#87Understanding Sin — Where It Came From, What It Means, and What Christians Do With It + Dr. Hans Madueme

Are we born sinful, or when did sin enter the world? And do we have to believe in that original sin with Adam and Eve? We are well-equipped to go into it with an expert today. I am joined by Dr. Hans Medweme.

Jesus is the answer. What is the question? Jesus came because we have a problem, and that problem is what Christians, we talk about as the doctrine of sin.

Do you believe we were doomed from the start?

I do. We're doomed from the start because of a kind of connection that we all have to Adam.

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Hello, hello.

Welcome to Biblically Speaking. I'm your host, Cassian Bellino. Today, we're gonna talk about sin. This is gonna be a conversation if you're an early Christian, a vetted Christian, a Sunday school Christian, and sin just doesn't make sense to you.

You know, are we born sinful? Or when did sin enter the world? And do we have to believe in that original sin with Adam and Eve and the apple and the snake? And what happens if you get baptized and then you keep sinning?

And how is Jesus sinless if he was fully human? All of these are questions we're going to dive into today. And I am, we are well-equipped to go into it with an expert today. I am joined by Dr. Hans Medweme.

You are a professor of theological studies at Covenant College at Lookout Mountain in Georgia. You were born in Sweden, but you grew up in Nigeria and Austria, and you originally trained as a medical doctor and you completed your residency in internal medicine at the Mayo Clinic before you shifted your focus to theology, and you received your master in divinity and then completed your PhD from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

I am so grateful to have you here to join us today. Dr. Medweme, welcome to the show.

Thanks, thanks, Cassian. Really glad to be here. I look forward to our conversation.

Yeah, so sin. I mean, you've studied the body, you studied the Bible. What is it about sin that has hooked you in?

I think it's partly my medical background. You were just mentioning that in a previous life I was in medicine and just wrestling with questions of who are we? Why do we do the things we do? And the doctrine of sin is something that I'm caught up in.

I wrestle with it myself as I seek to follow Christ. So I think it's always been something that's been interesting to me, and in particular, and we might get into this later, but in particular, just ways in which the physicality of our bodies and scientific issues, ways in which that impinges on sin and raises questions for us as believers who are just seeking to understand ourselves from a biblical perspective.

So all of that has been fascinating to me. And I think it's kind of why I've continued to sort of think about and wrestle with sin and what it means and how we should think about it and ultimately for the purpose of, you know, drawing us closer to the Lord.

That's amazing. Yeah, I think sin is one of those elusive concepts of like we all fall short and we kind of take it for granted of how much it impacts us. So when you think about sin and you think about the doctrine of sin, there might be somebody listening that's like, yeah, it's part of Christianity.

What more is there to understand? So how would you explain it simply?

I think we all know about Jesus, right? Jesus came and he died for us. He atoned for our sins. Our father sent his son so that we might be, our sins might be forgiven and we might be reconciled to him.

And so in some ways, it's like, if Jesus is the answer, what is the question, right? And I would say that Jesus came because we have a problem and that problem is what Christians, we talk about as the doctrine of sin.

And so I think in some ways, maybe what I would say is if you really want to appreciate the glory and the wonder of salvation and what God has done for us, the flip side of that is just to realize our predicament and what exactly is our problem and how bad is our problem.

And conversely, if I have a very sort of trivial or superficial understanding of sin, and maybe I'm thinking, ah, it's not a big deal. Maybe I make a mistake every now and then, but it's not a big deal.

Then I'm not gonna see my understanding of what's so remarkable, what's so astonishing about the good news is gonna be lessened. So I think there's just a, understanding sin is really helpful to understand what God has done for us, what God has done to draw us back to himself.

Yeah, I love that. I had no idea what I was really looking for when I asked that question, but I love how you framed that, of if Jesus is the answer, what's the question? And it kind of answers like, what's the point of all this?

Well, the point is that there is sin, and so that's why he's here. That's what he's here to save us from. So just understanding it, like for me, sin is like, you know, I've got temptations, but there's also this element of like spiritual warfare, but then there's also this world that we were born into.

And I had this conversation a long time ago with Dr. Josh. Oh my gosh, I always drop people's names, but I remember Dr. Josh, Waltman, sorry. And he said, there's three elements to spiritual warfare. It's our innate flesh, the fallen world, and spiritual warfare.

So where would you say that sin just is within all of that? It's in nature, it's in guilt, it's in corruption, but it's also within ourselves. It's also in the OG beginning of the Bible. Or is it all the above?

Yeah, I think I would say all the above. At least most of what you just mentioned is sort of relevant. I mean, when we're talking about sin, we usually focus on the ways in which we are affected by sin.

So it tends to be the indwelling sin or moral corruption that is in our hearts. And that moral corruption, which we sometimes call original sin, that's the state that I'm in. That's the condition that I'm in.

And because of that, I commit sinful acts. I have sinful thoughts or I say sinful things or I have sinful desires and I do commit sinful acts. So those all flow out of my condition. And so usually when we're talking about doctrine of sin, that's where the focus is.

Now, the powers of darkness and the devil, I mean, that's very important. All the way back to Genesis three, when the first sin was committed, there was a serpent in the garden. And I think Christians are right to see that the devil is behind that serpent.

And so there is the first sin involved, the temptation of the demonic or satanic temptation. So temptation from outside powers is relevant to sin. However, the only thing I would say is, I don't think any of us are gonna be able to stand before Jesus at the judgment.

And Jesus is gonna be like, here's a long list of ways that you fell short. And then my response is gonna be, well, the devil made me do it. I don't think that's gonna be a very compelling answer. So yes, there's temptation from the outside, but ultimately we are responsible for our sin.

And just as Eve and Adam were held responsible after they disobeyed God. So, but anyway, all that to say, yes, it's sort of a rich multi-layered kind of thing that's happening when we're talking about sin.

But I think the focus is really our own hearts and how, and it's, you know, in the Bible, sin is usually a very theocentric thing. So it's how we are related to God. And sin, it's kind of really a question of what sin does or how it ruptures our relationship with our God and maker.

Yeah, I mean, let's kind of press in on that, of how we should be focusing on sin, because it seems like it's a way that we hold each other accountable, even though it's something that's so internal. Like, I just think of all the protests of like, well, you do that thing and I don't do that thing.

So you're worse than me, whatever my name, but at the end of the day, I go to God and I say, gosh, God, I lied and I stole and I coveted or whatever it was. And so we almost have this interpersonal relationship with sin of how we judge each other.

We have this internal struggle with sin. And yet what is the answer here? Because, you know, devil's just like dancing on our graves, super happy that we're falling short. And, you know, but what do we do with that?

Because it feels like we're held to the standard that no one can upkeep. We're trying to make ourselves feel better by saying, well, at least I'm a little bit higher towards God's standard than you because I don't do that sin and you do.

And yet we were born into this world with sin. You know, we were doomed from the start. Do you believe that? Do you believe we were doomed from the start? Or do you think we've fallen into it?

I do. And, you know, and actually this actually gets back to, if people are interested, in church history, there's a big debate between Augustine and a guy called Pelagius. And Augustine, he sort of, he would have held what we see as a traditional view of sin, which is that all of us come into this world, as you said, doomed from the start.

We're doomed from the start because of a kind of connection that we all have to Adam. And because Adam messed up, then we all come into this world messed up. And Pelagius did not like that for different reasons.

You know, he was a Christian,.

But he just, he felt that it was, I think he wanted to emphasize free will and that we have some agency and freedom. And he didn't think that if you say we're coming to this world already corrupt, he thought that that was removing responsibility, right?

So he actually thought we come into this world like Adam and Eve were before they fell. And then basically what happens is that most of us end up copying the sins of other people. But he said, there are some people who actually are sinless in this life.

So he, I mean, I think he thought that Job was sinless, Enoch, I think John. He mentioned a number of people in the Bible that he thought lived their whole lives without sin, but most of us end up sinning.

But he didn't think that was because we all come in doomed from the start. He just thought we come in with a blank slate and then we just sort of, unfortunately copy the sins of other people and they copied the sins of other people all the way back to Adam.

And Augustine just said, that's a very, like, you know, in that debate, Augustine just said that that's just a misunderstanding. And I think Augustine, I think in the end Augustine is right. I think we all, all of us come into this world doomed from the start.

David in, I think it was Psalm 51, I mean, Psalm 51, five. I mean, he says like from the time my mother conceived me, I was sin, iniquity was in me. I'm a sinner from birth. And that's the problem. That's the problem that we all face.

You know, I joke with my, you know, as you said, I'm a professor. I joke with my students when we, when I teach the doctrine of original sin and I kind of lay it out, I didn't say to the students, look, all right, if some of you are doubting what I'm saying and you're just sort of skeptical about this doctrine, then I just say, like, just wait till you get married.

Your spouse is gonna let you know all your problems, but then if that doesn't work, just start having kids. And then you'll see like, no one has to teach them what sin is, or they just come by it, you know, by nature.

And so I think Augustine was, in the debate between Augustine and Pelagius, on this point, Augustine was right. We do come in this world already bent. And that's when, and that's why we need the gospel.

That's why we need Jesus, because it's only, because we don't have the power in ourselves to rectify this situation. But thanks be to God, Jesus Christ, he has lived a sinless life. He was without sin in a way that none of us were.

And so when I put my trust in him, then I received his righteousness. And that's really the only remedy that can cure this disease that all of us come into this world with. Using disease metaphorically, obviously.

Of course, of course. You had two things that you said that really stuck out to me. And I feel like many Christians kind of wrestle with that. When I say many, I mean like me, and then, you know, we've got many people.

But it's hard to imagine a child being sinful, you know, something conceived with sin. It's hard to imagine, like, already you're born and fresh out the womb, already bent towards sin. And I understand there's human nature.

Once we have that choice, we're inclined to not be perfect. We will fall short. I understand that. I also understand that, you know, if God was fair, you know, Jesus wouldn't have been on the cross and we would have, you know?

I understand that there is no good person that measures up to the standard of Jesus. However, for like the early Christians, for people that are in church, it's like, but children aren't sinful, you know?

They're innocent. But I think you used a word there at the end where you said we're bent towards sin. And I think that that maybe is that innate sinful nature that I can completely agree with you, that even if you're a child, no actions, no choices, no sins have been made, you're inclined that you're about to simply because we're born bent towards it.

Right.

And that's helpful. And I think that's what, you know, Christians should try to understand. And if you think of sin as conscious misdeeds or consciously lying or consciously stealing and so on, if, and those are sins by the way, but if that's, if you have a narrow view of sin that includes things like that, then an infant, it would be, it would seem like infants are sinless because an infant developmentally can't lie and can't steal, et cetera.

So you would have a view of infants as sinless. Now, I think an infant compared to an adult is relatively innocent, but sin, when we're talking about sin, it's not just the acts and it's not just the words.

It's not even just our thoughts. It's kind of a state or condition that I'm in. So a baby is in the state or condition of original sin, even if he or she is not yet able to express that, right? So, and you know, some of the listeners may have heard a sermon where the pastor has this like pithy saying, it's like, we're not sinners because we sin.

We sin because we're sinners, right? So an infant or even someone who is born with some cognitive disability, you know, tragically, and so they're not able to talk or they're not able to do anything, they still have that state or condition of original sin.

And if they had that capacity, it would express itself in thoughts and words and deeds. And with the baby, as the baby develops, cognitively, intellectually, and so on, then that inner nature, that state or condition then expresses itself that way.

So I think once you realize that sin is deeper than just the outward expressions, then you can see why a very cute and adorable baby is still within that group of humanity we call sinners.

Yeah, so it's almost like we haven't sinned yet, but we will because that's just on the road that we're on. But how do we overcome that guilt of inevitable falling short? Like, how do we, like, that is a burden to bear of.

Like, I will never be perfect. I will always miss the mark. I mean, for somebody that holds themselves to a high standard or strives for perfection or just simply wants to be a good person, that's a hard truth to swallow.

Right.

Well, I mean, you know, on one level, I think it's a sense of being a realism, just kind of recognizing there's something about recognizing that about myself, that I have this moral fragility. I, you know, even as hard as I try, I'm never gonna be free, completely free from sin.

And there's certain ways in which I struggle. There's certain sins that I struggle with. And if I'm a perfectionist, I guess I could be discouraging, but what I would say is, one, it makes us more dependent on God.

It makes us more dependent on the work of his spirit. It brings us, it draws us to the Lord in repentance. You know, it was Martin Luther who said that the, you know, the Christian life is a life of daily repentance.

And so repenting of particular sins, repenting of sort of my tendency to be impatient or to have outbursts of anger or to be envious towards my brother or my sister, any of these things, like just recognizing that about myself, like God knows that.

And so that's an opportunity for me to bring that part as much as I'm ashamed of that, I have shame, I feel shame about those feelings,.

But to bring it to the Lord.

And the Lord knows about it anyway, bring it to the Lord, confess those sins and ask him to sort of help me and to heal me and to make me more like his son, Jesus. I think that whole dynamic is actually one of the important ways in which we grow, in which we grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So I think, I understand your question. I mean, I realize that there can be shame and we feel demoralized and so on, but it's just the reality, but it's that reality can drive us to Christ. And it's that reality that can drive us to repentance.

And that's the means by which the father conforms us to the image of his son.

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Okay.

Yeah, I know that what to sin is the same root word of like to miss, to miss the mark. Similar to like shooting a bow and arrow and you miss the bullseye. It doesn't feel that way though. It feels like even like that to me seems lighthearted and like I tried but I failed and I'll try again.

In the grand scheme of like Christianity, to sin feels like the ultimate thing that you could do to hurt Jesus. To sin is to do the complete opposite of what he asks. That when we have free will, we choose the wrong thing.

Right.

How do we balance that like lighthearted translation of like it just means to miss, which like to me it's like then try again because we always fall short. That has gentleness in it. That has kindness, that has understanding.

Right.

And then to sin in like modern terms is like, I killed a man. Like, you know, like it just seems so much more intense. It seems like you're the worst person ever. Is there, are we doing it correctly and we should be holding it with this much weight or should we give ourselves a break?

Right.

Yeah, that's an interesting question. I wonder if different people would sort of, in some ways that we have different reactions to descriptions of sin, you know, because you said missing the mark is lightheartedness.

I don't know that everyone would feel that way,.

But you know, but

Okay, that's fair.

But still, I get your point that some ways of thinking about sin seem to be much more serious and dire than others. And actually in scripture, there are many different ways that the Bible talks about sin.

You're right, missing the mark is one of them.

Right.

There is guilt, there is the idea of corruption. There's many ways the Bible talks about sin. And I think what that shows us is that sin is, I mean, it's this reality that just has, there's just many facets to it, right?

And there's many ways of talking about it. But in the end, in terms of giving ourselves a break, yeah, it depends. Again, this, you know, I think where the pastor in me just kind of, it sort of depends on who the person is,.

Right?

So I might be talking to someone, I might know this brother or sister in Christ. And I know that this person actually, they lean towards what we call, maybe we'll just call it antinomian, or they lean towards something like a cheap grace.

And that's a Christian who's like, you know what? God's job is to forgive us. He's up in heaven, that's what he does. It doesn't really matter how I live my life. It doesn't matter what I say or what I do, what I watch on the screen or whatever, he's gonna forgive me.

Now, if I know that that person has that kind of attitude or that view of the Christian life, then I'm probably, pastorally, I'm gonna want them to really see what is serious about sin. I want them to get the gravity of that.

I want them to feel like, no, like God, you can grieve the Holy Spirit, my friend. This is like a serious thing, don't God care. Like the book of James says, faith without works is dead. And you've got a view of the Christian life where the works don't matter, but James says they do matter in the sense that that's like evidence of saving faith.

So I'm gonna sort of come heavy that way because I feel like that's what that person needs to hear. However, there's other Christians who are, they are not there at all. They're very conscious about sin, about their sins.

In fact, they tend to be maybe very introspective, overly introspective. And I kind of see how I fall short every day. And so that kind of Christian, then, which I'm wondering if that's where your question is coming from, then if I'm counseling that person, I'm not gonna wanna, I don't wanna sort of talk about the seriousness of sin and how heavy it is because that's what he or she is doing every day.

That's part of the problem.

And I probably wanna, I want them to look to, I wanna sort of find a way to help them. Don't be looking inside yourself, navel-gazing and so self-flagellating all the time, but look outside of yourself to Christ and look to Christ and what he has done for you.

And also kind of remember the gospel, which is like, there's nothing you can do that can justify you before the Lord. Like you can't do anything so that God will be favorably disposed towards you. You're just not able to do that.

Like it doesn't matter how holy you are, how godly you are, you can't measure up. And once you realize that, you realize that then look to Jesus because Jesus is the one who is able to do that. Jesus is the one who lived a fully righteous life and he died and atoned for your sins.

Cling to him. And so I think for someone like that, I think helping them realize it's not about me in any way. So look to Christ. By the way, Lutherans tend to be really good at this. Just the Lutheran tradition is less, the Puritans maybe kind of had a, to a fault where maybe more introspective and tended to do a little bit of that navel gazing kind of stuff.

Whereas the Lutheran tradition is sort of Christ. Christ is God's perfect righteousness. And he was able to live the life that we weren't able to. So I think maybe Jesus, reminding them by Jesus and that nothing that you can do is gonna make you right with God, but it's what Jesus did.

And maybe that sort of shift in focus could help.

Yeah, that does help. And I think that you touched on a lot of things of like Jesus really meets us where we're at, that there's nothing we can do that Jesus already, like that he hasn't already done.

But he also kind of looks at our heart posture of how do we approach sin of like, well, he already died, so I might as well send it up, versus gosh, I keep falling short and that really does convict me.

I think just like one of the biggest things you're doing for me right now, Dr. Medweme, is kind of showing that there isn't a legalistic view of faith, because I think it's hard as a Christian, if you don't understand that God is willing to look at our heart posture, if you don't understand that God is willing to meet us where we're at, to point back to Jesus, you read scripture and you see how God cursed Ham back in Genesis nine.

And you say, you did this horrible thing to Noah, I'm gonna curse the Canaanites. But then you look at God didn't do that to David.

Right.

You know, he elevated him quite high, you know, talks well of him, you know, in the chapters that follow.

Right.

And so it's almost like, okay, so does God just play favorites? Or is it kind of, now that we look at this more closely, he was looking at the heart posture of Ham versus the heart posture of David.

Right.

No, I think you've put it really well. I do think God sees the heart in a way, often one of the themes in scripture is that we tend to look at the outside, we tend to sort of focus on what's visible on the outside, but then it's, but God sees what's on the inside and he sees the heart.

So I do think that's key.

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It costs nothing extra to you and it gives a small kickback to me, which helps the channel stay alive. Thank you so much. Now back to the show. Yeah, I think, okay, that definitely helps because I think just like personally, you want to be sinless, but you feel like falling short.

Like one of the things that I really struggled with recently is about a year ago, I got rebaptized as an adult. I was baptized Orthodox as a kid. And then, you know, this podcast has changed my life. And so I'm like, you know what?

Like my life is changed and I want publicly people to know that. And the day that I got baptized, like the Holy Spirit yanked me up. I did not plan on it. I was wearing my church dress. Like I did not plan on getting baptized that day, but I did.

And it was one of the best days of my life. I knew that I wanted to, but I was like, listen, I want to get baptized. And like, this was before it even happened, but I know I'm gonna sin afterwards. And I really struggled with that where I sought a lot of counsel.

Like, hey, you got baptized. How did you approach that sin that like you've been pretty public about? You're probably gonna do it again, not because, like, because we're human, you know, not in a shameful kind of way.

I know I have sins and I did fall short. You know, I got baptized a year ago and then I sinned a whole bunch because I'm human and I fell short and I do feel convicted about those sins. But it feels like I lived this life.

I wiped it clean. I had a clean slate and then I just dirtied it again. And I knew I would dirty it again. How could a God possibly be like, you're still gonna get into heaven because you got baptized in 2025?

You know, like that is hard. So what, help me there. What do I do with that?

I mean, you know, part of it is,.

I mean, part of just the story you're telling, which thanks for sharing that. I mean, part of it is even a theology of baptism. Does baptism, does baptism mean, do we have a view of baptism that it sort of cleans us of all our sins so that when I'm baptized, I'm now sort of this, you know, I'm completely sinless and then any other sins I commit, you know.

I mean, it's like, what's happening in baptism? There's that question. But I would also say, I would also say, you know, there's, I think it's 1 John. I mean, John is clear that actually, if you say that you're without sin, if anyone makes that claim, you're deceiving yourself because that's just, you're lying, right?

Because there is no one who is gonna be without sin. So, I mean, that's a pretty clear, so that's a pretty clear truth in scripture. So I think we're gonna have to balance a few things. One is to recognize we're always going to sin.

In this life, we're always gonna sin because of original sin. Because I have this condition, I'm always gonna sin. So that's the first thing. But then the second thing is, if I'm a Christian, I'm going to be bearing fruit.

You know, even that I'm gonna, I mentioned James, I'm gonna be producing works that are in keeping with repentance. Now we've gotta be careful there, right? Because that's gonna look different. You know, if I'm someone, I might be someone who came to faith when I was 19 or 20, and it was my second year of college.

And probably if I was genuinely converted, then just sort of cold turkey. I was no longer partying. I wasn't getting drunk like Friday, Saturday, and hungover on Sunday. I just quit because I realized I'm a Christian now.

So sometimes the way sanctification looks, like we can stop sinning just like that.

And never do it again.