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Jesus Christ has no Old Sin Nature
RO61-01© Berean Memorial Church of Irving, Texas, Inc. (1977)
Grace
We are in Romans 5:12-21. Paul' main purpose in these closing verses of Romans 5 has been to show the completeness and the permanency of
justification by faith. Salvation, therefore, we have seen, is a grace gift from God, and it's the only plan which is acceptable to God. God's
grace plan is what makes salvation eternally secure. It's all done by Him.
The gift of salvation is based on the preservation of God's integrity by the payment of Jesus Christ on the cross for the sins of the world.
1 John 2:2 says, "And He (that is, Jesus Christ) is the propitiation (that is, the satisfaction) to the integrity of God. He is the propitiation
for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world." Jesus Christ, therefore, died for the sins of the world. Not everyone in
the world will seek to take advantage of that provision. Many will continue outside, and they will spend eternity in hell. But as far as God is
concerned, He has done His part, and He has done it well. And nothing more can be added by any sinner to this provision that God has made. All the
sinner can do is accept it.
Satanic Plans Add Human Works
All the satanic plans which are in the world for salvation, which counter this approach by grace, add human good works and religious rituals to the
work of Jesus Christ. You'll find few human plans of salvation which reject the work of Christ. They all, of course, include that. It would be quite
rare indeed, except in some of the religions of the world, to say, "Well, it's just your works, and that's all." All these plans that call
themselves Christian, and all these cult groups that go under the category of Christian, all accept what Christ has done. But the problem is that
they add a human doing at some point. And these, therefore, are marked as being plans of Satan.
The result of this, of course, is that there is no salvation for any of these people who are in any of these plans that add a human work.
Romans 11:6 tells us that if it is by grace, then it is no more works; otherwise, grace is no more grace. But if it works, then it is no more grace;
otherwise works is no more works."
Ephesians 2:8-9 says, "For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man
should boast." So, the Bible is very clear that God's plan can tolerate no additions of any kind. The result, therefore, is that these people who
seek salvation by accepting the work of Christ plus some human doing are not saved at all. The result is that thousands upon thousands upon
thousands of church members are praising and serving Jesus Christ, but they are going to hell.
Assurance
The assurance that you are not in that category, and that you are indeed born-again, depends upon the clear understanding of what the apostle Paul
teaches here in the closing verses of Romans 5. If you understand these verses, then you will have assurance concerning your salvation. That is
because one of the things that you should have learned by now, from these verses in Romans 5, is that God deals entirely with two men, relative to
your destiny. He dealt with Adam, who doomed you to hell; and, He deals with Jesus Christ, who makes it possible for you to go to heaven. And you
are either related to Adam in God's reckoning, or you are related to Jesus Christ in God's reckoning. And that's all that's involved – nothing,
nothing, nothing else. And if you understand that, then you will know what is required in salvation, and then you will know whether you are
born-again.
Adam and Jesus Christ
Paul put it this way in 2 Timothy 1:12: He says, "For which cause I also suffer these things. Nevertheless, I'm not ashamed, for I know whom I
have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed unto Him against that day." Paul says that because he was a
preacher; an apostle; and, a teacher to the gentile world, he was under abuse and under persecution. But he says, "I suffer these things, but it
doesn't matter, because the thing that I know (the peace that I have) whom I have believed." Who is that? The one man, Jesus Christ. Therefore,
Paul says, "I know that all my problems are solved. I know that God deals with me on the basis of my relationship to that man, and that man alone,
as once he dealt with me on my relationship to Adam, and to Adam alone.
So, it doesn't matter how good you are or how bad you are, or anything of that nature. It only depends with whom you are related in God's
reckoning. That is the critical point that Paul is making in Romans 5. Adam's sinned involved us all in his guilt. So, we are born spiritually
dead with an old sin nature which expresses itself in acts of sin. So, God says, "We are guilty." But again, I must stress to you that it is not
all your little acts of sins that are the problem here. The problem is that you were born with Adam's guilt on you.
God says, "I've got to those dirty clothes." This is just like if your child comes in, and he's been playing in the mud, and you say, "Stand right
there in the door. Don't make another step." And you strip it all off of him, and you take him in, and you clean him up, and you put a clean suit
of clothes on him. Well, that's what God has done. He says, "Just stand right there. You're dripping with all of Adam's filth. I don't want you to
do another thing. Don't even make another move while I strip all this off of you, and I put on the clothing of the righteousness of Christ.
We are in the dirty clothes of Adam. And God says, "I must put on the clean clothes of the righteousness of Christ. So we are not active agents,
Paul is saying, in this drama of eternal death and eternal life. We are only the recipients. We are the recipients of death through Adam, and we
are the recipients of eternal life through Jesus Christ.
So, we've concluded the set of parentheses, which has been verses 13-17. And now we come to verse 18, which begins with the word "therefore." That
word in Greek looks like this: "oun." The word "oun" is a conjunction, and means "then." This is a word for introducing a consequence. When you
have this word in the Greek Bible, it's a signal that a consequence is going to be introduced here. It's a final summary that is being introduced
– a summary of the doctrine which Paul has been teaching in verses 12-17. Now he's going to summarize that doctrine before he finishes this
chapter, and closes his whole discussion about justification by faith.
You'll remember that a long time ago we told you that back up in verse 12, the apostle Paul started to make a statement, but he never finished it.
This statement is marked by two words: "as something is, even so, so something else is." You will notice in verse 12 that you have the "as" part of
the sentence, but you never come to the "even so" in verse 12: "Wherefore, as by one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death
passed upon all men, for all have sinned. Even so," and you wait for him to go on, but he stops right there in the middle, and doesn't go on. And you
just feel uncomfortable because the finish is not there. The reason the finish is not there is because Paul said, "for all have sinned." When he
wrote that, he said, "Now that's going to be a blast to them. I better explain that."
So, he puts in a set of parentheses, and he starts and verse 13, and he starts explaining just how it is that everybody is guilty for what Adam did.
Right away, everybody is going to say, "Oh, that's not fair." So, Paul says, "I'm going to have to explain to you how it is fair." Furthermore,
it's not only fair, but it's the most marvelous thing that God has done – that the only thing he's going to deal with you on is not all your
little sins, but he's going to deal with you on one big issue: you sinned with Adam. His guilt is upon you. And he has proceeded to explain how,
consequently, that marvelous arrangement is true – that we have sinned in the course of Adam's sinning. He has consequently never finished
the sentence he began in verse 12 as he started to explain this.
So, he explains it in verse 13-14. He tells how people die – even babies who never sin like Adam did. And he says, "And Adam is really up
an analogy to Christ. He's a figure of Jesus Christ. Then he starts in verse 15. He says, "Now wait a minute. I better explain that – how I
mean that Adam is like Christ. So, in verses 15-17, he starts explaining how Adam is an analogy to Jesus Christ – how they're like, and how
in some ways they're really not alike. And he goes on through all those verses that we went through – the comparison of how one sin brought
a terrible thing, but out of all our many sins, Jesus Christ brought the wonderful thing of justification; and, how death could come and reign over
everybody just because of one man's sin. But because of the one obedience of Jesus Christ, an abundance of grace was broken loose. And we all reign
as the kings and queens of God now. That's this comparison of the analogy. He says, "They are alike, but not quite alike, because Jesus is
infinitely superior to what Adam produced.
So, now he gets to verse 17, and he closes off that set of parentheses, and he puts this word "oun" in, to say, "Now, going back to when I
interrupted myself back at verse 12, here's what I started to say."
Now the Greek Bible has another word with "oun." It has this word "oun,", but it also has this word "ara." This combination is a significant
combination of words: "oun ara." In the Greek Bible, this is often used by the apostle Paul to indicate that he is going to introduce a summary
statement. He does this many times in Romans. If you want to take the time to run your eye over some verses like Romans 7:3, you'll see he does it
there. Also see Romans 7:25, Romans 8:12, and Romans 9:16. In all these verses he uses in the Greek: "oun ara." This is generally translated here
in the English by such words as "so then," because this word "ara" can be translated by the word "so." And what we have when we put it together,
indeed would translate these as "so then," or by the word "consequently." It's just to indicate that verse 18 is going to give a summary. When this
in the Greek, you know what to look for. You know that this verse is going to begin a summary of all the doctrine that Paul has been teaching in the
preceding verses.
So, these words introduce a clear statement of the striking analogy between our fall in Adam and our restoration and Jesus Christ: "So then, as."
The word "as" is the word "hos." This is a word which indicates the manner of doing something. And it introduces the first part of the comparison
between the disobedience to God by Adam, and the second part – the obedience to God by Jesus Christ. We've already had this word as up in
verse 12. We got that far: "Wherefore, as by one man." That introduces the first part of the comparison, but we never got past it. Verse 12 stopped
before it came to the "even so" – the conclusion part.
So, again, he starts over again with this word, indicating: "Now I'm going to summarize once more in a very clear way what I started to tell you
before: "As by one man." The word "by" is this word "dia." It's a preposition. In this situation, it means "through." This is indicating "by means
of." You could translate it that way. It indicates the cause of universal condemnation. Why are you going to hell? Is it because you cheat; because
you lie; because you steal; because you're adulterous; or, because you're one thing or another? No. That is not the reason you are going to hell.
You are going to hell because of what this word is going to tell you – through something specific with God: "For through" one specific thing
there is universal condemnation.
Now, here we have a problem. If you have a King James translation before you, the King James translation at this point says, "Through the offense of
one." And that's a wrong translation. It should be simply translated as: "through one offense." That's what is in the Greek, and that's what is a
more proper translation: "through one offense." The reason for this setup is that Paul is again stressing that the whole problem of suffering in
hell forever is due to Adam's one original sin when Adam was acting as our representative. All our various acts of sin are not the issue with God.
Various acts of sin – all of our sinning flows from an evil nature which resulted from Adam's original sin, and which we inherited from him.
So, it's "through one offense." That is what the Bible says. Sins (plural) is not the issue. Sins (plural), therefore, should not be the issue in
evangelism. Yet how many evangelists do you know who love to get up and talk about all the terrible things that you people are guilty of? And they
like to play all chords of the organ, and pull all the stops as they play all the horrible things that people do. That's not biblical evangelism.
That's human viewpoint evangelism. How many times do you fall into the trap as a Christian who witnesses to people by zeroing in on their
wrongdoings?
If you ought to learn anything from the end of Romans 5, you should learn that when you're going to talk to people who are on their way to the
lake of fire, don't talk about all their bad things. For one thing, they already know that. They already know how bad they are. They don't need
you to tell them that. And that's not the issue, because that's not what's going to take them to hell. You're going to get their eyes off the thing
that Paul says – that you must direct people to the one critical problem they have. They were born into the human race with a terrible
condition on them: Adam's guilt.
Now, do you see what that does? With one blow, all these fine people in the community have had torn away from them all of their excuse and
justification for not receiving Christ as Savior, because it doesn't matter how refined a sinner you are, and it doesn't matter how gross a sinner
you are. The issue is that you have Adam's guilt upon you, and that's all. So, the individual acts of sin are not the thing. This one trespass
of Adam is the reason for our condemnation, and that's why you are going to experience eternal death if something is not done about it.
Furthermore, if you talk about a person's individual acts of sin, what can that person do in his own thinking? Because the human heart is so
arrogant and proud, it does not want to subject itself to such a thing as saying, "I'm a lost, dirty sinner, and I need to receive Christ and
His cleansing." Instead, you say, "You see, your trouble is you lie so much. You lie all the time. If you are going to get in your car and go
down the streets of the A&P, you lie to me and say you're going to Safeway. That's your problem, and you're going to go to hell for that.
So, what's a person going to do? He's going to say," I don't want to go to hell. I don't think I'd like that. I'm going to quit lying. Now I'm going
to tell the truth. If I'm going to go to the A&P, I'm going to tell you I'm going to the A&P. If I'm going to go to Safeway, I'm going to tell you
I'm going to Safeway. I'm going to be honest now." And you've given him the idea that if he cleans up his life, all is well with God, and God is
going to say, "OK, you've straighten up. Things are right now, so you can come into My heaven." But he has forgotten about the real problem with
God – Adam's guilt is still dripping all over him, like somebody who's chewing tobacco who spit on him. And there it is. It's still dripping
and oozing down, and it's all as filthy and dirty as it was before. But he's standing around, and he's cleaned up his lying, or he's cleaned up his
stealing, he's cleaned up his sexual morality, or he's even cleaned up his witchcraft, or whatever else it is that he's doing – that you're
telling him that that's going to condemn him with God.
Don't get people sidetracked from what Paul is directing us to hear. It's Adam's guilt. That's our problem. Now, if that's our problem, how in the
world are you going to resolve it? How are you going to remove it? You can't clean that up. You can't stop doing that. You can't remove that
problem from yourself. Your good works aren't going to affect that. Your good religious rituals are not going to affect that. And what you do is
push a person to realize the helplessness in which he stands, so that he is not so stupid as to say, "Well, if I perform some ritual like
circumcision, then I shall be saved. That's what they were saying in the early New Testament church. They won't be trying to rely on their water
baptism, or the taking of the Lord's Supper, as the Catholics are taught in the mass as being a way to salvation. None of these things will be
involved. They'll realize that: "I cannot touch what I got from Adam. I can touch what I do. I can clean up my life. I can do better. I can make
new resolutions, but I cannot stop the guilt that is on me from Adam."
Then they will realize that it takes something outside of themselves. That's what Paul is trying to convey in this whole early part of Romans. You
need an absolute righteousness that you receive entirely apart from yourself, that is given to you by someone who is qualified to give it to you
– not one that you develop on your own.
One Offense
So it says: "Through one offense." The word "through" is this word "dia" in the Greek. It's a signal word that indicates here is the agency. And
it is "one." There's our old word "heis" again that we've had before. This is the numeral for number one. This numeral one is indicating a single
item as opposed to many items. This word is stressing that our many sins not in view, but just this one sin, and that is the one of Adam's that we've
been looking at, and it's called an "offense." This is, again, that same word we've had before: "paraptoma." It looks like that in the Greek, and
that's how it's transliterated. "Paraptoma" means "a false step." It means "a blunder."
A Fall
In order to fully determine the meaning, and to see exactly why Adam's transgression is described as a "paraptoma, we need to go back to the verb
form from which this noun comes. And that is "parapipto." "Parapipto" means "to fall in one's way" or "to fall away." In other words, it's saying
that you should have stood upright, but you stumbled and you fell down. You fell away from your upright position. So, the noun "paraptoma" from
this verb "parapipto" carries the same connotation – the idea of a fall. It denotes falling from a position of uprightness and truth.
God's Holiness
This describes very adequately the nature of Adam's sin in Eden, because that was a fall from a position of uprightness relative to divine integrity.
Up to that point, Adam had walked in complete compatibility to divine integrity. God's holiness was not offended in one single moment by either
Adam or Eve. God's justice, which you know is one part of God's holiness, had no claims to make against either one of them. God's absolute
righteousness, which is the other part of God's holiness, was perfectly compatible with what the two of them were doing.
Uprightness
They were in uprightness until the day they sinned. And when they sinned, they fell down. That's the point that this word indicates. It's a fall
downward. It's a fall downward. The liberals say that man actually fell upward. When he entered this sin, it opened up new vistas to him so that
he could develop. And it was just part of his learning – how to live as a human being. So, the fall was a fall upward, as a little child
who doesn't know how to walk. How does he learn to walk? Well, he starts stumbling, and every fall teaches him how to stand and walk upright.
Well, that's not a true analogy at all. The Word of God, when it uses the word "paraptoma," is telling us that Adam fell downward. And Eve fell
downward. It was a very tragic thing that they did.
So, this word has been repeatedly used in this context verse-after-verse in Romans 5:12-21. It has been repeatedly used to describe for us what
Adam did. "Paraptoma" describes a fall from uprightness and from truth. And the results to all mankind have been monumental. So, this word "one"
guards us from thinking about all of our many individual sins. The word "paraptoma" identifies a very specific kind of sin, and its attributes
that to Adam – his stepping out of line of God's stated rule.
We may therefore translate this first part like this: "So then as by means of one transgression." Now, at this point, the King James Bible throws
in some words. You see "judgment came." And you know that if it's in italics, it's not in the Greek Bible. But you do need some words here to
convey the meaning of the Greek sentence, because the Greek sentence is abbreviated. We call that being elliptical. That's a way of emphasizing
what the sentence is saying. So, they leave words out. So, you do have to add something. And the words that you should add here would best be the
words "there resulted." If you had those words, it'll make the best sense.
So, we would have: "So then as by means of one transgression there resulted." And now we come to the rest of the sentence, and we'll have to put
it together in its Greek order. It's a little different than what you have in the English. But we'll go by the English words here. The word "upon"
is the Greek word "eis." That is again that preposition indicating direction. The word "all" is "pas," which conveys the idea of every individual
one. And then it says, "upon all men." Now notice the word that we have here in the Greek: "anthropos." "Anthropos" is the word for humanity. It
does not mean men as a male person. It's the general word for the human race. We would translate it very properly as "mankind."
So, there resulted something upon mankind. Putting it together, we have: "So then as by means of one transgression there resulted upon all mankind."
And that is looking at all mankind in terms of individual human beings: "There resulted on all mankind." And then it has this word again "eis," that
preposition in Greek which again is indicating direction. It is specifically pointing to the direction of the result of Adam's sin to mankind.
Condemnation
The result that it is pointing to is called here condemnation, which is the word "katakrima." That's the heavy, hard word for condemnation. We've
had the shorter one, this "krima" part. Now here it is "katakrima." This word indicates a result from this "ma" ending, and that that means that
we have here a declaration that a sentence has been passed – a verdict of guilty, and the sentence of death.
>[?
So, all are declared morally guilty because of the one sin of Adam, and they are declared to lack absolute righteousness. So, we put it all
together, and we would translate the first part of verse 18 in this way: "So then, as by means of one transgression, there resulted condemnation
to all mankind." Remember that the apostle Paul is introducing a final summary, and he's going to say it in just as clear language as he can. He's
using this abbreviated form to emphasize the main features. This puts it together in about as clear a way as you can convey it into English: "So
then, as by means of one transgression, there resulted condemnation to all mankind."
Now, for this reason, Paul has earlier declared to us, in Romans 3:10, that no one has absolute righteousness: "As it is written, there is none
righteous, no not one." Why is there no human being who is righteous? Because all of them have upon them the condemnation that resulted from the
transgression of Adam. By one transgression, all have been brought under condemnation. But all you smart students of the Bible say, "Wait a minute,
I know one place that that's not true." And you are right – in the case of Jesus Christ. "But," you say, "was he not a human being?" Yes, He
was. And I have had some pretty good Christians bring this up.
Jesus Christ does not have an Old Sin Nature
I had someone not very long ago say to me (and I was quite shocked to have him say it) that he thought Jesus Christ had an old sin nature. And the
reason he thought that is because everybody born into the human race has an old sin nature. And that is true. He said that if Jesus Christ was born
into the human race, then Jesus Christ has an old sin nature. Isn't that logical? And yet the Word of God makes it very clear to us that He does
not.
The Old Sin Nature
Luke 1:35, when speaking to Mary, and explaining to her how she would experience this supernatural birth, explained to her that the thing that
would be born of her would be holy, meaning that it would be absolutely sinless. Notice Luke 1:35: "And the angel answered and said to her, 'The
Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you. Therefore, also that holy Thing which shall be born of you
shall be called the Son of God." Obviously, something very fantastic has taken place here in the conception of the God-man Jesus Christ through the
power of the Holy Spirit, so that he did not have an old sin nature.
One thing is obvious, right off the bat, that must be a factor that's involved here. That is that the Lord Jesus Christ had a human mother, but no
human father. Therefore, that gives us our first clue that the problem of the old sin nature has something to do with the male in the reproductive
process. It has something to do with the father. Most women can understand it very readily. They say, "That makes sense to me right off the bat,"
because what we are saying is that somehow the fathers are responsible for the old sin nature and the children. I have had occasion to discuss this
on and off with mothers over the years, and all of them readily agree that that makes a lot of sense to them. However, we must also recognize that
there is an old sin nature in women, and the husbands readily agree to that. The old sin nature is in men and it is in women.
The Roman Catholic's Immaculate Conception
Now the poor Roman Catholics look at this and they say, "You know, this is a problem. We have a Savior who has to be sinless.
And that means that he has to be sinless right from the first without a sin nature. He has to be back to where Adam was before Adam's sin." So,
the Roman Catholics gave some thought to this, and one of their theologians came up with a marvelous idea. He said, "You know, I know what the
answer is. The answer is immaculate conception."
The Pope Speaks Ex Cathedra
The pope looked at that, and he said, "That's good. I like that." The pope went and sat down on his throne so that he could speak ex cathedra from
the throne. And when he speaks ex cathedra, that means he talks for God, and therefore, he can make no mistakes. He said, "I hereby declare that
Mary was conceived immaculately. When she was born, she was born without a sin nature. And I hereby declare that all Catholics must now subscribe
to the dogma of the immaculate conception on penalty of the loss of their eternal souls if they reject it." When the Pope speaks ex cathedra, that
means that you have to believe it. So, now, from that day on, all Catholics said that Mary was born immaculate, minus an old sin nature.
Of course, there were a couple of smart Catholics, and they sat, and they thought about this, and they said. "How come Mary was born without an
old sin nature? And the Paul said, "Get away, kid. Don't bother me here. You just disturb me. You're nitpicking." Now what have they done? All the
Catholics have done is push the problem back one step further back, because if they're going to try to explain that this is how Jesus could be
born without a sin nature, how are they going to explain that Mary was born without a sin nature if she had a sinful mother in a sinful father
– a father and a mother with an sin nature? It's ludicrous.
However, interestingly enough, the Catholics, in a way were, on the right trail I believe. They were on the right track, but they missed it at a
certain point. It did have something to do with Mary. The fact that we could have a solution to our guilt in Adam through one man who did not have
Adam's guilt (and we had to have that man) resulted from a virgin birth. The fact that that solution came through a virgin birth indicated that it
had something to do indeed with the woman that made that possible, as it had something to do with the father that he was eliminated in this process.
Chromosomes
We are going to try to answer the question: where is the old sin nature? The old sin nature is not in the soul, but the old sin nature is in your
physical body. When you talk about the old sin nature being in your physical body, then we get down to the basic units of the physical body, which
is the cell structure. Within the cell structure of every human being, there are a series of structures called chromosomes. There are exactly 46 of
them. There are 46 chromosomes in every one of your cells.
Genes
These chromosomes have within them another structure called genes. In the genetic structure of every cell of your body is the code that determines
all of the features that have made you up as a physical human being: the color of your eyes; the color of your hair; the shape of your body; and,
all the various features. All of these are genetically structured within you – within each cell of your body. And within the genetic structure,
is the old sin nature. One of the genes that you have that prints out what you're going to be is the old sin nature gene. It prints out that you are
born under the curse of Adam's sin. There was a genetic change in Adam and Eve when they sinned. Consequently, the old sin nature became part of the
physical structure.
For this reason, when a Christian dies, he does not take the old sin nature to heaven with him. When a Christian dies in his spirit and soul, he
goes into the presence of the Lord, his body stays in the grave, and the Old sin nature stays there with it, because it's part of that physical
structure. When the body is resurrected, there is a genetic change within him, because the Bible tells us that he now receives a glorified body.
And a glorified body means that the old sin nature genetic feature has been removed. And everything else that has been bad about the body is
corrected, and he has a glorified body which does not have an old sin nature, and which is not capable of sinning.
So, here we have a physical feature which, however, is true of both men and women. Men have this, and women have this. They have old sin natures
within the genetic structure. So, how did Jesus Christ get born of a woman who has an old sin nature in her genetic structure? All that Jesus had
of his physical features had to come from his mother. He had to have the genetic inheritance of Mary in order to qualify to be the seed of David.
He couldn't do it through Joseph, who was also the seed of David. Joseph was not involved. So, all that Jesus received in genetic inheritance of
the Davidic line had to come through Mary, and He had to have her genetic structure in order to be able to qualify as the Son of David, and be in
the line as David's greater Son and the final King of Kings. Something must have happened here in the process of normal human birth that eliminated
the old sin nature even though Jesus was born of a woman who had an old sin nature.
The Bible makes it very clear that Mary needed salvation just like everybody else. I won't go into that this morning. The Roman Catholics have a
complete condemnation of their position over the scriptural reference that Mary herself needed the cleansing of salvation that her own Son was
going to bring.
What we apparently have here is a phenomenon in the female ovum and the male sperm. These are the factors that are involved in human birth (in human
reproduction). Jesus was born from a female ovum, an egg from his mother Mary. But when we study the genetic structure of the ovum, we have
discovered now that it has 23 chromosomes, and that the sperm has 23 chromosomes. These are the only cells in the body which only have half –
the number of chromosomes is cut in half. There's your first clue. When these two join, they become a complete cell with the 46 normal chromosomes.
And in these chromosomes are all the genetic details.
What we obviously have here, and I don't know that I can prove this completely by a verse in the Bible. I can prove it partly by a verse in the
Bible, and I'll give you that in a moment. But what we obviously have here is that, in the divine order, the 23 chromosomes of the female egg of
the ovum do not carry the old sin nature genetic structure. There is no old sin nature in the ovum. But the male sperm, in its 23 chromosomes,
carries the genetic structure of the old sin nature.
Therefore, you can see very readily that when God the Holy Spirit took over the work supernaturally of impregnating the egg that constituted the
physical body of Jesus Christ, He supernaturally provided the 23 additional chromosomes which were necessary to complete this cell and begin the
life process. But there were 23 chromosomes divinely provided and completely free and clean of the old sin nature. They did not come from a male
human being which carried that old sin nature in its genetic structure. And the result was that Jesus Christ could be born, and was born, without
an old sin nature.
Mary
Therefore, if any woman today could produce a pregnancy without a male sperm, she would produce a sinless human being just as Mary did. Mary was
no different than any other woman.
Yet, within all the other cells of the female body, there resides (in the other 23 chromosomes that she receives) the old sin nature. That's why
the mother has an old sin nature, but she does not pass it on, because the ovum is free of it.
Eve
Now, apparently, the reason for this is given to us in 1 Timothy 2:14. The apostle Paul, in this verse, makes a very important doctrinal point.
He says, "And Adam was not deceived, but the woman, being deceived, was in the transgression." What that verse is telling us is that Eve acted in
great sincerity. When she ate that fruit, she did not think she was doing a wrong thing. When she ate that fruit, she was acting on bad advice, and
she was wrong in that. She thought that she was actually doing something that was all right to do. And she did it because she took some bum advice
from the devil, and acted upon it. And the result was that she discovered that he had tricked her. This woman was pure, unadulteratedly, tricked.
Therefore, the Bible says, "She was deceived in the transgression." It was an act of sin, but it was by deception.
Adam
However, when Adam came along, remember that he didn't have all the degeneracy that we suffer now. He had a keen computer-working mind which had
not been contaminated by sin and the degeneracy of centuries. And immediately, he took in the picture. And Adam had a choice to make: to obey God;
or, to say, "I don't care what God says. I'm going to eat this fruit."
Adam knew exactly what had happened. He probably could see it because Eve had probably had a clothing of light (an aura of glory) around her that
was now gone. And what this verse is saying is that Adam said, "I don't care what God says. I'm going to eat this fruit." And he did it deliberately;
he did it knowingly; and, he did it willfully.
For that reason, we may conclude that the old sin nature is passed on through the Father, and not through the mother. She is preserved in her
conception from passing on the old sin nature. She is honored in that way. But the father is dishonored because Adam, the male, was responsible
for deliberately performing this sin.
Verse 15 says, "Notwithstanding, she shall be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness and sobriety." Eventually, her
childbearing (because she is free in her ovum of the sin nature) in time is going to bear the child Jesus. And she herself will bring salvation
into the world, because she has been preserved from the genetic structure of the old sin nature which is carried in the father's side.
For this reason, Jesus Christ, without a human father, inherited only the genetic structure of Mary, so he inherited no old sin nature. For this
reason, Jesus Christ was born sinless, and because He remained sinless by his acts, He was qualified to bear the sins of the world, and to pay
with His spiritual and physical death for the sins of all.
Now getting back to Romans 5, we have a very tremendous statement, for the apostle Paul has said, in the first part of verse 18: "So then, as by
means of one offense, there resulted condemnation upon all men" (except for Jesus Christ). And that exception is what leads us into the last part
of verse 18, which takes all of the gloom off this verse, and takes all the judgment and all the condemnation and all the judgment of eternity in
hell off of us, because the one man, Jesus Christ, through God's provision, bypassed the old sin nature. And He, and He alone, was not included into
this condemnation that rests upon all of us.
Your individual sins are not the issue. Adam's guilt is the problem. You can clean your sins up. But you can never, never touch Adam's guilt. Do
not be so foolish as to try. You can't do it, and you know it. But God has made a man who is able to do it. What He did has had monumental results
for us. We will look at that next time.
Dr. John E. Danish, 1977
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