The Fall and Sin: What We Have Become as Sinners
Overview
The devastating evils of recent history have brought about renewed interest in the Christian doctrine of sin. This volume explores with fresh insight and great seriousness the contemporary plausibility, meaning, and relevance of the biblical understanding of the Fall and its effects.
Marguerite Shuster argues that certain aspects of the traditional doctrine of the Fall, including the belief that it took place in time and space, cannot simply be set aside without serious consequences for our doctrine of God and our understanding of human identity, dignity, and responsibility. She explores the nature and extent of sin and examines such problematic issues as “degrees” of sin and culpability. Despite the seriousness with which Shuster treats these topics, her discussion is not despairing but instead points to the redemption that God has accomplished in Christ.
Filled with contemporary allusions and completed with model sermons on the Fall and sin, this volume is one of the best available studies of this key Christian doctrine.
Key Features
- Explores the covenental relationship between God and humankind
- Analyzes related themes of evil, death, temptation, and redemption
- Adapted from research and lectures by Paul Jewett
Contents
I. The Fall of Humankind
- Introduction: Primal History Viewed as Covenantal
- The Root of the Fall
- The Nature of the Fall
- Consequences of the Fall
- The Divine Purpose and Moral Evil
II. The Doctrine of Sin
- The Nature of Sin
- Sin and Sins
- Original Sin
- Problems of Freedom
- Civil Righteousness
- Appendix 1: Physical Death as Existential Reality
- Appendix 2: Biblical Vocabulary Relating to Sin
Top Highlights
“(Hence judgment rests with God, Deut. 32:35; Rom. 12:19; Heb. 10:30.)” (Page 38)
“And all, Jew and Gentile alike, are under the power of sin:” (Page 173)
“Genesis 6:5 affirms the extent of sin in terms as strong as found anywhere in Scripture: ‘The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.’” (Page 172)
“It is difficult indeed, then, to avoid the conclusion that Scripture as a whole provides strong testimony to the depth and universality of sin, a depth and universality articulated by the doctrine of original sin.” (Page 174)
“We insist instead that something intruded, in space and time, upon what God made.” (Page 5)
Praise for the Print Edition
This well-informed and accessible theological study with model sermons will cause those theologians and preachers squeamish about sin to take another look at the tradition they have jettisoned and will serve them well in the classroom and the pulpit as they seek to offer their hearers words of true dignity and lasting hope.
—Theology Today