The Natural Man
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. Psalm 51:5 NASB
Conceived – Have you ever felt as though everything in your life was just wrong? That somehow you got off track and life ended up just being one big mess? Have you ever felt as if you just made one mistake after another from the very beginning? When emotional trauma reaches overwhelming proportion, we sometimes slip into summary declarations that ignore the details because the only thing we can think of is the calamity of the moment. A very bad day becomes a worthless life. We see it all through the lens of the immediate desperation. “I’ve struggled with this my whole life,” isn’t usually true, but it surely feels like it.
Of course, Augustine read this verse as a theological statement. He concluded that David was born sinful, as all men are. In fact, he believed that Adam’s original sin was passed from one person to another through sexual intercourse and conception. Isn’t that what this verse says? “I was conceived in sin,” suggests that the sexual act resulted in a sinful child, a child sinful since conception. No prior choice. No deliberate disobedience. Just being born was enough to make us guilty. In Adam we all sinned and God’s cosmic economy makes sure that each of us must pay for Adam’s fall. Except, of course, all those Scriptures that say otherwise.
Judaism does not hold a doctrine of sinful nature. Jewish thinking prior to the development of a religion called Judaism does not embrace such a doctrine. The prophets uniformly state that each man is judged for his own actions and that no one dies for another man’s sins. One of the important distinctions between Greek and Hebrew thought is individual accountability. The Greeks believed in inherited punishment. They could not imagine a world where the wicked got away with it by dying before they were punished, so they proposed that the children of the wicked would suffer in order to balance the scale of justice for the fathers who should have suffered but did not. Hebrew thought rejects this idea. But that does not mean Hebrew thought ignores the need for justice. In Hebrew thinking, everyone is raised to face judgment. The wicked dead do not get away with it because they will face the judgment of God along with everyone else. The notion that sin is passed to the children is unnecessary and unethical.
So what did David mean? One suggestion is that in his poetic use of hyperbole he feels as if his whole life has been undone in his affair. The humiliation is so great that it is as if he had been born to this disgrace. The poet speaks in striking terms, not theological doctrines. Another suggestion is that David reflects on his family history. Perhaps there was some skeleton in the closet. We will never know. Robert Alter notes, some early rabbis suggest, “David’s father, Jesse, did not have relations with his wife to fulfill a higher obligation but rather out of sheer lust. Such a reading may be encouraged by the fact that the verb attached to the mother, yaham, is typically associated with animals in heat. It may, however, be unwarranted to construct a general theology of sinful nature from this verse. The speaker of this poem certainly feels permeated with sinfulness. He may trace it back to the sexual act through which he was conceived, but there is not much here to support the idea that this is the case of every human born.”[1]
Craig Broyles comments, “It would also be putting too much on this single verse to read into it a doctrine of original sin. The Psalms and the OT in general speak less in terms of ‘being’ (ontology) than in terms of experience and history (existence). Verse 5 must also be seen as a part of this doxology of judgment. The point is to contrast God, the just judge (v. 4), and the speaker, who has lived in a world of sin since birth.”[2] If we follow Broyles’ suggestion, we too are born into iniquity. The Hebrew text actually reads hen-beawon, literally, “Behold, in (among, upon, with) iniquity (guilt, punishment, ruin).” You can see the multiple translation possibilities resident in the Hebrew words. It is worth noting that this combined word is the first word in the verse, not the verb.
How would you summarize your life in the midst of overpowering emotional trauma, in the presence of irrepressible feelings of guilt? Would you say that you have been born into a world filled with sin and that you reflect this tragic state of affairs? Would you cry out that all of your life has been characterized by struggle against the dark and you have fallen once more? Would you view your very birth as a tragic event that set you on a path toward the destruction you have now perpetrated? Perhaps David’s non-theological emotional outburst is also ours.
Topical Index: conceived, yaham, original sin, sinful nature, Psalm 51:5
[1] Rober Alter, The Book of Psalms, p. 181.
[2] Craig Broyles, New International Biblical Commentary: Psalms, p. 228.
I distinctly remember the day I discovered I was not innocent. I must have been either three or four. Up until that day, whenever I got into trouble, it was always a surprise; I did not know until that moment that what I had done was wrong, and the punishment, while serving to remind me not to do it again, had no larger implications. In other words, I did not feel that it was personally directed at ME. I was not guilty of insurrection; I was just asleep at the post.
That day was the first day that I remember deliberately weighing the options of a choice, and the thought came into my mind like it was my own thought that there was a possibility that I could get away with something I really wanted to do, even though I knew I had gotten into trouble before about it. I remember the spirit of uncleanness that swept over me as soon as I entertained that thought, and the tide carried me excitedly away. My supersharp mama, though, caught me. And punished me. I felt aggrieved, and could not for the life of me tell why. This was my very first INTERNAL introduction to sin, and the confusion, which was completely different than the simple confusion of not knowing, was indescribable. I was frightened. I felt like my life was ruined. I went out to cry behind a bush(!) and cried until supper. The crying, which had always served to reset my emotions, did not help this time. I decided that bedtime would help. It always had before; I would wake up, and mama would sing “good morning merry sunshine” to me, and I would skip out to my day again. I comforted myself with that thought, and worked hard to get to sleep. Next morning, that thing jumped on me as soon as I awoke. (It was also the first time I had woken up thinking the same thought as when I went to sleep.) Some unclean thing had held it for me as I slept, and handed it back. I was miserable! I found my bush again, which had always comforted me in the past, but it was not helping. I was miserable for three days! I finally realized it was not going to get better. Something elemental was gone, and I knew I was too nonverbal still to be able to ask for help. I was also ashamed, which I didn’t know about, and so wanted to hide my problem (which was also new!). So, I made a decision. I decided that the only way I could get past this was to remember it so thoroughly (down to the nuances of emotion and intuition) that I could recreate it later for review – so that I could figure it out later. I did not have the words to think about it! And I knew it!
Some of the acute misery subsided, but the injury stayed, and hurt. Every year I would go check to see if I had enough language yet; if I had learned the words, and/or the implications, but no. Incidental to this process, I decided that the only way that memory would stay long term was if I gave it context, so I decided that I had to remember as much around it as possible, which started me on the quest of remembering the rest of my childhood (which I attempted to use soon after that to remember being born (and before!) in an effort to circumvent what I determined was an obfuscation of truth when I went to ask where babies came from. LOL!). I had to have been at least ten when I realized I had enough language and context, so I went back and pulled up that memory, and lo, and behold, I realized that the problem was because I no longer felt that I had been born innocent into the Garden of Eden, but that I was a sinner. I had been kicked out; I had lost my ticket! I was mourning the death of that lost innocence. I had never mourned before, and it shook my world.
I think babies are born innocent, and heaven regards children, in general, as extensions of their parents (or else what would a bar or bat mitzvah be FOR?), but with a propensity to sin, which you CAN inherit from your parents, with alcohol addiction, say, being but one example of a genetic (or also epigenetic, researchers are now finding) example. For example, addiction can be a generational propensity to iniquity expressed in the gene code, that predisposes an allergic reaction to the addictive substance. (“Crack babies” suffer severe withdrawal because they are born addicted.) There are four recognized categories of neurotransmitter inheritance. One of them is defective chemistry. There is an inherited defect involved in
alcohol, we know. The first time alcohol passes throught the basal ganglia of one of these people, it CAN unite with this defective chemical and forms PHIQ, which is a chemical that is found in an addictive inherited personality. This uniting produces a biological craving instantly. This is why children of alcoholics are warned against ever taking that first drink. (If you ever thought alcoholism for SOME people was just a matter of simple choice perhaps you could be merciful enough to think again.) Because of this, perhaps some people could benefit by being, say, Muslim, and never starting alcohol of any sort! (Not recommending Islam as the answer to a generational genetic default!)
Families pass on a TENDENCY to sin to their children, yes (and they also pass on a tendency to righteousness!). Children can be cursed from the get go in this way, but God! Where sin abounds, there also does mercy. I think He constantly stands between us and the overwhelm of sin, constantly making sure that the choices are fair. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” is a statement for everybody. Halleluah! We can thank Him that He can pull all of us out of the deepest ditches, and He pulls the most for the deepest in.
Origin of the Species
From a strictly “Jewish” (aka “correct and true” view of life) what exactly is “sin?”
From a “Biblical” point of view (very Jewish, btw), what is “sin?” Has the Bible defined sin for us?
Sin has been “clumped” with Biblical words such as “iniquity” and “transgression,” etc.
But today, let’s focus on “original sin.”
In the beginning.. [right here on this green planet, btw] – Two happy campers enjoyed life in Paradise. But one day, they both had an encounter with someone. Someone who has been given several names — and all of them serve as a warning to the descendants of Adam. Lucifer, Liar, Tempter, Accuser of the brethren, devil, hasatan — a fallen angel and [now, thanks to Calvary!] – a defeated foe. Still wandering about as a “roaring lion,” but now because of the sinless Sacrifice of the Son is not only “truthless,” but “toothless” as well!
As love is a choice, sin is a choice as well. No one “forced” Adam (and Eve) to disobey God, – they both (on that fateful day) were also given “a way to escape,” but “lust” did conceive and sin (disobedience to the clear command of Elohim, “Don’t eat the fruit of this tree,” brought forth “death.” What is “Death?”
Separation and division. Sin separates. Between God and man – and between man and man, – or in this case, “man and wife!” Not only the “first couple,” but now the first “fractured family.” The first of many btw.
Sin, in it’s very simplest form, is “disobedience.” But there is only One man in ALL of human history, whether they be circumcised or not, who has kept every command of YHWH, “perfectly.” ONLY ONE.
Jesus Christ – *THE* [Only] Righteous [One].
Such a poignant passage, — let’s pull over and park here, awhile.
Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus Messiah) is Our Advocate
~ My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. [May not? – We have a say in this? – A choice?]
~ And if anyone sins,[better yet, since “ALL” have sinned!] we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ THE Righteous;
and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world..
(1 John 2.1-2)
It is written (clearly) “ALL” have sinned. (Romans 3.23). Starting with the very first man, then his son, then his son, then his son – and on down the line —the wickedness of man has been (has been? -or is?) “very great”.
Enter the Second Adam
In very Jewish thought, “BEHOLD THE PASSOVER LAMB.” Oh? “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” Remember?
Remember this? ~ He came unto His own.. – but born in a barn in Bethlehem! – Not quite the palace where we would expect for the “King of all kings” to be born. Messiah in a manger! Yes, totally “unexpected!” – and with the exception of a very few, “unheralded.” Ahh, but that angelic announcement still echoes throughout the darkness, “A Light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel,..”
~Today. in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is the Messiah, the LORD ~ (Luke 2.11)
And if there is one thing a sinner needs — it is a Savior!!
Friend, standing some distance away, was [a sinner] even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, continually saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’
And the reply of our Redeemer? I tell you, — this man returned to his house justified! Justified! Hallelujah! — Just as if I’d never sinned!
~ Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight! ~ (Psalm 32.1)
~ And their sins and their iniquities — “I will remember, no more!” ~ (Hebrews 10.17)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFSNQyTnPmM