John Calvin - Institutes of the Christian Religion

IV. But, since it could not have been a trivial offence, but must have been a detestable crime, that was so severely punished by God, we must consider the nature of Adam's sin, which kindled the dreadful flame of Divine wrath against the whole human race. The vulgar opinion concerning the intemperance of gluttony is quite puerile; as though the sum and substance of all virtues consisted in an abstinence from one particular kind of fruit, when there were diffused on every side all the delights which could possibly be desired, and the happy fecundity of the earth afforded an abundance and variety of dainties. We must therefore look further, because the prohibition of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was a test of obedience, that Adam might prove his willing submission to the Divine government. And the name itself shows that the precept was given for no other purpose than that he might be contented with his condition, and not aim with criminal cupidity at any higher. But the promise which authorized him to expect eternal life, as long as he should eat of the tree of life, and, on the other hand, the dreadful denunciation of death, as soon as he should taste of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, were calculated for the probation and exercise of his faith. Hence it is easy to infer by what means Adam provoked the wrath of God against him. Augustine, indeed, properly observes, that pride was the first of all evils; because, if ambition had not elated man beyond what was lawful and right, he might have continued in his honourable situation. But we may obtain a more complete definition from the nature of the temptation as described by Moses. For as the woman, by the subtlety of the serpent, was seduced to discredit the word of God, it is evident that the fall commenced in disobedience. This is also confirmed by Paul, who states that all men were ruined by the disobedience of one.541 But it is also to be observed, that when the first man rebelled against the government of God, he not only was ensnared by the allurements of Satan, but despised the truth, and turned aside to falsehood. And there certainly can be no reverence of God left, where his word is contemned; for we preserve a sense of his majesty and the purity of his worship, no longer than we implicitly attend to his voice. Infidelity, therefore, was the root of that defection. But hence sprang ambition, pride, and ingratitude, since Adam, by coveting more than was granted, offered an indignity to the Divine goodness, which had so greatly enriched him. Now, it was monstrous impiety, that a son of the earth should not be satisfied with being made after the similitude of God, unless he could also be equal to him. If apostasy, which consists in revolting from the government of the Creator, and petulantly rejecting his authority, be a base and execrable crime, it is a vain attempt to extenuate the sin of Adam. Though the transgression of our first parents was not simple apostasy; they were also guilty of vile reproaches against God, in consenting to the calumnies of Satan, who accused God of falsehood, envy, and malignity. Finally, infidelity opened the gate to ambition, and ambition produced obstinacy, so that they cast off the fear of God, and precipitated themselves whithersoever they were led by their lawless desires. With propriety, therefore, Bernard teaches that the gate of salvation is opened to us, when in the present day we receive the Gospel with our ears, as death was once admitted at the same doors when they lay open to Satan. For Adam had never dared to resist the authority of God, if he had not discredited his word. This was certainly the best check for a due regulation of all the affections, that the chief good consists in the practice of righteousness, in obedience to the commands of God; and that the ultimate end of a happy life is to be beloved by him. Being seduced, therefore, by the blasphemies of the devil, he did all that was in his power towards a total annihilation of the glory of God.

V. As the spiritual life of Adam consisted in a union to his Maker, so an alienation from him was the death of his soul. Nor is it surprising that he ruined his posterity by his defection, which has perverted the whole order of nature in heaven and earth. “The creatures groan,” says Paul, “being made subject to vanity, not willingly.”542 If the cause be inquired, it is undoubtedly that they sustain part of the punishment due to the demerits of man, for whose use they were created. And his guilt being the origin of that curse which extends to every part of the world, it is reasonable to conclude its propagation to all his offspring. Therefore, when the Divine image in him was obliterated, and he was punished with the loss of wisdom, strength, sanctity, truth, and righteousness, with which he had been adorned, but which were succeeded by the dreadful pests of ignorance, impotence, impurity, vanity, and iniquity, he suffered not alone, but involved all his posterity with him, and plunged them into the same miseries. This is that hereditary corruption which the fathers called original sin ; meaning by sin, the depravation of a nature previously good and pure; on which subject they had much contention, nothing being more remote from natural reason, than that all should be criminated on account of the guilt of one, and thus his sin become common; which seems to have been the reason why the most ancient doctors of the Church did but obscurely glance at this point, or at least explained it with less perspicuity than it required. Yet this timidity could not prevent Pelagius from arising, who profanely pretended, that the sin of Adam only ruined himself, and did not injure his descendants. By concealing the disease with this delusion, Satan attempted to render it incurable. But when it was evinced by the plain testimony of the Scripture, that sin was communicated from the first man to all his posterity, he sophistically urged that it was communicated by imitation, not by propagation. Therefore good men, and beyond all others Augustine, have laboured to demonstrate that we are not corrupted by any adventitious means, but that we derive an innate depravity from our very birth. The denial of this was an instance of consummate impudence. But the temerity of the Pelagians and Celestians will not appear surprising to him who perceives from the writings of Augustine, what a want of modesty they discover in every thing else. There is certainly no ambiguity in the confession of David, that he was shapen in iniquity, and in sin his mother conceived him.543 He is not there exposing the sins of his mother or of his father; but to enhance his commendations of the Divine goodness towards him, he commences the confession of his depravity from the time of his conception. As it is evident that this was not peculiar to David, it is fairly concluded, that his case exemplifies the common condition of mankind. Every descendant, therefore, from the impure source, is born infected with the contagion of sin; and even before we behold the light of life, we are in the sight of God defiled and polluted. For “who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” The book of Job tells us, “Not one.”544

VI. We have heard that the impurity of the parents is so transmitted to the children, that all, without a single exception, are polluted as soon as they exist. But we shall not find the origin of this pollution, unless we ascend to the first parent of us all, as to the fountain which sends forth all the streams. Thus it is certain that Adam was not only the progenitor, but as it were the root of mankind, and therefore that all the race were necessarily vitiated in his corruption. The Apostle explains this by a comparison between him and Christ: “As,” says he, “by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned,”545 so, by the grace of Christ, righteousness and life have been restored to us. What cavil will the Pelagians raise here? That the sin of Adam was propagated by imitation? Do we then receive no other advantage from the righteousness of Christ than the proposal of an example for our imitation? Who can bear such blasphemy? But if it cannot be controverted that the righteousness of Christ is ours by communication, and life as its consequence, it is equally evident that both were lost in Adam, in the same manner in which they were recovered in Christ, and that sin and death were introduced by Adam, in the same manner in which they are abolished by Christ. There is no obscurity in the declaration that many are made righteous by the obedience of Christ,546 as they had been made sinners by the disobedience of Adam. And, therefore, between these two persons there is this relation, that the one ruined us by involving us in his destruction, the other by his grace has restored us to salvation. Any more prolix or tedious proof of a truth supported by such clear evidence must, I think, be unnecessary. Thus also in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, with a view to confirm the pious in a confidence of the resurrection, he shows, that the life which had been lost in Adam, was recovered in Christ.547 He, who pronounces that we were all dead in Adam, does also at the same time plainly declare, that we were implicated in the guilt of his sin. For no condemnation could reach those who were perfectly clear from all charge of iniquity. But his meaning cannot be better understood than from the relation of the other member of the sentence, where he informs us that the hope of life is restored in Christ. But that is well known to be accomplished, only when Christ, by a wonderful communication, transfuses into us the virtue of his righteousness; as it is elsewhere said, “The Spirit is life, because of righteousness.”548 No other explanation therefore can be given of our being said to be dead in Adam, than that his transgression not only procured misery and ruin for himself, but also precipitated our nature into similar destruction. And that not by his personal guilt as an individual, which pertains not to us, but because he infected all his descendants with the corruption into which he had fallen. Otherwise there would be no truth in the assertion of Paul, that all are by nature children of wrath,549 if they had not been already under the curse even before their birth. Now, it is easily inferred that our nature is there characterized, not as it was created by God, but as it was vitiated in Adam; because it would be unreasonable to make God the author of death. Adam, therefore, corrupted himself in such a manner, that the contagion has been communicated from him to all his offspring. And Christ himself, the heavenly Judge, declares, in the most unequivocal terms, that all are born in a state of pravity and corruption, when he teaches, that “whatsoever is born of the flesh is flesh,”550 and that, therefore, the gate of life is closed against all who have not been regenerated.