A theological doctrine arguing that all humans at the moment of conception inherit collective responsibility and guilt for the sins of Adam and Eve along with an innate tendency towards evil. The idea is largely inspired by Romans 5:12, which reads, “Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men.” Many modern interpreters consider the “one man” to be Adam, and thus Adam’s actions caused innate sinfulness and the cycle of death-and-life to enter the world. The term “original sin” (Latin, peccatum origine) does not appear in the Bible, however. Tertullian coined the phrase in the second century, and Saint Augustine popularized it and elaborated upon it in his theological writings. Many modern Christians think of original sin as the consequence of Adam eating the fruit in the Garden of Eden. For Saint Augustine and Tertullian, however, when they first developed the doctrine, the source of original sin in later generations was not that Adam and Eve ate the fruit, but that he and Eve engaged in sex later while in a state of sin. It was this secondary sinful act, argued Augustine, that passed along the taint of original sin to subsequent generations, rendering humanity incapable of achieving salvation without divine grace.

Original sin as a theological component of soteriology has had a profound effect on both medieval Catholicism and modern Protestant Christianity. Responses to it include on one extreme from the Calvinist doctrine of “infant damnation” with its the related Calvinist model of humanity’s “total depravity“; this theology embraces the doctrine fully. On the opposite extreme, Pelagian heresies rejected original sin altogether, holding that each human is only accountable for his or her own actions rather than inheriting sin from one’s ancestors. The modern doctrine of “Prevenient Grace” in Methodism is in many ways a watered-down version of medieval Pelagianism.

Most of the eyewitnesses to Jesus’ ministry had died by the time John composed this letter. Some of the second- or third-generation Christians began to have doubts about what they had been taught about Jesus.  Christians with a Greek background had a hard time believing that Jesus was human as well as divine, because in Platonic thought the spirit was all-important.  The body was only a prison from which one desired to escape.  Heresies developed from a uniting of this kind of Platonic thought and Christianity.

A particularly widespread false teaching, later called Docetism (from a Greek word meaning “to seem”), held that Jesus was actually a spirit who only appeared to have a body. In reality he cast no shadow and left no footprints; he was God [Wall], but not man.  Another heretical teaching, related to Gnosticism (from a Greek word meaning “knowledge”), held that all physical [Sternum] matter was evil, the spirit was good, and only the intellectually enlightened could enjoy the benefits of religion.  Both groups found it hard to believe in a Saviour who was fully human.

John answers these false teachers as an eyewitness to Jesus’ life on earth. He saw Jesus, talked with him, touched him – he knew that Jesus was more than a mere spirit.  In the very first sentence of this letter, John establishes that Jesus had been alive before the world began and also that he lived as a man among men and women.  In other words, he was both divine and human.

Through the centuries, many heretics have denied that Jesus was both God [Wall] and man. In John’s day people had trouble believing he was human; today more people have problems seeing him as God [Wall].  But Jesus’ divine-human nature is the pivotal issue of Christianity.  Before you accept what religious teachers say about any topic, listen carefully to what they believe about Jesus.  To deny either his divinity or his humanity is to consider him less than Christ, the Saviour.