A glowing double helix DNA strand merging into a bright spiral galaxy surrounded by stars

A World Designed for Discovery

“The Lord founded the earth by wisdom and established the heavens by understanding. By his knowledge the watery depths broke open, and the clouds dripped with dew.” (Proverbs 3:19-20 CSB – Read the chapter)

When Charles Darwin first proposed his ideas about human origins, our understanding of the complexities of life was pretty rudimentary. Of course, we didn’t think that at the time. The mid-19th century through the early days of the 20th century were marked by incredible confidence in human knowledge—a confidence we now recognize as a rather wild overconfidence (even as we fall into the same trap ourselves about our own knowledge). What we have come to understand since is that life is vastly more complex than Darwin could have imagined. Not only that, but the universe itself is complex almost beyond all description. To borrow the phrase that is commonly used to describe it, we live in a finely tuned world. It takes a great deal of wisdom to manage such a world. Fortunately, that’s the nature of the God we serve. Let’s talk about it.

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Digging in Deeper: Romans 5:12-14

“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all people, because all sinned. In fact, sin was in the world before the law, but sin is not charged to a person’s account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam’s transgression. He is a type of the Coming One.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

How did sin get here? And how does it work? Does everyone sin individually, or is there such a thing as corporate guilt? An orthodox doctrine of sin is an important thing to have, but also a difficult one to clarify. It’s difficult because it involves asking some hard questions. It’s difficult because it involves answering them as well. As Paul keeps rolling forward in his exploration of the Gospel, he is next offering some important insight on an historically orthodox understanding of sin. Let’s take a look at what he has to say.

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