CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVI
How, Nevertheless, No One Bears the Sin of His Ancestors, hut Only His Own Sin But perhaps someone may object that because all those who are not saved by faith in Christ bear the burden of Adam's iniquity, it follows that either
(a) infants also ought to bear the iniquity of their other ancestors as well, or else (b) they ought not bear the iniquity of Adam. Now let anyone who makes this objection carefully consider the fact that infants do not bear Adam's iniquity, but bear their own. For Adam's sin is something different from the sin of infants--inasmuch as Adam's sin is a cause, and infants' sins an effect.
Adam was deprived of required justice because he himself, and not another, deserted it; but infants are deprived of justice because someone else, and not themselves, deserted it. Therefore, the sin of Adam and the sin of infants are not the same thing. And when the Apostle says (as I mentioned earlier) that 'death reigned from Adam unto Moses, even over those who had not sinned accord ing to the likeness of Adam's transgression' (Rom. 5:1*0.? then just as he indi cates that the sin of infants is less than the sin of Adam, so also he clearly shows that their sin is something different from Adam's.
So then, when an infant is condemned on account of original sin, he is not condemned for Adam's sin but for his own; for if he did not have sin of his own, he would not be condemned. Hence, an infant bears his own iniquity and not Adam's, even though Scripture says that he bears the iniquity of Adam because Adam's sin was the cause of his own sin. But the power which Adam had to cause his descendants to be born in sin does not belong to any of our other ancestors, because human nature in these ancestors has no power to beget off spring who are just /and unless it is possible for human nature to bestow justice upon its offspring, it is not possible for it to remove justice from
. -.;r