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41. Since he was begotten and conceived in no
pleasure of carnal appetite--and therefore bore no
trace of original sin--he was, by the grace of God
(operating in a marvelous and an ineffable manner),
joined and united in a personal unity with the
only-begotten Word of the Father, a Son not by grace
but by nature. And although he himself committed no
sin, yet because of "the likeness of sinful
flesh"(81) in which he came, he was himself called
sin and was made a sacrifice for the washing away of
sins. Indeed, under the old law, sacrifices for
sins were often called sins.(82) Yet he of whom those
sacrifices were mere shadows was himself actually
made sin. Thus, when the apostle said, "For Christ's
sake, we beseech you to be reconciled to God," he
straightway added, "Him, who knew no sin, he made to
be sin for us that we might be made to be the
righteousness of God in him."(83) He does not say, as
we read in some defective copies, "He who knew no sin
did sin for us," as if Christ himself committed sin
for our sake. Rather, he says, "He [Christ] who knew
no sin, he [God] made to be sin for us." The God to
whom we are to be reconciled hath thus made him the
sacrifice for sin by which we may be reconciled.
He himself is therefore sin as we ourselves are
righteousness--not our own but God's, not in
ourselves but in him. Just as he was sin--not his own
but ours, rooted not in himself but in us--so he
showed forth through the likeness of sinful flesh, in
which he was crucified, that since sin was not in him
he could then, so to say, die to sin by dying in the
flesh, which was "the likeness of sin." And since he
had never lived in the old manner of sinning, he
might, in his resurrection, signify the new life
which is ours, which is springing to life anew from
the old death in which we had been dead to sin.
42. This is the meaning of the great sacrament of
baptism, which is celebrated among us. All who attain
to this grace die thereby to sin--as he himself is
said to have died to sin because he died in the
flesh, that is, "in the likeness of sin"--and they
are thereby alive by being reborn in the baptismal
font, just as he rose again from the sepulcher. This
is the case no matter what the age of the body.
43. For whether it be a newborn infant or a
decrepit old man--since no one should be barred from
baptism--just so, there is no one who does not die to
sin in baptism. Infants die to original sin only;
adults, to all those sins which they have added,
through their evil living, to the burden they brought
with them at birth.
44. But even these are frequently said to die to
sin, when without doubt they die not to one but to
many sins, and to all the sins which they have
themselves already committed by thought, word, and
deed. Actually, by the use of the singular number the
plural number is often signified, as the poet said,
"And they fill the belly with the armed warrior,"(84)
although they did this with many warriors. And in our
own Scriptures we read: "Pray therefore to the Lord
that he may take from us the serpent."(85) It does
not say "serpents," as it might, for they were
suffering from many serpents. There are, moreover,
innumerable other such examples.
Yet, when the original sin is signified by the use
of the plural number, as we say when infants are
baptized "unto the remission of sins," instead of
saying "unto the remission of sin," then we have the
converse expression in which the singular is
expressed by the plural number. Thus in the Gospel,
it is said of Herod's death, "For they are dead who
sought the child's life"(86) ; it does not say, "He
is dead." And in Exodus: "They made," [Moses] says,
"to themselves gods of gold," when they had made one
calf. And of this calf, they said: "These are thy
gods, O Israel, which brought you out of the land of
Egypt,"(87) here also putting the plural for the
singular.
45. Still, even in that one sin--which "entered
into the world by one man and so spread to all
men,"(880 and on account of which infants are
baptized--one can recognize a plurality of sins, if
that single sin is divided, so to say, into its
separate elements. For there is pride in it, since
man preferred to be under his own rule rather than
the rule of God; and sacrilege too, for man did not
acknowledge God; and murder, since he cast himself
down to death; and spiritual fornication, for the
integrity of the human mind was corrupted by the
seduction of the serpent; and theft, since the
forbidden fruit was snatched; and avarice, since he
hungered for more than should have sufficed for
him--and whatever other sins that could be discovered
in the diligent analysis of that one sin.
46. It is also said--and not without support--that
infants are involved in the sins of their parents,
not only of the first pair, but even of their own, of
whom they were born. Indeed, that divine judgment, "I
shall visit the sins of the fathers on their
children,"(89) definitely applies to them before they
come into the New Covenant by regeneration. This
Covenant was foretold by Ezekiel when he said that
the sons should not bear their fathers' sins, nor the
proverb any longer apply in Israel, "Our fathers have
eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on
edge."(90)
This is why each one of them must be born again,
so that he may thereby be absolved of whatever sin
was in him at the time of birth. For the sins
committed by evil-doing after birth can be healed by
repentance--as, indeed, we see it happen even after
baptism. For the new birth [regeneratio] would not
have been instituted except for the fact that the
first birth [generatio] was tainted--and to such a
degree that one born of even a lawful wedlock said,
"I was conceived in iniquities; and in sins did my
mother nourish me in her womb."(91) Nor did he say
"in iniquity" or "in sin," as he might have quite
correctly; rather, he preferred to say "iniquities"
and "sins," because, as I explained above, there are
so many sins in that one sin--which has passed into
all men, and which was so great that human nature was
changed and by it brought under the necessity of
death--and also because there are other sins, such as
those of parents, which, even if they cannot change
our nature in the same way, still involve the
children in guilt, unless the gracious grace and
mercy of God interpose.
47. But, in the matter of the sins of one's other
parents, those who stand as one's forebears from Adam
down to one's own parents, a question might well be
raised: whether a man at birth is involved in the
evil deeds of all his forebears, and their multiplied
original sins, so that the later in time he is born,
the worse estate he is born in; or whether, on this
very account, God threatens to visit the sins of the
parents as far as--but no farther than--the third and
fourth generations, because in his mercy he will not
continue his wrath beyond that. It is not his purpose
that those not given the grace of regeneration be
crushed under too heavy a burden in their eternal
damnation, as they would be if they were bound to
bear, as original guilt, all the sins of their
ancestors from the beginning of the human race, and
to pay the due penalty for them. Whether yet another
solution to so difficult a problem might or might not
be found by a more diligent search and interpretation
of Holy Scripture, I dare not rashly affirm. |