Intro

This blog gains its name from the book Steele's Answers published in 1912. It began as an effort to blog through that book, posting each of the Questions and Answers in the book in the order in which they appeared. I started this on Dec. 10, 2011. I completed blogging from that book on July 11, 2015. Along the way, I began to also post snippets from Dr. Steele's other writings — and from some other holiness writers of his times. Since then, I have begun adding material from his Bible commentaries. I also re-blog many of the old posts.

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Are We Responsible for Original Sin?

QUESTION: Are we not responsible for inbred sin?

ANSWER: I cannot he responsible for any inborn quality. But when I find that there is a perfect cure in the blood of Christ and I prefer the disease to the cure, I become responsible for the continued existence of the inherited evil tendency. The whole Christian world from before the days of Jerome down to Wesley inclusive believed in the guilt of the original sin, that we all sinned in Adam and deserve punishment for Adam's sin and that we cannot plead an alibi, i.e., that we were elsewhere. This doctrine which has perplexed Christians and clouded the character of God 1,500 years, came from a mistranslation of Rom. 3:12, "in whom all have sinned," instead of "in that we all sin" (sooner or later), all except the Son of man. This mistake is, in the earliest Latin Version, and was copied by Jerome in the Vulgate, guilt of "original sin" became fixed in the theology of the church from which it descended into some reformed churches, especially those of the Calvinian type.

— from Steele's Answers pp 94, 95.

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