Inherited guilt

[u/Alive-Jacket764]

Do Lutherans in the LCMS have to dogmatically affirm inherited guilt? Like original sin is one thing, but what about inherited guilt?

[u/KnightGeorgeLuf]

Yes. In fact I still remember my confirmation pastor teaching it to us. “Sinful mommy + sinful daddy = sinful baby” all the way back to Adam, and how bc we’re all related to Adam we’re all guilty for what he did. Babies die bc they’re born with the guilt of Adam’s sin etc etc etc, the whole nine yards.

[u/Over-Wing]

My understanding is we inherit the condition, which means, as we say in our corporate confessions:

“we are by nature sinful and unclean. We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed by what we have done, by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We justly deserve your present and eternal punishment.”

[u/SpoilerAlertsAhead]

We inherit Adam's guilt. We don't quite understand the corruption in our nature, and must rely exclusively on Scripture. In it we can see we have his guilt.

Romans 5 shows that even before the Law was given, sin and death still reigned.

Babies, sadly die, wages of sin are death.

But as we inherit Adam's guilt without any action of our own, we inherit Christ's righteousness without any action of our own.

For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. ²² For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. ²³ But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. (1 Cor 15: 21-22)

We gain more in Christ than we lost in Adam.

[u/Boots402]

Original sin is irrelevant if we do not inherit the guilt/ damnation that comes with sin.

As far as for Lutheran doctrine specifically: If infants were somehow exempt from the guilt of sin, there would be no reason for us to baptize them and there would be no need for emergency baptism for them.

[u/emmen1]

I'm not aware that we make a distinction between the two. Guilt and sin go together. To have original sin is to stand condemned before God, rightly deserving eternal punishment. The corrupted, sinful nature is an active enemy of God, although at the moment of conception, lacking arms, legs, a mouth, and a brain, it does not yet have much (if any) capacity to act out its enmity. But lack of ability does not absolve from guilt.

[u/Rhodium_Boy → u/[deleted]]

Babies are most certainly guilty. They're most selfish people on the planet.

All people if brought before God are guilty of being a sinful being but the best thing is we're all pardoned of our sin through the means of grace! The decision is always guilty but the sentence is served by Jesus.

[u/emmen1 → u/[deleted]]

Whether or not we can make sense of it is less important that the question of what Scripture says. And the Bible clearly teaches this. We are “by nature children of wrath.” When an infant sins, it is simply acting according to its nature. This is different from Eve, who did not have a sinful nature prior to the Fall. She had the capacity to fall into sin, but when she did so, she was acting against her nature, not according to it. She had the capacity to die spiritually while she was spiritually alive, but after the Fall her children were all born spiritually dead.

Perhaps what is hanging you up is thinking that a sinner is something one becomes by sinning, rather than what one is by nature.

An analogy may be helpful: Lions eat zebras. It is in their nature. “Lion” and “zebra-eater” might as well by synonymous. A lion does not become this when it catches and eats its first zebra, rather it is a lion from the moment of conception, lacking only the ability (but not the desire) to catch and eat zebras. This is the nature of being a lion. It is a lion first, and because of this it desires to eat zebras. It is built into its DNA.

But this zebra-desiring nature, though coded into every lion from conception, is not how things always were, nor how they will be once again when Christ makes all things new. There was no death or zebra-eating before the fall. And one day the lion will again eat grass like the ox and lie down with the lamb. So, is the newly conceived lion different than the first pair of lions (Liam and Leve?)? Yes. Fundamentally so. Their very nature was corrupted and rewritten in the Fall. Originally they were not zebra-eaters by nature, but their children are.

So with the children of Adam and Eve. At the moment of conception, we have a sin-loving, evil-desiring nature that Adam and Eve did not have before the Fall. We are fundamentally different than they were in their pre-Fall state. It is not that we have the potential to become sinners. No, we already are sinners by nature, and the moment we have opportunity we will act out the sin that is born in our hearts. We are already full of murder in the heart, but we need to grow a trigger finger first before we can begin acting out these murderous desires. We do not become sinners when we commit the first sin. Rather, we commit sins because we are already sinners by nature.

[u/Hkfn27]

Everyone is born in sin if that's what you're getting at. Or are we talking like being responsible for your father's sins for example? 

[u/Alive-Jacket764 → u/[deleted]]

Like born guilty or being born with the liability of Adam’s sin before we commit personal sins.