Southern Baptist statesman and pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas W.A. Criswell is a much loved figure in Southern Baptist life. Recently, I posted how the author of the Traditionalist Statement Eric Hankins claimed a Criswell soteriology and then drafted a soteriological statement that Criswell would not affirm. It seems one more area that the Traditionalists are in stark disagreement with Criswell is over the doctrine of Imputed Guilt.
This morning, Rick Patrick posted another article at SBC Today arguing that Paul in Romans 5:12 is not communicating that all humans sinned “in Adam” but that man merely receives the consequences of the fall Adam brought forth, not Adam’s guilt. This understanding of original sin and guilt is not the view of historic Southern Baptists nor that of W.A. Criswell as evidenced below.
In Adam’s fall, all of us were made sinners. In one man, all of us died. All of us died, for we are in the loins of our fathers. I was in the loins of my parents. They were in the loins of their parents. If you ever studied genetics and those chromosomes, they never—you don’t have a new one. It’s always the half of the one that’s in your parents. And that goes back and back and back and back to Adam. All of us were in the loins of the federal head, the representative man, the first Adam. And when Adam sinned, all of us sinned. When he fell, all of us fell. By his offense, all of us were made guilty.
…But in Adam’s transgression, all of us were made guilty. In Adam’s transgression, all of us became sinners. In Adam’s transgression, the whole world became guilty before God.
Source: Why God Permitted Adam’s Transgression, Dr. W. A. Criswell
Once again, we see that Criswell’s theology stands in stark contrast to the theology of the self-described “Traditionalists.”
