# Is sin nature passed through the father?



## Pergamum (Sep 24, 2015)

https://answersingenesis.org/sin/original-sin/sin-nature-passed-through-fathers-genetic-line/



> Jesus inherited genetic material from Mary (to be fully human, i.e., descendant of Adam to become the Last Adam) but not from Joseph, therefore, original sin must pass through the father to the offspring. This allows Jesus to avoid original sin.



Does original sin pass through the father?


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## Pergamum (Sep 24, 2015)

https://carm.org/why-wasnt-Jesus-born-original-sin


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## Paul1976 (Sep 24, 2015)

Are you suggesting that if biologists were to use genetic material from two women to produce a child, that child would also be without sin as Jesus was? The experiment is not far-fetched scientifically, and will likely be done someplace in the next few decades(if not sooner), considering how little value our society assigns to the unborn. I'm not at all suggesting tampering with human birth is anything but completely wrong, just being realistic about the likelihood of such an experiment being done.


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## Jimmy the Greek (Sep 24, 2015)

Calvin’s position on the transmission of sin – that it is not the mode of conception, but the divine decree that accounts for the propagation of sin – necessarily led him to reject Augustine’s view on the meaning of Christ’s virgin birth. Whereas Augustine located Christ’s sinlessness in his conception without sexual desire, Jesus was, according to Calvin, free of sin not because of the virginal conception, but because he was sanctified by the Spirit. According to Calvin "it is a childish trifling to maintain that if Christ is free from all taint, and was begotten to the seed of Mary, by the secret operation of the Spirit, it is therefore not the seed of the woman that is impure, but only that of the man. Christ was not free of all taint, merely because he was born of a woman unconnected with a man, but because he was sanctified by the Spirit, so that the generation was pure and spotless, such as it would have been before Adam’s fall" (Inst. 2.13.4).


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## KeithW (Sep 24, 2015)

I have pondered this from the Roman Catholic perspective (though I am not one). They acknowledge that the virgin conception of Jesus was a miracle. But to address the question of how the sin nature is propagated they say that Mary was without the sin nature so it was not propagated to Jesus. The only way for this to be true was that a miracle took place with the birth of Mary so she did not inherit the sin nature - immaculate conception. To me, since it is acknowledged that God performed a miracle when a virgin conceived a child, and God performed a miracle so that the sin nature was not propagated, why couldn't both miracles have taken place at the same time?

Is God performing a miracle (or two) a satisfactory answer?


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## Semper Fidelis (Sep 24, 2015)

I believe Romans 5 teaches the imputation of Adam's sin even as it compares it to the righteousness that we have in Christ (which is imputed).


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## Jimmy the Greek (Sep 24, 2015)

The guilt of Adam's sin is imputed to us. I don't believe the same is true of our sin nature, which is the concern of the OP.


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## earl40 (Sep 24, 2015)

Jimmy the Greek said:


> The guilt of Adam's sin is imputed to us. I don't believe the same is true of our sin nature, which is the concern of the OP.



God creates a rational moral creature that is unlike Adam in that the person created after the fall is able to sin, and unable to not sin. When that person is regenerated he is now able to not sin. The nature which was there before regeneration is given the property of life, to the things of God. In other words, it is not wrong for God to create a person that by nature cannot do what God prescribes.


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## MW (Sep 24, 2015)

The corrupted nature, in order to be a "nature" in the proper sense of the term, must be propagated in a natural way, i.e., by ordinary generation through father and mother. Any other way would mean we could not speak of "nature" being corrupted.

"In sin did my mother conceive me."


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## TylerRay (Sep 24, 2015)

Is traducianism vs creationism at the heart of this argument?


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## Jimmy the Greek (Sep 24, 2015)

Traducianism vs creationism can certainly be an issue in the discussion of how the sin nature is propagated. The OP is asking if Jesus avoided a sin nature because it is transmitted only by a father. I think my Calvin quote above answered that . . . at least in Calvin's view.


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## bookslover (Sep 25, 2015)

Pergamum said:


> https://answersingenesis.org/sin/original-sin/sin-nature-passed-through-fathers-genetic-line/
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Since Mary was a sinner, why wouldn't she have passed original sin to Jesus - accepting, for the sake of argument, that sin is "passed" from parents to children.


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## Alan D. Strange (Sep 25, 2015)

Jim is correct here. Imputation is in view only with respect to how it is that we are guilty of Adam's first sin (and no other sins of Adam!). We are guilty of such because Adam was federal head of the human race. He was not Christ's federal head, however. Rather, our Lord is the federal head of the new humanity in Him. Those in Adam thus die; those in Christ are made alive.

With respect to the question of the OP--the transmission of sin (as opposed to the imputation of the guilt of Adam's first sin)--I believe that it is as Calvin argues, as Jim cited: our Lord was conceived of the Holy One and through such kept pure and spotless in His generation. In other words, He was sanctified and rendered holy in His humanity through the agency of the Holy Spirit. 

Part of the problem here is some confusion in the OP: it speaks of "original sin" and its transmission while at the same time speaking of something more specific. Original sin is composed of three things (according to WSC 18): the guilt of Adam's first sin [which is imputed to all those descending from him by ordinary generation], the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature. If the question were only, "how are we guilty of Adam's first sin?" the answer would be "it is imputed to us." The question, however, is not one of imputation; rather, it is about how we inherit the "corruption of [Adam's] whole nature," or more specifically, "how did Christ avoid inheriting Adam's sin nature?"

In my view, once again, Jim, in quoting Calvin, has furnished us with the answer. 

Peace,
Alan


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## ianm2 (Oct 14, 2015)

I believe, theological arguments not withstadning, that it must be genetic, ie inherent in the sperm and possibly the ovaries?


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## Paul1976 (Oct 14, 2015)

Sin must be deeper than genes. The human genome has been mapped, the function of many genes has been determined, and the function of the rest will one day be determined, should the Lord tarry. From a purely naturalistic perspective, our genetic makeup is a complicated, but ultimately tractable problem. If sin were simply genetic, it could be fixed through genetic engineering. God could have dealt with our sin through a means far simpler than the cross.


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