Theo 3 Sin
Theo 3 Sin
Theo 3 Sin
COMMENTARY
In today’s culture, hardly anything is called a sin except maybe during
a Church Service. God has been set aside and replaced by one’s own
authority to decide right and wrong. (Moral Relativism) Sin is just not
something people like to talk about because they too may be guilty
and in need of repentance and change of behavior. But sin actually
exists today as well as in days of old.
In the Old Testament God gave us the guidelines for our wellbeing on
Mount Sinai when He gave Moses the Ten Commandments and the
promises that all will be well if Moses and the Israelites followed these
guidelines. Of course they didn’t, any more than Adam and Eve
obeyed God in the Garden of Eden.
ORGINAL SIN.
In the beginning, God created Adam and Eve in His image and
likeness, He endowed them with intelligence, love, free will, and
conscience. He gave them the grace of “original holiness.” God also
gave them preternatural gifts. Man and the world began in grace, not
sin. The inner harmony between man and woman, and all of creation
comprised the state of “original justice.”
The preternatural gifts received by Adam and Eve include infused
knowledge, absence of concupiscence, and immortality of the
body. Adam and Eve received these free gifts not just for themselves
but to be passed on to the whole and entire human race. After Adam
and Eve committed “original sin,” they lost “original justice” and the
preternatural gifts for the entire human race. Now they could only
pass on a fallen human nature. Their descendants are now subject
to ignorance, concupiscence (disordered desires), suffering and
death.
God “tested” our first parents by forbidding them to eat of the “tree
of the knowledge of good and evil.” The tree is a symbol of the limits
that humans have as creatures. Our freedom to choose means we are
free to choose good. We are not free to choose evil. To step outside
God’s moral laws is to assume a freedom never granted to man. To
choose evil has bad consequences for mankind.
We did not commit “original sin.” But we are born with its effects, a
wounded human nature in body and soul and estrangement from
God’s divine life. Man’s passions are no longer ruled by right reason.
The union of man and woman became subject to tensions, lust, and
domination. The rest of creation became hostile and alien to man.
Death entered into human history. Because of man’s act of
disobedience, all of creation is now subject to death and decay.