall surely die.''
Immediately after eating, they
died spiritually, because we see them hiding in the Garden from God (
Gen. 3:8), no longer enjoying the close fellowship of one who is spiritually alive to God. And they apparently started dying physically, because we know that ultimately Adam died at age 930 (
Gen. 5:5). And if with God “one day is…as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day” (
2 Pet. 3:8), we might say that Adam died physically the “day” he ate the forbidden fruit.
In the New Testament, Paul explains it in
Romans 5:
12. Therefore, just as
through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned
18. Therefore, as
through one man's offense judgment came to all men,
resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man's righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.
19. For as
by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous.
Just as God is
Triune (Three in One), man who was made in the image of God is
triune. He has a
body, soul, and spirit (
1 Thess.5:23). It was his
spirit that died immediately when Adam ate the forbidden fruit. So he became spiritually dead. That deadness, or sin nature, was passed on to his children and their children and all descendants on down to the present day.
When Jesus was speaking to Nicodemus in John 3, He told him that he had to be “born again,” not physically as Nicodemus was thinking, but spiritually. Nicodemus’
spirit needed a new birth or regeneration, to make him spiritually alive. Jesus said, "That which is born of the
flesh is
flesh, and that which is born of the
Spirit is
spirit” (John 3:6). Only the Holy Spirit can regenerate the dead human spirit to bring life to it. And when He does, that life is ETERNAL life. That occurs when a person receives Christ into his heart and life. “He that has the Son has
life, and he that has not the Son of God has not life” (1 John 5:12)
Based on Jesus’ loving treatment of little children and His statement that “of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:14), I believe babies, though born with a sin nature (a predisposition or inclination to disobey or “sin”) are not “sinners” by choice until they actually commit willful sin, knowing that it is sin. That may occur at different ages for different people. Babies are born spiritually dead and with a sin nature, and for that reason one could say they are born “sinners” but they are otherwise “innocent” and not accountable for any sin until they themselves actually sin, knowing it is sin.
I have sometimes thought that the period of our lives, from birth to the point of knowing right from wrong, is similar to the lives of Adam and Eve
before they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We were innocent, running around naked, as little babies or very small children do, not knowing any different. Then, as we grow older and know good and evil, we become accountable and when we disobey and do the “evil,” we are no longer the innocent babies we once were, just as Adam and Eve were no longer the innocent creatures they once were.
Paul, in Romans 7:7-9, includes some similar thoughts. He said, “I had not
known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.” “For without the law, sin was dead. For I was
alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I
died.”
The Law, the Ten Commandments, etc. gave Paul the knowledge of good and evil. But before he received the Law, before he knew what sin was, he was “alive” in some sense---but when the Law came and he then knew, he died.
So before a baby or child knows right from wrong (the knowledge of good and evil), he is “alive” in some sense. But when he knows and disobeys, he dies. After that, he has to be born of the Spirit or he “cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:3,5).
Peace
. But catechism is not using word "punishement" .We belive that Adam&Eve comitted their sin, but at the same time they have "spoiled" our human nature (and this nature is common for every human). And thanks to them introducing sin to the word, we today can sin. Additionaly we belive that what happend in Garden of Eden didn't only destroy our relationship with God, but aslo with each other and with the word around. Adam&Eve opened Pandora box and set sin free into this word. And now whole word is afflicted by it. But we believe that in the end God will cure this disease
