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2018-11-13


原罪Original Sin

作者: 巴刻 (J.I. Packer)  译者: 张麟至
选自《简明神学》P69,更新传道会出版

堕落影响着每一个人

五十一5 我是在罪孽里生的,在我母亲怀胎的时候就有了罪。

根据圣经的诊断,罪是一种人性普遍的败坏,它发生在每一个人的每一部分(王上846;罗39-23718;约壹18-10)。新旧两约都给罪一些名称,以曝露罪的道德本质,诸如:悖逆神的管治,误失神所要人达到的目标,逾越神的律法,不服神的指引,污秽自己以干犯神的纯洁,在神这位判官面前招致罪咎。这种道德性的扭曲有其动力(This moral deformity is dynamic):罪的成立首先是出于对神的呼召与命令的一种非理性的、负面的、悖逆的反应,一种与神抗争,好让自己作神的精神。罪的根源是倨傲(pride),与神敌对,这种精神见之于亚当的首次犯罪;而罪行的背后,总是包含有一些思想、动机和欲望,以各种方式表达出人类堕落的心灵是如何刻意要顶撞神对我们生命所作的安排。

罪可以总括定义为:在行为、习惯、态度、看法、性情、动机和生存模式中,与神的律法不一致。描述罪的不同层面之经文有:耶利米书179,马太福音1230-37,马可福音720-23,罗马书118-32077-2585-81423(马丁路德说,保罗写罗马书是为了「把罪放大」),加拉太书516-21,以弗所书210-11417-19,希伯来书312。雅各书210-11,约翰壹书34517。保罗在书信中所提的「肉体」一词,通常是指被罪欲所驱使的人;此字亦可作「情欲」。圣经所查出并揭发之特定的缺失和邪恶,那更是多得无法在此胜数了。

“原罪”是指我们的本性所衍生的罪恶,这并不是圣经上的词彙,而是奥古斯丁创造的,然而它却将罪在我们的属灵体系里的实情,原本托出。原罪的主张并不是说,起初神造人时,罪是人性的一部分(神造的人是正直的,传729);也不是说,罪与繁衍和生产过程有关(利1215章中所谓的与月经、遗精、生产有关的不洁,只是预表性的、仪式性的,而非道德上的、真实的)。原罪的主张乃是说:(1) 罪恶在人一出生时就存在,在人犯下实际的罪行之前,罪恶已经藉著动机扭曲之心态存在了;(2) 这种内在的罪恶是所有实际罪行的根源;(3) 罪恶由亚当——人类在神面前的第一位代表——透过一种实在却神秘的途径,传给了我们。原罪的主张强调:我们不是因为犯了罪,才成为罪人;而是因为我们是罪人,生来就有被罪奴役的性情,我们才犯罪。

“全然堕落”(total depravity)一词,常常被用来把原罪的涵义表明清楚。它指明我们在道德与灵性上的败坏是全然的。完全不是指程度而言(因为人有可能比他现在坏的程度更坏),而是指范围而言。这教义宣告,人没有一处不被罪玷污,所以,我们的行为不会像我们应该有的光景那样好。结果,导致在我们里面的、和我们有关的事物,在神的眼中看来,没有一样是有功绩的,无论我们做什么,我们都无法赢得神的喜悦;除非神的恩典拯救我们,我们是失丧的。

全然败坏的教义也隐含了全然无能的教义。全然无能是指一种光景,人靠他自己无法真诚地、全心地回应神和祂的话(约644;罗87-8)。保罗称这种无力回应神的堕落之心,为一种死亡的状态(弗215;西213)。威敏思特信仰告白,第9章第3条说:「人因堕落在罪恶的状态中,已经完全丧失一切的意志力,不再能实行任何与救恩伴随之属灵的良善。所以属血气的人既是与属灵的良善完全相反,并且死在罪中,他就不可能靠自己的力量,自行归正,也不能自行预备归正。」


Original Sin - Depravity Infects Everyone
By J.I. Packer (from Concise Theology)

"Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me" (Ps. 51:5)

Scripture diagnoses sin as a universal deformity of human nature, found at every point in every person (1 Kings 8:46; Rom. 3:9-23; 7:18; 1 John 1:8-10). Both Testaments have names for it that display its ethical character as rebellion against God's rule, missing the mark God set us to aim at, transgressing God's law, disobeying God's directives, offending God's purity by defiling oneself, and incurring guilt before God the Judge. This moral deformity is dynamic: sin stands revealed as an energy of irrational, negative, and rebellious reaction to God's call and command, a spirit of fighting God in order to play God. The root of sin is pride and enmity against God, the spirit seen in Adam's first transgression; and sinful acts always have behind them thoughts, motives, and desires that one way or another express the willful opposition of the fallen heart to God's claims on our lives.

Sin may be comprehensively defined as lack of conformity to the law of God in act, habit, attitude, outlook, disposition, motivation, and mode of existence. Scriptures that illustrate different aspects of sin include Jeremiah 17:9; Matthew 12:30-37; Mark 7:20-23; Romans 1:18-3:20; 7:7-25; 8:5-8; 14:23 (Luther said that Paul wrote Romans to "magnify sin"); Galatians 5:16-21; Ephesians 2:1-3; 4:17-19; Hebrews 3:12; James 2:10-11; 1 John 3:4; 5:17. Flesh in Paul usually means a human being driven by sinful desire; the niv renders these instances of the word as "sinful nature." The particular faults and vices (i.e., forms and expression of sin) that Scripture detects and denounces are too numerous to list here.

Original sin, meaning sin derived from our origin, is not a biblical phrase (Augustine coined it), but it is one that brings into fruitful focus the reality of sin in our spiritual system. The assertion of original sin means not that sin belongs to human nature as God made it (God made mankind upright, Eccles. 7:29), nor that sin is involved in the processes of reproduction and birth (the uncleanness connected with menstruation, semen, and childbirth in Leviticus 12 and 15 was typical and ceremonial only, not moral and real), but that (a) sinfulness marks everyone from birth, and is there in the form of a motivationally twisted heart, prior to any actual sins; (b) this inner sinfulness is the root and source of all actual sins; (c) it derives to us in a real though mysterious way from Adam, our first representative before God. The assertion of original sin makes the point that we are not sinners because we sin, but rather we sin because we are sinners, born with a nature enslaved to sin.

The phrase total depravity is commonly used to make explicit the implications of original sin. It signifies a corruption of our moral and spiritual nature that is total not in degree (for no one is as bad as he or she might be) but in extent. It declares that no part of us is untouched by sin, and therefore no action of ours is as good as it should be, and consequently nothing in us or about us ever appears meritorious in God's eyes. We cannot earn God's favor, no matter what we do; unless grace saves us, we are lost.

Total depravity entails total inability, that is, the state of not having it in oneself to respond to God and his Word in a sincere and wholehearted way (John 6:44; Rom. 8:7-8). Paul calls this unresponsiveness of the fallen heart a state of death (Eph. 2:1, 5; Col. 2:13), and the Westminster Confession says: "Man by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto" (IX. 3).