R.C. Sproul

Now, here's where I have to play with your heads a little bit and say, yes and no.

Sin is not essential to humanity as such unless we believe that God made man

sinful at the beginning.

If sin is absolutely essential to our humanity, then that would mean Jesus was what?

Either sinful, or if He was sinless, He would not be human.

He would not be a man because to err is human, and if Jesus didn't err, He wouldn't be human.

So we don't mean that sin is essential in the sense that it is an absolute precondition, a prerequisite for humanity.

Adam had no sin when he was created.

He was still human.

Jesus had no sin during his life.

He was still human.

You will have no sin if and when you get to heaven.

and you will still be human.

So sin is not essential in the sense of necessary for a person's being human.

But neither do we want to say that sin is merely something tangential, accidental, or on the surface.

of our humanity.

Rather, the portrait that we get in the Scriptures of man in his fallen condition is that sin penetrates massively to the whole of the fallen person.

In other words, sin is not a simple external blemish, but it is something that goes to the very core of our being.

Now the tendency in philosophy and the tendency in our daily lives is to minimize as much as possible this human condition of sinfulness.

I remember when I was in seminary and I had to learn about various theories of sin.