Where Did Jesus Die? — Page 127
Chapter Ten—Redemption or Atonement 127 3. The assertion that all men sin and that nobody can be justified by the law in the sight of God without believing in the ran- som paid by Jesus for his Original Sin, is absolutely wrong. We read in Luke, chapter 1, verse 6, that both Zacharias and his wife ‘were both righteous before God, walking in all the com- mandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless’. Mary, the mother of Jesus, according to the belief of Roman Catholics, was sinless. 4. Original Sin is only an invention of the Pagan Christian, and it is nowhere mentioned in the Old Testament. The opinion of the Christian divines is divided on this question. In the 5th century, Pelagius declared the capacity of every man to become virtuous by his own efforts, and summoned the members of the Church in Rome to enter on the way of perfection in monasticism. His friend, Caelestius, was in 412 charged with and excommunicated for heresy, because he regarded Adam as well as all his descendants as naturally mortal, denied the racial consequences of Adam’s fall, asserted the entire innocence of newborn, recognised sinless men before the coming of Christ. Pelagius insisted that sin was an act not a state, an abuse of the freedom of the will and that each man was responsible and liable to punishment only for his own acts. 1 And our religion Islam, the religion of reason and wisdom, does not recognise Original Sin. A child is born with a pure 1. Ency. Britt. edition 11.