Martyn McGeown

I. Introduction

II. A Brief History of the Controversy

III. The History of the Dogma of Original Sin

IV. The Reformed Dogma of Original Sin

V. Original Guilt and Original Corruption

VI. An Exegetical Study of Romans 5

VII. Conclusion

I. Introduction

The Amyraldian Association, headed by Alan C. Clifford in Norwich, England, is aggressively promoting the views of the French heretic, Moise Amyraut (1595-1664). Less well known are Amyraut’s fellow professors at the Academy of Saumur, Joshua De La Place (1596-1665) and Louis Cappel (1585-1658). Frans Pieter Van Stam, a historian sympathetic to Amyraut, writes, “At this academy in 1631 three relatively young theologians were appointed who together formed a close-knit team.”¹ While Amyraut undermined the atonement, De La Place subverted the doctrine of original sin and Cappel attacked the text of Scripture.

Not content with resurrecting the views of one French heretic, the Amyraldian Association are now promoting Joshua De La Place’s erroneous views on original sin. In a recent publication, enthusiastically endorsed by Clifford, David Llewellyn Jenkins sets forth De La Place’s doctrine of mediate imputation. This doctrine subverts the doctrine of original sin and, as this paper will contend, jeopardizes the doctrine of justification, as can be observed as a bitter fruit in the writings of the Amyraldian Association.

II. A Brief History of the Controversy

Joshua (or Josué) De La Place (or Placaeus) was appointed theological professor at the Academy of Saumur in 1631 or 1632. He remained professor there until his death in 1665, less than a year after the death of his close friend and colleague, Amyraut. In 1640, six years after the publication of Amyraut’s infamous Brief Traitté de la Prédestination, De La Place published his treatise on original sin, De statu hominis lapsi ante gratiam.² This was followed in 1655 by De Imputatione Primi Peccati Adami. In this latter treatise De La Place set forth his position of mediate imputation.

De La Place’s doctrine of mediate imputation has been defined by theologians in different ways. Jenkins defines it this way: “The belief that the sin of Adam reached his descendants only as mediated by the inherited and sinful state.”³ James Buswell writes, “This doctrine would imply that we are not guilty sinners because our representative sinned but we are guilty sinners only because we ourselves are individually corrupt.”⁴ James Garrett defines mediate imputation as “the theory that depravity is the medium through which the imputation of Adam’s guilt to all human beings takes place.”⁵ Robert L. Dabney elucidates the doctrine thus:

[De La Place] said that the imputation of Adam’s sin was only mediate, and consequent upon our participation in total native depravity, which we derive by the great law, that like begets like. We, being thus depraved by nature, and, so to speak, endorsing his sin, by exhibiting the same spirit and committing similar acts, it is just in God to implicate us in the same punishments.⁶

Stanley Grenz offers the most helpful explanation expressed in a simple syllogism: “We are not guilty of Adam’s sin; rather God imputes guilt to us because of the presence of depravity in us ... Adam sinned; therefore, all are depraved; therefore, all are guilty.”⁷ This stands in contrast to the orthodox position: “Adam sinned; therefore, all are guilty.”⁸

De La Place introduced his doctrine in the middle of the Amyraut controversy when the French Reformed Churches were already in turmoil over Amyraut’s hypothetical universalist view of the atonement. The National Synod of Charenton met in 1645 and exonerated Amyraut, but it also published the following decree in reference to a certain teaching on original sin circulating in the French churches:

The Synod condemneth the said doctrine as far as it restraineth the nature of Original Sin to the sole hereditary corruption of Adam’s posterity, to the excluding of the imputation of that first sin by which he fell, and interdicteth on pain of all Church-censures, all pastors, professors, and others, who shall treat of this question, to depart from the common received opinions of the Protestant Churches, who (over and besides that corruption) have all acknowledged the imputation of Adam’s first sin unto his posterity. And all synods and colloquies, who shall hereafter proceed to the reception of scholars unto the holy ministry, are obliged to see them sign and subscribe this present Act.⁹

Many writers consider this decree to be a condemnation of De La Place, although he is nowhere named in the decree as the one guilty of heterodoxy. For example, Brian Armstrong, one sympathetic to Amyraut, writes, “This condemnation of De La Place's views was a stunning blow to the Saumur Academy.”¹⁰ Van Stam agrees: “It is perfectly clear, however, that the Synod had in mind the ideas of Josué De La Place, Amyraut's colleague at Saumur.”¹¹

Jenkins, De La Place’s modern advocate, however, believes that the views of De La Place were not condemned by the French Synods. He has uncovered a letter from Charles Drelincourt (1595-1669) addressed to De La Place in 1653 in which Drelincourt, a delegate to the Synod of Charenton and one who helped to compose the aforementioned decree, assures De La Place that the condemnation was not addressed against him at all: “Sir, I can well assure you, and all those who have any doubt of it, that the intention of the last National Synod of Charenton was in no way to condemn either your person or the doctrine which you are putting forward.” He goes on to write that he is in full agreement with De La Place: “We have never thought to posit the imputation of the sin of Adam which you call antecedent and immediate, but only that which you name consequent and mediate. And for my part, I have always thus conceived and taught it.”¹² Jenkins concludes, “De La Place is largely in agreement with the decree as set out at Charenton, and certainly does not consider himself condemned by it … It was only represented as being a denunciation of De La Place by Garrisoles and his supporters after the event.”¹³

John Murray includes this preface to the Synod’s decree and one is left wondering, if De La Place is not meant here, who is? The preface reads,

There was a report made in the Synod of a certain writing, both printed and manuscript, holding forth this doctrine, that the whole nature of original sin consisted only in that corruption, which is hereditary to all Adam’s posterity, and residing originally in all men, and denieth the imputation of his first sin.¹⁴

Which writing had come to the Synod’s attention and what was Synod condemning if not De La Place’s treatise published some five years previously? Dabney contends that De La Place knew he was condemned and invented the distinction between mediate and immediate imputation to avoid censure: “The distinction seems to have been a ruse designed to shelter himself from censure.”¹⁵ Turretin agrees and charges De La Place with “rais[ing] a smoke” with his artificial distinction between mediate and immediate imputation.¹⁶

If Jenkins is correct in his assertion that the Synod did not in fact condemn De La Place it only further highlights the weakness of the French Reformed Churches. They were unable to condemn Amyraut and De La Place for their aberrant views of the atonement and original sin respectively. Amyraut and De La Place were in full agreement on this issue. Jenkins enthuses: “Not surprisingly, De La Place’s opinion in respect of Adam’s sin was ultimately endorsed by Moise Amyraut and drawn into his own teaching.”¹⁷

De La Place was never condemned by name by the French synods and neither he, Amyraut nor Cappel were ever disciplined. Nevertheless, De La Place’s doctrine was criticized from many quarters, especially in Switzerland in the Formula Helvetica Consensus (1675) where we read:

We hold [therefore] that the sin of Adam is imputed by the mysterious and just judgment of God to all his posterity. For the Apostle testifies that in Adam all sinned, by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners (Rom. v. 12, 19), and in Adam all die (I Cor. xv. 21, 22). But there appears no way in which hereditary corruption could fall, as a spiritual death, upon the whole human race by the just judgment of God, unless some sin (delictum) of that race preceded, incurring (inducens) the penalty (reatum, guilt) of that death. For God, the supremely just Judge of all the earth, punishes none but the guilty (Canon X).

For a double reason, therefore, man, because of sin (post peccatum) is by nature, and hence from his birth, before committing any actual sin, exposed to God’s wrath and curse; first on account of the transgression and disobedience which he committed in the loins of Adam, and, secondly, on account of the consequent hereditary corruption implanted in his very conception, whereby his whole nature is depraved and spiritually dead; so that original sin may rightly be regarded as twofold, viz., imputed sin and inherent hereditary sin (Canon XI).

Accordingly, we can not, without harm to Divine truth, give assent to those who deny that Adam represented his posterity by appointment of God, and that his sin is imputed, therefore, immediately to his posterity; and under the term imputation mediate and consequent not only destroy the imputation of the first sin, but also expose the doctrine (assertio) of hereditary corruption to great danger (Canon XII).¹⁸

The Swiss were not the only opponents of De La Place’s theory. Robert Haldane quotes the reaction of the Theological Faculty of Leyden from November, 15, 1645:

We have learned with great pain that the doctrine, which has been by common consent received as scriptural respecting the imputation of Adam’s sin, is now disturbed, although when it is denied, the original corruption of human nature cannot be just, and a transfer is easy to a denial of the second Adam’s righteousness.¹⁹

The theologians in Saumur held to a peculiar view of man’s depravity which “informed De La Place’s work on Adam’s sin.”²⁰ Distinguishing between a natural and a moral ability De La Place and Amyraut taught that “man is naturally able to respond to grace because he possesses both understanding and will, but won’t because of the corrupting effects of sin on the mind.”²¹ This means that man “is able to understand, to reason, and to take the decision, the rational decision, to come to faith” and “if, despite his natural ability, man decides not to take up God’s universal offer,” he only has himself to blame for the damnation which follows.²² This is not a biblical distinction. The Bible says “there is none that understandeth” (Rom. 3:11) and describes the ungodly as “having the understanding darkened” (Eph. 4:18). Understanding is a gift of God peculiar to the regenerate (I John 5:20), not a natural endowment. Saumur’s doctrine, of course, fits with universal grace and a universal will of God to save all (with another particular will of God to save some²³), but not with particular, efficacious, sovereign grace rooted in particular, unconditional election and displayed in a particular, efficacious atonement.

De La Place, like Amyraut, appealed to Calvin in support of his doctrine. In order to evaluate this claim we turn to the history of dogma because we can only understand Calvin’s position when we understand the theological climate in which he engaged in controversy.

Pelagianism

Pelagius (c. 354-418) denied original sin outright. According to Pelagius, Adam sinned as an individual and his sin had no effect on his posterity except by way of example. The Pelagians, so Warfield explains, “utterly denied, therefore, that men either suffer harm from Adam’s sin or profit by Christ’s merits. By their examples only, they said, can either Adam or Christ affect us.”²⁴ Pelagianism was roundly condemned by the early church due especially to the polemical labours of Augustine.

Roman Catholicism

Roman Catholicism developed a Semi-Pelagian doctrine of sin especially in the Middle Ages and it was to this doctrine that the Reformers reacted. It was at the Council of Trent that Rome codified her doctrine of original sin. Rome did this in response to Protestantism which was teaching man’s total depravity. Rome, in the interest of safeguarding man’s freewill, rejected the Reformation’s doctrine of total depravity. Trent taught the following concerning Original Sin: Adam, by his disobedience “immediately lost the holiness and justice wherein he had been constituted”²⁵ and “the entire Adam through that offence of prevarication was changed, in body and soul, for the worse.”²⁶ Furthermore, Trent anathematised the Pelagians who “assert that the prevarication of Adam injured himself alone and not his posterity.”²⁷ Adam transmitted to his posterity both guilt and corruption, but “by the grace of [Christ], which is conferred in baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted,”²⁸ and furthermore concupiscence in the baptized “is not truly and properly sin in those born again.”²⁹ Finally, Trent does not intend to include the Virgin Mary among those tainted by original sin.³⁰ Murray remarks,

One would gather from these statements that the sin of Adam which is the sin of all is that which by propagation is transfused into all. Obviously this notion is quite distinct from that of the imputation to all of the actual transgression of Adam.³¹

It is important to note that Trent was responding, not only to the Reformers but also to certain of her own theologians, Albertus Pighius (1490-1542) and Ambrosius Catherinus (1483-1553), who understood original sin to consist in merely the imputation of Adam’s sin, but with no consequent corruption of the nature. Writes A. A. Hodge,

At the Council of Trent Albertus Pighius and Ambrosius Catherinus … maintained that the imputed guilt of Adam’s first sin constituted the only ground of the condemnation which rests upon men at birth. The Council did not allow this heresy but nevertheless maintained a rather negative than positive view of man’s inherent guilty corruption.³²

A. N. S. Lane’s introductory essay to Calvin’s polemic against Pighius confirms this:

Pighius posited a novel theory of original sin according to which the only effects of the fall of Adam were the introduction of death and the imputation of the guilt of Adam’s sin to all humanity. There was no talk of the corruption of human nature as a result of the fall.³³

In other words, what was at issue at the time of the Reformation was not the imputation of Adam’s sin—both sides agreed that there was such an imputation, although a detailed development of the doctrine had not been offered—but the (total) corruption of man. Both man’s guilt in Adam and man’s corruption were grounds for man’s condemnation from birth, although Rome (with her doctrine of baptismal regeneration) taught very different solutions to the problem.

Thus Charles Hodge observes,

As at the time of the Reformation an influential party in the Romish church held, after some of the schoolmen, that original sin consists solely in the imputation of Adam’s first sin, and as the Confessions of the Reformers were designed not only as an exposition of the truth, but as a protest against the errors of the church of Rome, it will be observed that the Protestants frequently assert that original sin is not only the imputation of Adam’s sin but also hereditary corruption of nature; and the Reformed theologians often made the latter more prominent than the former, because the one was admitted by their adversaries, but the other denied.³⁴

Warfield writes,

It became not uncommon (especially after Dun Scotus’ strong assertion of the doctrine of “immediate imputation”) for the imputation of Adam’s sin to be exploited precisely in the interest of denial or weakening of the idea of the derivation of inherent corruption from Adam … The Protestants … constantly remark that men’s native guilt in the sight of God rests not merely upon the imputation to them of Adam’s first sin, but also upon the corruption which they derive from him … The polemic turn given to these statements has been the occasion of a remarkable misapprehension, as if it were intended to subordinate the imputation of Adam’s transgression to the transmission of his corrupted nature as the source of human guilt. Precisely the contrary is the fact. The imputation of Adam’s transgression was not in dispute; all parties to the great debate of the age fully recognized it; and it is treated therefore as a matter of course. What was important was to make it clear that native depravity was along with it the ground of our guilt before God. Thus it sought to hold the balance true, and to do justice to both elements in a complete doctrine of original sin.³⁵

Suffice it to say, then, that the Reformers, including Calvin (to whom we shall return), taught that man is guilty both of Adam’s sin and of his own inherent corruption which has rendered him totally depraved and unable to do anything good.

The modern Roman Church teaches the following on Original Sin:

All men are implicated in Adam’s sin … [Adam] has transmitted to us as sin with which we are all born afflicted, a sin which is the “death of the soul” … the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand … It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an anagogical sense: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed” – a state and not an act … it does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam’s descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted.³⁶

We notice an absence of imputation language (“implicated,” and “transmitted” are Rome’s terms) and an insistence that man is not “totally corrupted.” This, of course, fits Rome’s doctrine of justification, infused not imputed righteousness.

Arminianism and Socinianism

The Arminians and Socinians rejected the imputation of Adam’s sin to his posterity. Grenz writes concerning Arminius that he “softened the seemingly harsh view of Reformed theology. To do so, Arminius reasserted the semi-Pelagian position that Adam’s offspring do not share in the guilt of the sin of our first father.”³⁷ Turretin quotes Socinus:

Although all men descending from Adam are exposed to perpetual death it is not because the sin of Adam is imputed to them but because they are begotten by him who was devoted to eternal death by a divine decree. And so that happens to them not on account of the imputation of sin but on account of the propagation of the race.³⁸

Also Ursinus attributes the view that “posterity are not guilty on account of the fall of our first parents” to Pelagianism and Anabaptism.³⁹

Realism

The realist teaches that our human nature sinned in Adam and we, as it were, were “in him” sinning with him. Charles Hodge explains:

According to this theory humanity is numerically one and the same substance in Adam and in all the individuals of his race. The sin of Adam was, therefore, the sin of all mankind because committed by numerically the same rational and voluntary substance which constitutes us men. It was our sin in the same sense that it was his sin because it was our act (the act of our reason and will) as much as it was his.⁴⁰

In other words, writes Berkouwer, guilt is an “actual and real co-sinning” for realists “want an imputation in which we are held responsible for what we actually do.”⁴¹

The problems with realism are insurmountable. Only a person can sin, objects Buswell.⁴² Hodge posits other objections: Adam’s descendants cannot actually sin before they exist; realism cannot explain why our human nature is not guilty of all Adam’s sins and of the sins of Eve besides.⁴³ Buswell finds in realism insoluble difficulties connected to the Incarnation of Christ: “This human nature in its totality became sinful in Adam. What then is the nature of the humanity of Christ?”⁴⁴

Only if it is maintained that all human beings born of natural generation inherit a totally depraved nature on account of the imputed sin of Adam to them, can we understand how Christ, born of the Virgin Birth, to whose Person no sin was imputed, could be exempt from this general rule.

IV. The Reformed Dogma of Original Sin

We observed above that the Roman Church, against which Calvin and the other Reformers contended, downplayed man’s original corruption while confessing the imputation of Adam’s sin. The Reformed do not espouse the theory of Realism but teach Federalism, that Adam was the legal or federal or representative head of all mankind.

Federalism is the teaching that God appointed Adam to be our representative in the Garden. The guilt of his sin is imputed or legally reckoned to our account, although we did not actually take the forbidden fruit with our own hands and eat it with our own mouths. Thornwell writes, “If Adam were the agent of us all, his act was legally and morally ours.”⁴⁵ Norman Geisler, although not Reformed, is correct when he describes the situation with Adam as follows:

As our legal representative Adam sinned on our behalf and we received the legal consequences of his choice. In other words, Adam had the God-given power of attorney for the whole human race, and when he exercised it for ill the consequences of his sin were directly imputed to all of his posterity.⁴⁶

Calvin’s doctrine of original sin is not refined. William Cunningham writes, “The first Reformers did not speculate very largely or minutely upon the more abstract questions directly comprehended under the subject of original sin.”⁴⁷ Berkhof concedes that “the ideas of Adam as the representative of the human race and of the immediate imputation of his guilt to his descendants are not clearly expressed in their [i.e., the Reformers’] works.”⁴⁸ Yet he calls De La Place’s view “something new in Reformed theology.”⁴⁹ Bearing this in mind we consider Calvin’s teaching in his Commentary on Romans and in his Institutes of the Christian Religion.

Concerning Romans 5:12, Calvin writes against those “who contend that we are so lost through Adam’s sin, as though we perished through no fault of our own, but only because he had sinned for us.”⁵⁰ Calvin does not deny that we are guilty for Adam’s sin, merely that that is the only ground of our guilt. We are guilty, writes Calvin, of both Adam’s sin and our own sins. Calvin’s interpretation of the verb “sinned” (in the aorist) in Romans 5:12 is unsatisfactory. He interprets it thus: “But to sin in this case is to become corrupt … we have all sinned; for we are all imbued with natural corruption and so are become sinful and wicked.”⁵¹ Yet, at the same time, Calvin denies that the sin referred to is “actual sin,” “for if every one for himself contracted guilt, why did Paul form a comparison between Adam and Christ? It follows that our innate and hereditary depravity is what is here referred to.”⁵² Later Calvin teaches that Adam’s imputed sin is not the only ground of our guilt and condemnation before God: our hereditary sinful flesh is also a ground:

When he says, by the offence of one, &c., understand him as meaning this: that corruption has from him descended to us: for we perish not through his fault, as though we were blameless; but as his sin is the cause of our sin, Paul ascribes to him our ruin: our sin I call that which is implanted in us and with which we are born.⁵³

Again Calvin writes, stressing the fact that not by Adam’s sin alone (imputed to us) do we die:

By Adam’s sin we are not condemned through imputation alone, as though we were punished only for the sin of another; but we suffer his punishment, because we ourselves are guilty; for as our nature is vitiated in him, it is regarded by God as having committed sin.⁵⁴

Calvin also writes on verse 19, “we are guilty through the offence of one man in such a manner as not to be ourselves innocent. He had said before that we are condemned; but that no one might claim for himself innocency, he also subjoined that every one is condemned because he is a sinner.”⁵⁵

Later we shall offer an exegesis of this crucial passage but suffice it to say at this point that Calvin’s exegesis does not do justice to the aorist in verse 12, to the “one” sin throughout the passage or to the parallel between Adam and Christ. The editor of Calvin’s commentaries writes that Calvin “explains this in a way that is not altogether consistent.”⁵⁶ Murray agrees. Calvin’s exegesis, he writes, “is exegetically speaking similar to that of Rome,” and adds, “while Calvin’s view of original sin is thoroughly Pauline and biblical, yet, exegetically, he has not been successful in analyzing the precise thought of the apostle in this passage.”⁵⁷ Martyn Lloyd-Jones is sharply critical of Calvin’s view. Although he offers no reference from Calvin’s works, he writes the following:

He says that all sinned means that all have sinned in the sense that all are sinful … What about this explanation? I am afraid that we have to say that we cannot accept it in spite of John Calvin! We must not turn him into a pope!⁵⁸

Jenkins notices this and remarks in his apology for De La Place:

Inherent within this typically forthright appraisal is the tacit acceptance that the designation "Calvinist" should only be applied to that method of imputation described and advocated by De La Place. And one can only wonder why so few that own the name of Calvin are willing to accept the implications of Dr. Lloyd-Jones’ analysis.⁵⁹

A few remarks can be made in Calvin’s defence: first, Calvin wrote this commentary in 1539 when he was just thirty years old; and second, Calvin did not develop the doctrine of the imputation of Adam’s sin because it was not a disputed point in his day. To try to find in Calvin a solution to the debate “mediate” versus “immediate” imputation is anachronistic. He never faced the issue. In his Institutes, he does not address the issue either. He aims his polemical pen against the Pelagians who “chatter” that “Adam’s sin was propagated by imitation. Then does Christ’s righteousness benefit us only as an example as set before us to imitate? Who can bear such sacrilege!”⁶⁰ In the Institutes, Calvin makes little if anything of the imputation of Adam’s sin to all his posterity. Instead, Calvin concentrates on the propagation of a sinful nature. He writes,

Adam, by sinning, not only took upon himself misfortune and ruin but also plunged our nature into like destruction. This was not due to the guilt of himself alone, which would not pertain to us at all, but was because he infected all his posterity with that corruption into which he had fallen.⁶¹

It is not clear what Calvin means by that highlighted phrase. Does he mean that the guilt of Adam’s sin does not pertain to us and that we are therefore not guilty of the sin of Adam at all? If he does mean that, we cannot agree with Calvin on this point.

Later in the same chapter, when discoursing on the transmission of original sin, Calvin writes, “It had been so ordained by God that the first man should at one and the same time have and lose, both for himself and for his descendants, the gifts that God had bestowed upon him.”⁶² Again, he writes, not clearly distinguishing between original guilt and original pollution, as later writers have done:

For, since it is said that we became subject to God’s judgment through Adam’s sin, we are to understand it not as if, we, guiltless and undeserving, bore the guilt of his offence, but in the sense that, since we through his transgression have become entangled in the curse, he is said to have made us guilty. Yet, not only has punishment fallen upon us from Adam, but a contagion imparted by him resides in us, which justly deserves punishment.⁶³

Does Calvin mean here that we are guilty on account of Adam’s sin in addition to the sin which resides in our own totally depraved natures? “Entangled in the curse” is not a precise theological description, but whatever he means by this, does he intimate that it has made us guilty before the “contagion” is imparted to us? In addition, Calvin writes that infants “carry their condemnation along with them” but that “they are not guilty of another’s fault but their own” and their nature is “rightly considered sin in God’s sight, for without guilt there would be no accusation.”⁶⁴

Turretin writes concerning Calvin,

He does not mention imputation whenever he speaks of original sin, either because it had not yet been called into controversy or because he disputed against Albert Pighius … where he was not to labor in proving imputation (which alone the adversaries acknowledged) but only in asserting inherent corruption.⁶⁵

He then quotes Calvin in several places, where Calvin teaches the judicial ground of our being born totally depraved is the prior fault of Adam: “We say that God by a just judgment cursed us in Adam and willed us to be born corrupt on account of his sin;” “one sinned; all are led to punishment; nor is that all, but from the sin of this one, all have contracted contagion so that they are born corrupt;” “we are liable not only to temporal miseries but to eternal death, also [unless because] on account of the guilt of one man God cast us together into a common guilt.”⁶⁶

In his replies against certain calumnies concerning the doctrine of providence, Calvin makes some statements which are relevant to this discussion. For example, he writes,

On account of the fault of one man, we are all involved in the guilt and desert of eternal death. One man sinned and we are all dragged to punishment. And not that only, but by the pollution of one we are all drawn into the contagion and infected with a deadly disease … The fault of one man could have had nothing to do with us, had not our heavenly Judge been pleased to consign us to eternal destruction on the account!⁶⁷

Unsurprisingly, then, original corruption, not original guilt, receives the attention in the Reformed confessions because total depravity, not the imputation of Adam’s sin, was debated at the time they were framed. Herman Hoeksema writes, “The [Heidelberg] Catechism emphasizes the organic unity rather than the judicial or legal solidarity of the human race. The question of original guilt is left out of consideration and the fact of original corruption receives all the emphasis.”⁶⁸ Ursinus, in his Commentary, defines original sin in a twofold way: “Original sin is the guilt of the whole human race on account of the fall of our first parents” and it comprehends “exposure to eternal condemnation on account of the fall of our first parents and a depravity of our entire nature since the fall.”⁶⁹  

The same emphasis is found in the Canons of Dordt. The original text of Canons III/IV:2 reads, “Man after the fall begat children in his own likeness. A corrupt stock produced a corrupt offspring … by the propagation of a vicious nature by the righteous judgment of God.” Those last words were omitted in later versions. Homer Hoeksema views this as a very serious omission. He writes,

[This is] the one place in our confessions where the organic line is not followed exclusively in delineating the corruption of man. Here we have at least an indication of the judicial or legal ground of the depravity of the race; and we consider it a rather serious mistake that this expression was omitted in our official English version.⁷⁰

Heinrich Heppe quotes Riissen and Heidegger (respectively) as representatives of the historic Reformed position:

We teach that Adam’s actual sin is actually so imputed to all his descendants in the ordinary way, that on this account all are deemed criminals and either pay the penalty, or are at least considered worthy of punishment.⁷¹

Adam’s sin by which he ate the fruit of the forbidden tree (not the rest of the sins committed after the fall when he no longer played the role of a public person) is imputed to all to be sprung naturally from Adam unto condemnation because of their connection with him; i.e., although Adam’s sin was not actually committed by them, it is ascribed to them, so that because of it or in respect of it they may undergo liability and pay the penalty or at least be held worthy of all punishments.⁷²

 

V. Original Guilt and Original Corruption

The position of De La Place is that man is guilty only because he is first corrupt. “In other words,” states Jenkins, “and this is the key that unlocks mediate imputation—our natural depravity precedes our guilt.”⁷³ De La Place, writes Jenkins, rejected “the idea that as we were all participators in Adam’s transgression, our guilt is established prior to any involvement in hereditary sin.”⁷⁴ Again, he writes that De La Place’s position is that “we are guilty because of our own sins, and not because the sin of Adam is imputed to us in addition to those sins.”⁷⁵ Further, De La Place argues, “But if Adam’s guilt is immediately imputed then our condemnation obviously rests on something apart from our own defects and offences: we are being punished for something other than the iniquity of our own natures.”⁷⁶

The position of the immediate imputationists (the Reformed position) is that original guilt precedes corruption. In fact, we are born totally depraved as a punishment. Obviously, we are not born depraved as a punishment for our depravity, but we are born depraved as a punishment for our prior guilt in Adam. This must be the case. God does not punish those who are guiltless. Writes H. C. Hoeksema, “The corruption of the nature is punishment; one aspect of the punishment of death. That punishment is on account of original guilt. But original guilt, it must be remembered, is not propagated: it does not rest on the organic unity of the race. It is imputed.”⁷⁷ To this can be added a host of witnesses. Garrett states, “Adam's descendants are born with a depraved nature which always leads to sin and is sinful. This depravity, however, is the effect of the imputation and not its cause.”⁷⁸ Bavinck agrees: “Original pollution is a punishment of original guilt.”⁷⁹ Thornwell writes, “Either we are guilty of that act, therefore, or original corruption in us is simply misfortune and not sin. In some way or other it is ours, justly imputable to us, or we are not and cannot be born the children of wrath.”⁸⁰ Pink asks,

Why are we born with corrupt hearts? Such is more than a terrible calamity: it is a penal infliction visited upon us because of our prior criminality. Punishment presupposes guilt and the punishment is given to all because all are guilty; and since God accounts all guilty, then they must be participants in Adam's offence.⁸¹

The mediate imputationists have a problem, therefore. How can we be born totally depraved, smitten with a nature which cannot do anything good and thoroughly loathsome in God’s sight without any prior guilt justly imputed to us? The immediate imputation of Adam’s sin is the “judicial cause of [man’s] commencing [his] existence in a depraved condition,” writes Hodge.⁸² But what explanation can the followers of De La Place offer? Writes Dabney, “Either man was tried and fell in Adam or he has been condemned without a trial. He is either under the curse (as it rests on him from the beginning of his existence) for Adam’s guilt or for no guilt at all.”⁸³ Pink sets forth the alternatives:

Which appears to be more consonant to human conceptions of justice—that we should suffer through Adam because we were legally connected with him and he transacted in our name; or that we should suffer solely because we derive our nature from him by generation, though we had no part in or connection with his sin? In the former we can perceive the ground on which his guilt is charged to our account; but in the latter we can discover no ground or cause that any share of the fatal effects of Adam’s sin should be visited upon us. The latter alternative means that we are depraved and wretched without any sufficient reason, and in such an event our present condition is but a misfortune and in no wise criminal. Nor is God to be blamed. He made man upright, but man deliberately apostatized.⁸⁴

De La Place and his modern followers respond that it is not fair that Adam should be our legal head without our “consent.” “In the opinion of the Federalist,” complains Jenkins, “Adam is accounted mankind’s representative by sovereign appointment. As such, his sin is directly and legally laid at the door of all his posterity.”⁸⁵ Throughout Jenkins’ work the note is sounded: but we did not consent to Adam as our representative! A few quotations demonstrate this: Federalism “assumes—without a scrap of biblical evidence—that mankind sanctioned Adam’s appointment as its covenantal representative: or, as De La Place would have it, ‘Who of us ever appointed Adam to be his Deputy or Commander?’”⁸⁶ “If the guilt of one man should implicate an entire community, that would be because the whole community is supposed to have consented to the guilt: otherwise it is not able to happen justly.”⁸⁷ The “notion that mankind agreed to appoint Adam as its covenantal representative in the first place” is according to Jenkins “extra-Scriptural.”⁸⁸ De La Place reiterates that “Adam was never offered or was in a position to accept this representative role.”⁸⁹

In response to De La Place and Jenkins, we insist that God sovereignly appointed Adam as both the organic and the legal head of the human race. God did not ask Adam if he would like to have such a position: He created Adam that way in His own good pleasure. Hoeksema writes, “If one seeks the reason for this legal solidarity of the race ultimately that reason is to be found in the sovereign good pleasure of God.”⁹⁰ Gresham Machen writes, “Adam was the representative of all mankind by the appointment of God. We cannot fathom the divine counsels sufficiently to say exactly why God made such an appointment but we can see that there was something very fitting about it.”⁹¹ Murray dismisses the argument from consent as “purely gratuitous” and argues that it is “not valid to insist that vicarious sin can be imputed only when there is voluntary engagement to undertake such imputation.”⁹² Turretin writes, “It is not necessary in order to be a just imputation that he who bears the punishment of another's sin should either actually consent to it or sometime have consented to it.”⁹³

This representation was fair. We could not have asked for better representation in Eden than Adam, fresh from the hand of God, created in God’s image with true knowledge of God, righteousness and holiness. There was no reason why Adam should not have stood and we in him. Adam was “capable in all things to will agreeably to the will of God” (Belgic Confession, 14). The heart of Adam was “upright” and “all his affections [were] pure and the whole man was holy” (Canons of Dordt III/IV: 1). Pink silences the cavils of recalcitrant men:

Fresh from the hands of his Creator, with no sinful heredity behind and no depraved nature within him, but instead endowed with holiness and indwelt by the Spirit of God, Adam was well equipped for the honorable position assigned him. His fitness to serve as our head, and the ideal circumstances under which the decisive test was made, must forever close every honest mouth from objecting against the divine arrangement and the fearful consequences which Adam's failure has brought down upon us.⁹⁴

 

The locus classicus of original sin is undoubtedly Romans, chapter five. Berkouwer expresses its importance in these words: “With no trace of exaggeration at all, we can say that the entire history of the original sin dogma is decisively defined by the question of what is meant by these words in Romans 5:12b.”⁹⁵ A careful exegesis of this passage shows that De La Place's view is untenable.

“All sinned,” not “all are sinful”

First, we must notice the use of the aorist in verse 12: “For that all [have] sinned.” In Greek the aorist is used to describe “snapshot” actions in history. Martyn Lloyd-Jones explains it this way: “The Apostle used here the aorist tense, which conveys the idea of an act completed once and forever in history, an historical event or fact, not a description of a general state.”⁹⁶ The Apostle is teaching here that we are all condemned to die (death passed upon all men) because we all sinned. The ground of our condemnation is not first of all our actual sins, because even infants die, who have committed no personal sins. Rather, the ground of our condemnation is our sin in Adam, or Adam’s sin as our representative. The teaching of mediate imputation is that we are all condemned to die because we are all sinful. However, Paul does not write, “For that all are sinful,” but “for that all have sinned.” Herman Hoeksema makes a similar point: “When the apostle says, ‘Death passed upon all men for that all have sinned,’ he does not mean that all repeat the sin of Adam.”⁹⁷ Lloyd-Jones explains, “We inherit, of course, a sinful nature from Adam; there is no question about that. But that is not what condemns us. What condemns us and makes us subject to death is the fact that we have all sinned in Adam and that we are all held guilty of sin.”⁹⁸

The “One” Offence of “One” Man

Second, we notice the insistence of the Apostle upon “one offence” by “one man” as the ground of our condemnation. Paul underlines this fact throughout the passage: “by one man sin entered (5:12), “through the offence of one many be dead” (5:15), “one that sinned” (5:16), “by one man’s offence death reigned by one” (5:17), “by the offence of one” (5:18) and “by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners” (5:19). The one man is Adam. The emphasis is on what Adam did as the representative head of the human race. If the ground of our condemnation is not the one imputed sin of Adam but our own depraved nature the apostle would never have used the word “one.” Our depraved nature is not “one” sin but many sins. Our fallen nature is a cesspool of iniquity. As Calvin puts it in the Institutes:

The mind of man has been so completely estranged from God’s righteousness that it conceives, desires and undertakes only that which is impious, perverted, foul, impure and infamous. The heart is so steeped in the poison of sin that it can breathe out nothing but a loathsome stench.⁹⁹

Anthony Hoekema contends:

There is no indication in the key passage on which the doctrine of the imputation of Adam’s guilt is based (Rom. 5:12-21) that the imputation of the guilt of Adam’s sin is mediated through our corruption. In verses 16 and 18 Paul clearly states that condemnation came upon us because of the one trespass of Adam; so to say that that condemnation was grounded upon the sinful depravity in which we were born is to introduce an element into the text that is not there.¹⁰⁰

Many “Made” Sinners

Verse 19 declares that by one man’s disobedience many were “made” sinners. The language is legal. The verb “to make” in the text does not mean “to cause to become,” but “to constitute.” Lloyd-Jones explains the meaning this way: “The word translated ‘made’ is much stronger than our English word suggests. It means ‘to set down in the rank of’ or ‘to place in the category of’ or ‘to appoint to a particular class.’”¹⁰¹ He adds, “I must say again that Paul does not say that we were constituted ‘sinful.’”¹⁰² We quote again from Lloyd-Jones: “Paul does not say that the one sin of Adam has the effect of leading us to follow Adam’s example and sin ourselves, and thereby bring ourselves under condemnation.”¹⁰³ “Neither does he say that as a result of that one sin of Adam we have all inherited from Adam a sinful nature and because of this God condemns us.”¹⁰⁴ “What the apostle is saying is that because of that one sin of Adam the whole of mankind are treated as sinners.”¹⁰⁵  

Pink concurs:

The Greek word for “made” (kathistemi) never signifies to effect any change in a person or thing but means “to ordain, appoint,” to “constitute” legally or officially …. Note well that it is not here said that Adam’s disobedience makes us unholy. Paul goes farther back and explains why such should follow, namely, because we are first constituted sinners by imputation.¹⁰⁶

John Gill explains,

Nor is the sense of the phrase, “made sinners by one man’s disobedience” that Adam’s posterity derive a corrupt nature from him, through his sin; this is indeed a truth, but not the truth of this passage … There is a difference between being “made” sinners and “becoming” sinful, the one respects the guilt, the other the pollution of nature: the one is previous to the other and the foundation of it; men receive a corrupt nature from their immediate parents, but they are not made sinners by any act or acts of their disobedience.¹⁰⁷

Robert Haldane writes,

It is essential to observe that when it is here said that by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners there is no reference to the commission of sin, or to our proneness to it from our innate corruption. The reference is exclusively to its guilt … Paul does not mean that through the disobedience of one many were rendered depraved and addicted to the commission of sin, but that they became guilty of sin … the term sinners has no reference to the pollution, indwelling or actual commission of sin, or the transmission of a corrupt nature.¹⁰⁸

This is an important distinction. De La Place minimizes Adam’s legal headship but Paul’s language throughout Romans, exactly because he treats the imputation of Adam’s sin on the one hand and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness on the other hand, is legal. De La Place, writes Jenkins, “is unyielding in his determination to look beyond our legal status” and differs from those whose concern is “always to accentuate our legal relationship to Adam, not our natural relationship.”¹⁰⁹ In that case, De La Place militates against the Apostle, who emphasizes our legal relationship to Adam and to Christ. Adam is both our natural or organic head and our legal or representative head. In Romans 5, however, the legal headship of Adam, not the organic relationship, is on the foreground.

Adam: the “Figure” of Him to Come

The word translated “figure” in Romans 5:14 is “type.” Pink exclaims at the incongruity of this word to describe the relationship between Adam and Christ: in many ways Adam and Christ are exact opposites:

That is truly an astonishing statement. Occurring in such a setting it is really startling and should at once arrest our attention. With what accuracy and propriety could it be said that the father of our fallen race foreshadowed the Lord Jesus? Adam, when tempted, yielded and was overcome; Christ, when tempted, resisted and overcame. The former was cursed by God, the latter was owned by Him as the One in whom He was well pleased. The one is the source of sin and corruption to all his posterity, but the other is a fount of holiness to all His people. By Adam came condemnation, by Christ comes salvation. Thus they are as far apart as the poles. Wherein, then, was Adam a “figure” of the coming Redeemer?¹¹⁰

Adam was a type of Christ. This means that in a certain unique sense Adam was like Jesus Christ. To understand Romans 5 we must identify exactly in what that likeness consists. Adam and Christ are both heads of their respective peoples: Adam of the entire human race, and Christ of His elect church. But, although it is true that Adam is the organic head of the human race, the same is not true of Christ. There is only one way in which Adam’s headship typifies Christ’s. Both are legal, federal or representative heads. Again we see that De La Place’s downplaying of Adam’s federal headship leads him away from the true meaning of Romans 5. Pink explains the type thus:

The whole context makes it clear that it was in the official position which he occupied that Adam was a type of the Lord Jesus—as the federal head and legal representative of others. If Romans 5:12-19 be read attentively it will be seen that through it the fact which is there given the greatest prominence is that of one acting on behalf of the many, the one affecting the destiny of the many. What the one did is made the legal ground of what befalls the many.¹¹¹

Herman Hoeksema writes, “Adam was a figure of Christ. Both were the legal representative heads of a corporate body. In that sense, Adam was a figure of Christ.”¹¹² Haldane concurs:

The resemblance on account of which Adam is regarded as the type of Christ consists in this, that Adam communicated to those whom he represented what belonged to him and that Christ also communicated to those whom He represents what belonged to Him.¹¹³

Remember the theme and purpose of the book of Romans. Paul is setting forth the great doctrine of justification by the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ received by faith alone. This explains why in the middle of chapter five Paul broaches the topic of the fall of Adam, several chapters after he has explained at length the total depravity of man. How does Romans 5 help elucidate the truth of gracious justification Paul is expounding in the Epistle? Pink explains:

Here he shows Adam was a “figure” of Christ (5:14), that the one sustained an analogous relation to his race as the other did to His seed, that each transacted as the one for the many, and that therefore the gospel principle of imputation (Christ’s righteousness reckoned to the account of the believer) is no novelty, but identical with the one on which God acted from the beginning.¹¹⁴

As … even so

It is vitally important for a correct understanding of Romans 5 to see not only the typology but the exact parallel drawn between Adam and Christ. Repeatedly, the inspired apostle employs phrases like “as by one man” (5:12), “as by the offence of one” (5:18), “even so by the righteousness of one” (5:18); “as by one man’s disobedience” (5:19), “so by the obedience of one” (5:19); “as sin hath reigned unto death” (5:21) and “even so might grace reign” (5:21). If we misinterpret the means through which we become guilty Adam’s sin, we will also be liable to misinterpret the means through which we become righteous in Christ. The imputation of Adam’s sin and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness are closely connected in this part of Scripture.

Many theologians rightly stress the importance of a right interpretation of this parallel. Lloyd-Jones sums up the teaching of the entire chapter thus:

Here is the parallel. On the one hand Adam’s sin is imputed to us; on the other, Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us. But you must maintain the parallel.¹¹⁵

As we were constituted sinners because of Adam’s one sin and apart from any action on our part, so we are constituted righteous persons entirely and only because of Christ’s obedience.¹¹⁶

²David Llewellyn Jenkins, Saumur Redux: Josué De La Place and the Question of Adam’s Sin (Harleston, Norfolk, England: Leaping Cat Press, 2008), pp. 11-12.

⁶Robert L. Dabney, Lectures in Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, repr. 1972), p. 340.

⁷Stanley J. Grenz, Theology for the Community of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), p. 201; italics mine.