was jesus born with original sin
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Original sin
Original sin is the Christian doctrine that holds that humans, through the fact of birth, inherit a tainted nature in need of regeneration and a proclivity to sinful conduct.
The biblical bases for the belief are generally found in Genesis 3 (the story of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden), in a line in psalm 51:5 (“I was brought forth in iniquity. And in sin did my mother conceive me”), and in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, 5:12-21 (“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned…).
Church
The belief began to emerge in the 3rd century, but only became fully formed with the writings of Augustine of Hippo (354–430), who was the first author to use the phrase “original sin” (Latin: peccatum originale). Influenced by Augustine, the councils of Carthage (411-418 c.E.) and Orange (529 c.E.) brought theological speculation about original sin into the official lexicon of the Church.
Protestant reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin equated original sin with concupiscence (or “hurtful desire”), affirming that it persisted even after baptism and completely destroyed freedom to do good, proposing that original sin involved a loss of free will except to sin.
1653
The Jansenist movement, which the Roman Catholic Church declared heretical in 1653, also maintained that original sin destroyed freedom of will. Instead, the Catholic Church declares that “Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ’s grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle”, and that “weakened and diminished by Adam’s fall, free will is yet not destroyed in the race.”
History of the doctrine
Scriptural background and early development
The biblical bases for original sin are generally found in the following passages, the first and last of which explain why the sin is described as “original”:
- Genesis 3, the story of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden;
- Psalm 51:5, “I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me”; and
- Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, 5:12-21, “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned…”.
Genesis 3, the story of the Garden of Eden, makes no association between sex and the disobedience of Adam and Eve, nor is the serpent associated with Satan, nor are the words “sin,” “transgression,” “rebellion,” or “guilt” mentioned; the words of psalm 51:5 read.
Adam’s story
“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me”, but while the speaker traces his sinfulness to the moment of his conception, there is little to support the idea that it was meant to be applicable to all humanity and while Paul in Romans writes that “through one man (i.e., Adam) sin entered into the world,” his meaning is not that God punishes later generations for the deeds of Adam, but that Adam’s story is representative for all humanity.
Judaism does not see human nature as irrevocably tainted by some sort of original sin, for the Apostle Paul regarded sin and death not as a punishment visited on mankind for Adam’s fault but as the natural lot of mankind.
4th century
Christianity had no doctrine of original sin prior to the 4th century. The idea developed incrementally in the writings of the early Church fathers in the centuries after the New Testament was composed. The authors of the Didache, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Epistle of Barnabas, all from the late 1st or early 2nd centuries, assumed that children were born without sin.
Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch, from the same period, took universal sin for granted and did not explain its origin from Adam; and while Clement of Alexandria in the late 2nd century did propose that sin was inherited from Adam, did not say how.
His temptation in the wilderness was not merely a temptation to commit sin against God it was to fulfill His natural non-sinful desires.
He was fully God but also fully man. He had natural desires. As a man, He felt hunger and thirst. As God’s Son, He felt the desire to be worshipped and revered. He felt the temptation to use His power to satisfy His needs and proclaim who He was.
God
But He had made the decision to humble Himself. He did not come the first time to be lifted high as God, but as a humble servant. He came to seek and to save the lost and to die on a cross to pay for the sins of the world. Therefore, He didn’t follow His own will and desires. He had to submit to the will of the Father. It was not His will, but the Father’s will be done.
Jesus modeled for us what it means to submit to God. To deny ourselves and our desires (whether sinful or natural) to put God’s will first.
To love God and be obedient to Him, because of our trust that He is in control, and always knows, and will always do, what is best in the long run.
Judaism has never endorsed the idea of original sin, so as a Jew, Jesus couldn’t get original sin that way. Similarly, the early church didn’t have this concept of original sin, nor does the Orthodox Church accept the proposition. The Orthodox stance is that Adam and Eve’s sin died with them, but their punishment, bodily death, persists today.
1054 AD
Original Sin was first written down by St. Augustine, and later gained emphasis in the Catholic and Protestant churches, well after the Great Schism in 1054 AD. No doubt some in these Western Churches would prefer to assign their theological ideas to the early Christians in the Middle East. But in Orthodox theology, such Western innovations are irrelevant.
Christ’s resistance to temptation shows that he had free will, like any other person. The Orthodox Church teaches us that Our Lord was both fully God and fully man, so He had free will, just like Adam, Eve, and the rest of us.
How Could Someone Be Born Without Original Sin?
Roman Catholic doctrine and tradition, however, also hold that three people were born without Original Sin. Yet if Original Sin is physically passed from generation to generation, how can that be? The answer is different in each of the three cases.
Jesus Christ: Conceived Without Sin
Christians believe that Jesus Christ was born without Original Sin because He was conceived without Original Sin. The Son of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ is also the Son of God. In the Roman Catholic tradition, Original Sin is, as mentioned above, passed down from father to child; the transmission occurs through the sexual act.
Since Christ’s Father is God Himself, there was no Original Sin to be passed down. Conceived by the Holy Spirit through Mary’s willing cooperation at the Annunciation, Christ was not subject to Adam’s sin or to its effects.
The Blessed Virgin Mary: Conceived Without Sin
The Catholic Church teaches that the Blessed Virgin Mary was born without Original Sin because she, too, was conceived without Original Sin. We call her preservation from Original Sin her Immaculate Conception.
Mary, however, was preserved from Original Sin in a different way from Christ. While Christ is the Son of God, Mary’s father, Saint Joachim, was a man, and as all men descended from Adam, he was subject to Original Sin. Under normal circumstances, Joachim would have passed that sin on to Mary through her conception in the womb of Saint Anne.
God, however, had other plans. Saint Mary, in the words of Pope Pius IX, was preserved from Original Sin “in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God.” (See the Apostolic Constitution Ineffabilis Deus, in which Pius IX infallibly proclaims the doctrine of Mary’s Immaculate Conception.).
Jesus Christ
That “singular grace and privilege” was granted to Mary because of God’s foreknowledge that she would, at the Annunciation, consent to be the mother of His Son. Mary had free will; she could have said no, but God knew that she would not. And so, “in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race,” God preserved Mary from the stain of Original Sin that had been mankind’s condition since the Fall of Adam and Eve.
It’s important to note that Mary’s preservation from Original Sin was not necessary; God did it out of His great love for her and through the merits of Christ’s redemptive action. Thus, the common Protestant objection that Mary’s Immaculate Conception would necessarily require an immaculate conception of her parents, and of theirs, all the way back to Adam is based on a misunderstanding of why God preserved Mary from Original Sin and of how Original Sin is transmitted.
Mary
For Christ to be born without Original Sin, it was not necessary for Mary to be born without Original Sin. Since Original Sin is passed down from father to child, Christ would have been conceived without Original Sin even if Mary had been born with Original Sin.
God’s preservation of Mary from Original Sin was a pure act of love. Mary was redeemed by Christ; but her redemption was accomplished by God at the moment of her conception, in anticipation of the redemption of man that Christ would work through His Death upon the Cross.
Being Born Without Original Sin Versus Being Conceived Without Sin
As we have seen, the circumstances through which each of the three people. Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and Saint John the Baptist. They were born without Original Sin were different from one another. But the effects, too, are different, at least for John the Baptist. Christ and Mary, having never been subject to Original Sin, were never exposed to the corrupting effects of Original Sin. Which remain after Original Sin is forgiven.
Those effects include a weakening of our will, a clouding of our intellect. And concupiscence—the tendency to indulge our desires. Rather than to subordinate them to the right operation of our reason. Those effects are why we still fall prey to sin even after our baptism. And the absence of those effects is why Christ and Mary could remain free from sin throughout their lives.
Catholic
John the Baptist, however, was subject to Original Sin, even though he was cleansed of it before his birth. That cleansing placed him in the same position that we find ourselves in after our baptism. Freed from Original Sin, but still subject to its effects.
Thus Catholic doctrine does not hold that John the Baptist remained free from sin throughout his life; indeed, the likelihood that he did so is quite remote. The special circumstances of his cleansing from Original Sin notwithstanding, John the Baptist remained. As we do, under the shadow of sin and death that Original Sin casts upon man.
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