Sin is inherited from your father, not your mother.
In my last series exploring if Eve was guilty, I assumed that sin was inherited from your father, not your mother. I was questioned why I believed this? So, I started to think more about it. Here are three reasons why I assume sin transfers from our dads to us. These are speculative, I realize. But, thinking never hurt anyone! I’d be honored if you gave it some thought.
Before I start, my disclaimer once again:
My disclaimer
- Neither gender is superior to the other. God judges character – heart motivation evidenced (to us) by persistent behavior. Assuming sin and death is inherited from males is in no way arguing the superiority of women. All have sinned. We are all God’s enemies without the mediation of His Son, and as Christians we are all co-heirs as siblings of Christ.
- The more I study this topic, the deeeeeeper it goes. This is a simple nut shell.
Jesus did not have a human father.
This point, of course, is the most convincing. God promised the serpent that the woman’s Seed (not man’s) would crush his viper head. (Genesis 3:15) Jesus was born of a virgin according to the prophecy in Isaiah 7:14. Jesus was conceived in Mary by the Holy Spirit, not a human father. (Matthew 1:18, 20) Galatians 4:4 says He was born of woman. He had no sin nature. (Hebrews 7:26, 4:15) The virgin birth circumvented the transmission of sin to Jesus by an earthly father.
- Side note about other suggestions: The Catholics solve the transmission of sin problem in a different way… by declaring Mary herself sinless. Others reject the transmission of sin entirely. They believe all children are born innocent. Jesus alone kept his pure state.
Circumcision is required for men, not women, to enter the Assembly of Israel.
Jewish fathers were required to cut the foreskin of their sons as a sign of the covenant Abraham made with God. If they didn’t, the sons were not allowed access to the benefits of the covenant and could not worship. He was cut off from his people and had broken God’s covenant. (Genesis 17:14) Adult male converts had to circumcise as well. Women and girl babies never received this physical restriction. (That’s why there were so many more female converts to Judaism!! Ya-ouch!) Females could access worship and the covenant as they were.
Colossians 2:11-14 tells us that circumcision is a picture of cutting off sinful flesh. Being uncircumcised is a picture of being dead in your sins. Uncircumcised men were not allowed to worship as a Jew. Why was this picture required in male flesh alone? Over the last few thousand years there have been a variety of answers from proposing the female counterpart of menstruation to reducing the male sex drive to chauvinism.
Some traditionalists argued that the circumcision of men indicate their social and religious primacy within the Jewish polity, and that the absence of circumcision from women betokens their second tier status…The egalitarian influence is modern. (Shayne J.D.Cohen, Why Aren’t Jewish Women Circumcised? pages 214-215.)
One reason could be that sin was inherited through the male seed, and circumcision acts as a symbol of cutting off the sinful flesh. Again, I’m not saying females are sinless. After all it takes a man to make a woman. But, Jewish women did not have this physical sign of sin to cut off since they didn’t pass the sin along. Both men and women need to have a spiritual circumcision of the heart to enter God’s family by grace through faith. Both Jews and Christians actually agree today that faith is necessary, not circumcision.
Death passed from Adam to Moses.
Romans 5:12-19 says one man brought death to the world because he broke God’s command. Verse 14 says death then passed from Adam to Moses. The context of Romans 5 is contrasting sinful man to the Righteous Man. I realize there could be a few explanations why men are mentioned here and not women. Adam and Moses could be the representative heads for their time. They both had direct dealing with God regarding the context of this chapter. And it could also be that inherited sin passed along through the man’s seed.
Wierdness
I admit, it is a little weird thinking in terms of sin transmitting through semen? Throw in Mitochondrial Eve and things get even more speculative! It was an interesting study, but can’t be proven as definitively “biblical.” Take away what you will if it helps your faith. Leave if it doesn’t.
Question: Could the embryo of Jesus have been placed in Mary without the use of her egg? Thereby making Mary only the womb and not the seed?
Anything is possible! You should hear my theories on why alien abductees complain their reproductive organs were experimented on. The truth is out there! But these things are just theories. Genesis 3:15 does say it would be the woman’s seed or offspring that defeats the serpent, so it isn’t necessary to do away with Mary’s part.
Another question: Could it be that males were the keepers of the covenant (beginning with Abraham, who the covenant began with), and thus had the added requirement of circumcision as a sign of the covenant – not as punishment or cleansing of sin?
yes, it could be. I don’t think there is explicit teaching either way.
Kay, Since I can agree with most of this I’ll comment.
Here is where I agree. The covenant of works was made with Adam and not Eve. Though Adam and Eve both sinned and both men and women throughout generations received specific punishment for sin (sweat of brow and child bearing) Adam was said to break the covenant not Eve. Circumcision represented not a covenant of works, but of grace (See Abraham and the pot between the blood animals). Circumcision has many interpretations including the fact that circumcision was not invented by God, but was something certain tribes already did in that day. It was a culture act God redeemed for his purposes.
But even if circumcision represented the “cutting” of the penis based on the curse of man I don’t see how this supports your perspective. It says the opposite. The idea of covenant of grace is not based on who sinned or who didn’t. If it were based on works then God would have dropped man as headship and failure and transfered the covenant over to women through Eve. Instead, God reinstitute the new covenant of grace through blood to the man.
So I see it like this. The covenant of works was with the man as head and representative. He failed to do the works necessary and fell. Why was he blamed? Because Eve wasn’t the representative of the covenant, nor responsible for she or her family keeping it. Since the covenant was broken by the male head, the covenant of grace through blood was given to men as heads beginning with Abraham. Circumcision was the reminder of their failure and need for blood. If the woman was as pure as you say then God could simply have no covenant and bring the Messiah through Eve without any covenant at all. Instead, he still made the man the representative of the new covenant, hence headship is rearticulated clearly as a creation mandate and unchanged because of masculine sin.
Yes, I am quite familiar with this teaching.
This intrigues me. I’m going to think more about it. We presume there is a garden covenant since Adam is called a covenant breaker in Hosea and Romans. It isn’t detailed in Genesis like Abraham’s covenant is. So, we must presume this “Adamic” covenant. So, covenant headship is one theory to why Adam is called a covenant breaker. Another theory is that he broke the covenant and Eve didn’t. I believe there is as much or more evidence for Eve’s innocence than the necessity of a covenant head.
For that matter, why can’t we say God did institute a covenant with Eve? If anything, Genesis 3:15 would lead me to believe in an “Evenic” Covenant since it is her offspring the promise is given to. And SHE is given a new name (living) not Adam. Another mark of covenant making, right? And you could say pain in childbirth is the sign of this covenant.
Its easy to create covenants, isn’t it? lol
So another way to say it is that men remain the head of the covenant and representative of their homes not because of their past good performance nor of their current ability or in any way superiority to their wives, but as a reminder of grace.
And how does God show grace to the women then?
So in these days of cloning, will the sin nature NOT be passed on?
hahaha. I was actually for cloning, and now I’m even more so! lol
Under this hypothetical, since clones are really biological twins of their “parent,” they still bear the sin nature of their “grandfather.”
I disagree with certain points, but I won’t nitpick since you said up front it was speculative.
But an interesting side note, there’s a Y-chromosome Adam who is the genetic ancestor of all living humans. (The counterpart of the mitochondrial Eve, though they lived many thousands of years apart). It’s rather intriguing, at least for non-fundamentalists who accept the possibility that God could have used directed evolution to create us. The fact that there’s exactly one type of DNA that only get passed on from each gender is awfully convenient. And the existence those two individuals doesn’t rule out the possibility of an earlier genetic Adam and Eve who are depicted in the creation story, which means there’s no inherent contradiction with the Bible.
Okay, that’s the end of my science geek out.
I agree, the science of this is fascinating. But so over my head, I wouldn’t trust myself to regurgitate it accurately.
Brent, you say: “The idea of covenant of grace is not based on who sinned or who didn’t. ”
As I understand the gospel, grace is needed where there is sin. If God made a covenant of grace, he would have made it with sinners.
Brent: “If it were based on works then God would have dropped man as headship and failure and transfered the covenant over to women through Eve.”
Do you say God’s covenant was only for males? You say all his promises in the covenant was only for males?
Do you have any Bible reason to believe women were not part of God’s covenant? I’d say, until you give bible reasons, that the covenent was with men and women, but only men needed to change their bodies before entering the covenant.
Brent said:
“So another way to say it is that men remain the head of the covenant and representative of their homes not because of their past good performance nor of their current ability or in any way superiority to their wives, but as a reminder of grace.”
I do not find this depiction of God’s plan to be very gracious at all to women. Why did God (supposedly) make the male the “head of the covenant and representative of their homes” in the first place? Maybe letting him stay there is grace to the man, but it is not grace to the woman.
In fact, the whole “male headship” doctrine seems to me to render the good news, not very good news to women. We are not set free in Christ; we remain subjegated to man– and our subjegation, which before was earthly, becomes a spiritual subjegation as well, for it is brought into the New Covenant, which is of the spirit.
“If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation,” and “We regard no one any longer according to the flesh,” says 2 Cor 5. But male headship negates this, for the whole structure of the kingdom of God is perceived as based on who you are in the flesh– whether you are male or female.
Not good news for women at all. And thus, I think, an incorrect depiction of the New Covenant creation.
Ezekiel 18 explicitly denies inherited sin as man’s idea and contrary to God’s justice.