In the New Testament, the chief passages which are supposed to bear on this subject are in Romans, chapter v. These are the main texts:
Verse 12: "Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned."
Verse 19: "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous."
Here we again are to discriminate between facts and theories. The facts here stated are, that by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; that death comes on all men because all sin; and that by one man's disobedience many were made sinners.
Then come the theories as to the mode by which many were made sinners by the sin of one man.
Here the Bible is silent. But theologians have manufactured the theory that when Adam sinned the constitution of his mind was changed, and then that this nature was transmitted to his descendants. All this is without a word of proof.
Others have assumed that all mankind were existing in Adam, and "sinned in him, and fell with him," which is both unintelligible, and equally without support from the Bible.
These, it is believed, are all ever claimed as direct Scripture evidence of a depraved constitution of mind consequent on Adam's sin. Two other passages are quoted as having an indirect bearing on this subject. They are as follows:
2 Peter, ii., 4: "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment"—
Jude, 6 verse: "And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day."