Are We Really Born in Sin?

Dr. D. William McIvor

August 6, 2006

Presbyterian Church in Sudbury

Introduction to the Morning Lesson

Earlier in this sermon series I mentioned the superscriptions that begin many of the psalms. They appear in the original manuscripts but for the most part were probably not written by the psalmists themselves. Most likely they were added by the priests who edited and organized the psalms into the Book of Psalms that we have in our Bibles today.

We often don’t read the superscriptions but we do need to note the one that heads Psalm 51. It reads: “To the leader. A Psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.” Last Sunday I mentioned King David’s sordid affair with Bathsheba and the cover up that resulted in the killing — murder really — of Bathsheba’s husband Uriah. The great King David committed the sins of lust, adultery, lying, conspiracy, and murder, just to name the big ones. So Psalm 51 appears to be about David’s remorse and penitence for his great sins.

However, most Old Testament scholars do not think the psalm was originally written about David or his horrible sins. But whoever edited the psalter and added the superscription certainly heard in it echoes of the David and Bathsheba story.[1] Certainly David needed to repent. But we all need to repent. Our sins may be lesser ones but we should not play the fools’ game of comparing sins. The need for penitence is profoundly universal.

Which is why, when we read Psalm 51 in a moment, you will hear very familiar words. For this psalm is among the most widely read and both its cadences and words often show up in prayers, hymns, and other bits of liturgy.[2] So let’s read this wonderful psalm focusing today on verses 1-12.

Psalm 51.1-12 (NRSV)

To the leader. A Psalm of David, when the prophet
Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;

according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.

Against you, you alone, have I sinned,
and done what is evil in your sight,

so that you are justified in your sentence
and blameless when you pass judgment.

Indeed, I was born guilty,
a sinner when my mother conceived me.

You desire truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.

Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.

Do not cast me away from your presence,
and do not take your holy spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and sustain in me a willing spirit.

Total human sin meets God’s total forgiveness

 “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.” Are any words in the Bible more beautiful than these, expressing as they do the hope that God recreates and renews us to be clean and whole and right? I think these words account for why Psalm 51 speaks so powerfully to us. Yes, the psalm is penitential, reflecting great sin, perhaps David’s, certainly ours. Nonetheless, the mood is hopeful. No matter what we’ve done or how broken we are, God can cleanse us. God can even hide his face from our wrongdoing. In other words, God not only forgives but forgets our sins. Wonderful, peaceful words.

Then there is the vexing verse 5 which led to my sermon’s title: “Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.” Can we really take that verse at face value? Are not babies purely innocent? And why is the taint of sin and guilt connected to sex and the act of conception? This verse troubles us so much that it diminishes or even destroys the peaceful tone of the entire psalm. I’ll come back to this in a moment.

A week ago yesterday was the 33rd anniversary of my ordination as a Minister of the Word and Sacrament. In and of itself the anniversary has no particular importance except to say that I’ve been doing this preaching thing for a very long time. Some Sundays I feel like I’m finally getting the hang of it and other weeks I drive home after church thinking I have no clue about what I’m doing and need to find a different line of work.

I mention this because we preachers actually get very little feedback about particular sermons. If someone really likes a sermon, sometimes I hear about it. But most of the feedback is shaking hands at the door after church. It’s the “I enjoyed your sermon” kind of greeting. That is nice but mostly it is a way of saying “hello” in the two or three seconds I have to greet each of you as you leave the sanctuary. Now I am not suggesting it should or could be otherwise nor am I fishing for compliments. This is just the way that it is. Which is fine.

But if a sermon really offends people, I normally do hear about it. I think I’ve preached somewhere around 1,300 sermons and of those hundreds only two seem to have really bothered some people. (I suppose that by mentioning this I may now hear about some more that have really bothered some of you!) Both of these two happened several years ago. In fact, one was in September 1998. That was a painful time in our nation’s life. The news was all about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky and those weeks led up to the impeachment of the president. My sermon said that we needed to pray for and forgive Bill Clinton. Some people were offended by that and thought I said it for political reasons. But that is not why I said it. I said it because the Bible said it. The New Testament is very clear that we are to pray for our leaders (1 Timothy 2.1) and Jesus said on many occasions that we must forgive if we are to be forgiven (Matthew 6.14-15, 18.21-35). I even said that Bill Clinton didn’t deserve to be forgiven. Deserving forgiveness is not why we must forgive. We forgive because Jesus tells us to.

But some took great offense at that and pretty much stopped coming to church. I am told that after I left that church they started attending again. I don’t understand that but it’s not for me to judge.

The second offensive sermon also happened several years ago and, like today, it was based on Psalm 51. This person was very angry about the idea that we are born guilty and become sinners because of the sexual act of conception. I did not emphasize that in my sermon but the person was still offended. I protested somewhat meekly that I was just saying what was in the text but that did not mollify this person at all.

I find it interesting that these two offending sermons, although they were very different messages, were both about forgiveness and in one way or another about sex. Since that is what I’m talking about again today, who knows what trouble I’m getting into? (I’m sure you will let me know.) Do we need to be forgiven because, as verse 5 suggests, we are actually conceived and born in sin?

The question concerns what theologians call the doctrine of original sin.[3] The most obvious fact about human life is that everyone does wrong. Everyone sins. Why?

We don’t have time today to think about this in detail. Maybe sometime I can preach about original sin at greater length. But for now let’s just acknowledge that down through the centuries, many Bible interpreters, somewhat suspicious about sex to begin with, have taught that our sinful nature is passed on to us in the act of sexual conception. Psalm 51.5 is often used to support this position.[4]

But is that what verse 5 really means? The answer is, in a word, “No!” When the psalmist confesses that he was born guilty, he wasn’t talking about how sinful nature gets passed from one to another. He wasn’t saying that sexual conception itself taints us. It’s just that everywhere he looked in life, in his own life and in others’, there was sin. Young, old, or in between, there is always sin. Sin isn’t just about doing wrong things. It wasn’t that he was a good boy once and then grew up to be bad. Before sin is about what we do, it is about who we are. The sad melancholy of human life is that we are sinners. position.[5] The how and the why of it are mysteries that neither Psalm 51 nor the rest of the Bible explain.

Which is exactly why the psalmist wrote the key verse in this psalm. It is verse 10, not verse 5: “Create in my a clean heart, O God.” When he asks God to create a clean heart, he uses the Hebrew word bara that is used only when God creates. Only God can bara. Just as only God can bara the universe out of nothing, only God can bara a clean heart out of the nothing of our broken and sinful lives. That’s why Psalm 51 is so powerful. It affirms and rejoices in what only God can do. And not only does God create what is new in us. As verse 9 affirms, he “hides [his] face from [our] sins.” In other words, not only does God forgive us our sin. God forgets our sin.

So I’ll close today with this story. Sometime back in Europe a bishop met with a young nun who claimed to have actual visions and conversations with Jesus. As was the custom when someone claimed such a vision, the person was called before the bishop to be interviewed.

“Sister,” the bishop asked, “did you talk to the Lord?”

“Yes, I did,” she answered.

After discussing the matter further, the bishop pointed to himself and said, “All right, if you ever have another vision of our Lord, would you ask Him a question? Ask the Lord what was my primary sin before I became a bishop. I’d like for you to tell me His reply.”

Remember that only God and the bishop’s confessor would know what that sin was. So the bishop thought this would help him know if the nun really spoke with Jesus.

About three months later, the nun made an appointment with the bishop. When she came in he asked, “Sister did you see our Lord again?”

“Yes, I did.”

The bishop’s expression became very serious, almost apprehensive and he said, “Did you ask him, ‘What was the bishop’s primary sin before he became a bishop?’”

“Yes, I did,” she said.

The bishop turned very pale and said, “Well, what did he say?”

The young woman looked up for the first time, remembering her Lord’s face.

Then she replied to the bishop, “The Lord said, ‘I don’t remember.’”[6]

My friends, that’s what only God can do. God creates a clean heart in us and not only forgives our sin but forgets it. And this is why we come to table today because this table remembers the sacrifice of our Lord on the cross for the salvation of the whole world. This is the table of forgiveness where the Lord welcomes all who come and forgives all who come and makes new all who come.

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.”

Thanks be to God.

Back to Top

Back to our Home Page

For questions/comments on this page, please click to e-mail: PCISwebmaster.

The contents of this site are copyright © 2006, Presbyterian Church in Sudbury. All Rights Reserved.