Original sin (peccatum originale), or the state of depravity, which followed Adam's transgression and which now inheres in all his posterity, embraces a) hereditary guilt (culpa hereditaria) and b) hereditary corruption (corruptio hereditaria). That the guilt of Adam is imputed to all his descendants is taught in Rom. 5, 18: "By the offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation"; v. 19: "By one man's disobedience many were made sinners." The hereditary corruption of all descendants of Adam is clearly taught in Ps. 51, 5: "I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me"; John 3, 6 : "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." That the word flesh (σάρξ) here denotes corruption (corrupt flesh) is proved by v. 5: "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." Therefore the term is here used precisely as in Rom. 8, 7: "the carnal mind" (τὸ φρόνημα τῆς σαρκὸς). According to Scripture, God, then, imputes (חָשַׁב, λογίζεται) the guilt of Adam to all his descendants (Rom. 5, 12: "for that, ἐφ’ ᾧ, all have sinned").
Hence, while the expression "original sin" is not a Scriptureterm (υοπ ἄγραφος). but one coined by the Church, the matter which it denotes is truly Scriptural. Original sin is so called a) because it is derived from Adam, the root and beginning of the human race; b) because it is conn~ted with the origin of the descendants of Adam; and c) because it is the origin and fountain of all actual transgressions (Hollaz.) In Scripture it is described a) as indwelling sin, Rom. 7, 17; b) as a law in the members, Rom. 7, 23; and c) as lust (ἐπιθυμία), Jas. 1, 14. 15. All these expressions depict original sin with respect to its nature or its effects.
Hollaz defines original sin thus: "Original sin is the thorough corruption of human nature, which by the fall of our first parents is deprived of original righteousness and is p;one to every evil." The Formula of Concord declares: "Original sin is not a slight. but so deep a corruption of human nature that nothing healthy or uncorrupt has remained in man's body or soul, in his inner or outward powers." Epit., Art. I, 8. A more extended definition is given by Quenstedt (II, 52): "Original sin is a want of original righteousness, derived from the sin of Adam and transmitted to all men who are begotten in the ordinary mode of generation, including the dreadful corruption and depravity of human nature and all its powers, excluding all from the grace of God and eternal life and subjecting them to temporal and eternal punishments, unless they be born again of water and the Spirit or obtain the remission of their sins through Christ." Doctr. Theol., p. 242.
In opposition to the Scriptural doctrine of original sin, all Pelagians and modern rationalistic theologians deny that a foreign sin (peccatum alienum) can rightly be imputed to Adam's descendants. They claim that men can be charged only with the evil deeds which they themselves have committed. However, Scripture teaches the imputation of Adam's guilt to his descendants in such a way that, if the imputation of guilt is denied, also the imputation of Christ's righteousness to Adam's descendants must be denied. Rom. 5, 18. 19: "As by the offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of One the free gift came upon all men unto justification. As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous." The imputation of original guilt belongs to the stubborn facts which Scripture teaches as undeniable truth. The objection that the guilt of Adam cannot be charged to his descendants because "the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father," Ezek. 18, 19. 20, ignores the fact that "God as Judge, in agreement with His supreme judicial authority, punishes man's crime of violating His majesty also in his descendants" (Quenstedt). - God does impute Adam's guilt to his descendants, and He is just in doing so. But that same God in love imputes to sinners also Christ's righteousness so that they may be saved.
Original corruption (corruptio hereditaria) is transmitted to all men through the ordinary mode of generation, Ps. 51, 5; John 3, 6. Since Christ was conceived by the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mary, Luke 1, 35, His nature was not corrupted by sin (immaculate conception). However, for Mary, His mother, no immaculate conception can be claimed, since she was born according to the ordinary mode of generation, Luke 1, 27, and was therefore in need of a Savior herself, Luke 1, 47. In reply to the objection that godly parents cannot transmit sin to their children since their sins have been forgiven, Gerhard says: "Carnal generation is not according to grace, but according to nature"; and Augustine: "In begetting, he (the parent) does not give that whence one is regenerated, but whence one is generated." Doctr. Theol., p. 243.
While original corruption may be known to some extent from reason (Horace: "Nam vitiis nemo sine nascitur"; Cicero: In omni continuo pravitate et in summa opiniorum perversitate versamur, ut paene cum lacte nutricis errorem surisse videamur), the Smalcald Articles rightly declare: "This hereditary sin is so deep and horrible a corruption of nature that no reason can understand it, but it must be learned and believed from the revelation of Scripture." (Part III, Art. I, 3.) And the Formula of Concord: "But if it is further asked what kind of an accidens original sin is, that is another question, of which no philosopher, no papist, no sophist, yea, no human reason, however acute it may be, can give the right explanation, but all understanding and every explanation of it must be derived solely from the Holy Scriptures, which testify that original sin is an unspeakable evil and such an entire corruption of human nature that in it and all its internal and external powers nothing pure or good remains, but everything is entirely corrupt, so that on account of original sin man is in God's sight truly spiritually dead, or with all his powers dead to that which is good." Thor. Decl., I, 60.
With respect to original corruption all those err a) who deny it altogether, asserting that children are corrupted not by propagation (generatione), but by the bad example of others (exemplo); b) who admit the corruption of human nature, but deny that it is sin, since only voluntary transgression is sin (peccatum voltmtarium); and c) who minimize original corruption (SemiPelagians, synergists). However, wherever the doctrine of original corruption is minimized, there also the doctrine of salvation by grace alone (sola gratia) is perverted; for the sola gratia always presupposes the total corruption of human nature (intima corruptio naturae humanae).