Teaching children, disciples, or students about the doctrine of original sin and its entrance into the human race can prove to be a challenge. Sin has been defined as “missing the mark,” a rather innocuous way of describing a phenomenon so lethal that it brings death to the entire human race. As I said, it’s a challenge to vividly communicate the catastrophic nature of sin to children, students, and our disciples.

It is reasonable to assume that since the entire redemptive program of God in Jesus Christ was a gracious response to human sin, then surely Scripture provides us with a corresponding analogy of its deadly nature. Surely God has provided us with a description that sheds light on the terminal effects of sin on the human race and one which our children and our disciples understand.

In fact, it does. Scripture provides us with a simple yet effective analogy of describing the nature of sin and how it entered and doomed our human race to die. Children, especially children living in 2020, will readily grasp God’s analogy of the contagious nature of sin and how it spreads.    

The analogy the Bible provides comes together in a series of three episodes in redemptive history. These three episodes are linked together canonically to explain the deadly nature of human sin, how it spread from the first man to contaminate the entire human race. But these three episodes have been examined in isolation from each other; disconnected. But when we observe the clues the biblical author used to attach these stories together--forming a chain--an analogy of the deadly nature of sin emerges. It’s an analogy that even children, especially today’s children, can understand.   

Let’s get started and examine the first episode, the entrance of sin into the human race.

Our first parents failed to accept that knowledge was God’s prerogative alone. It was God’s prerogative to know what was good, what was beneficial and helpful to the human race (Gen 2:15-17). It was also his prerogative to know what was not helpful to them, described as evil.

This is perfectly reasonable to accept when we consider that God alone is the maker of reality and of knowledge itself. The only accurate description of reality is what is known to God. He, then, is the only inerrant interpreter of reality and knowledge.

For the benefit of their own welfare, then, our parents needed to let God be God. By faith, let God be the final arbiter of what is good, what is beneficial to us. But no. They wanted that prerogative for themselves. They wanted to play God. They decided that they knew what was good and what was evil. Despite a clear demonstration of God’s knowledge of what was good (Genesis 1:2-31), like foolish children, they failed to trust God’s knowledge, failed to trust His Word, and took and ate fruit from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3:6).

Based upon that act of unbelief, that act of sin, their eyes were opened and they knew that they were naked. Hold onto that note about nakedness. It is important in the chain of sin. As a result of their sin, God quarantined them, expelling them from His presence, the first case of social distancing. They no longer had fellowship with God and were now barred from the life-giving fruit of the tree of life and so they died (Genesis 5:1-5). Based upon his knowledge, God warned them that they would surely die (Genesis 3:16). And that is exactly what happened. God knew.

The apostle Paul, reading off of this episode in Genesis, interprets this pivotal event as the opening of the door through which a virus entered and spread to the human race: the virus of sin issuing in death.

And so, it is, that just as sin entered into the world through one man, and death entered through sin, and so death spread to all human beings because all sinned.  Romans 5:12

Sin and death spread. It is no coincidence that the very next story in Genesis 4 shows the contagious spread of sin’s infection. Cain is the firstborn son of Adam. He is a character the writer casts as the seed of the serpent.[1] Due to his fierce anger, Cain sins by murdering his younger brother Abel at worship. Sin’s infection has spread from father to son. Adam was contaminated first and then Cain caught the same infectious virus. Adam took the forbidden fruit. Cain took human life.

So, how are we to understand the spread of sin from Adam the father to his son Cain? How are we to teach children the spreading nature of sin? How do we explain the spread of sin?

The Bible itself answers our questions about the spreading nature of sin. Here’s how. Moses, the author of the Pentateuch, connects three stories like three links joined together to form a chain.[2] The first story is what we’ve just recounted about how God—due to human sin--quarantined Adam and Eve from His immediate presence in the Garden. He expelled them from his presence in the Garden.[3]

We’re going to skip the second link in the chain for a moment and jump to the third. The way that sin spreads its infection by nature is illustrated for us in God’s regulations for infectious skin diseases and spreading mildew in homes (Leviticus 13:1—14:57; no wonder that this illustration of sin has been overlooked. Leviticus is not everyone’s favorite portion of the Bible).[4]

When a skin disease was detected on a person’s skin or clothing, that person was immediately quarantined. He had to be quarantined and remain outside the camp and his clothing either washed with water or destroyed (13:54-57).

As long as he has the infection, he remains unclean. He must live alone; he must live outside the camp. Lev. 13:46

And if a house was found with spreading mildew, the residents had to vacate it (a type of quarantine) for seven days because it was now unclean. Certain procedures had to be followed to deal with the spreading mildew. The house had to be scraped and the stones with mildew were removed and replaced. Then the house was plastered. If the mildew reappeared, the house had to be destroyed. But if the mildew had stopped, birds were sacrificed and water was used to wash the house and make it clean (Lev. 14:33-57).  

Pause for a moment. Did you observe the connections with sin in Genesis 3? Just as human skin was the focus of human guilt—"they knew that they were naked”—they knew they were guilty and needed forgiveness, so also the disease on the skin demonstrated the need for quarantine and cleansing.

And both Adam and Eve and the person with a skin disease suffered the same consequences. They were quarantined, made to live outside the camp, outside the community of faith (Genesis 3:23-24; Lev. 13:46). Original sin, then, is shown to be like a contagious skin disease. It spreads and infects. Sin’s very nature, then, is to spread and infect its victims. The sin of Adam spread like a disease to his son Cain. And the Cain story shows us it’s deadly effects on the human heart.

But let’s jump back now and examine the second link in the chain. It’s the story of the flood in Genesis 6-8. The spread of sin continued through Cain, infecting the rest of the human race. Just prior to the story of the flood, we find this dark description of how thoroughly sin spread and infected the entire human race:

The LORD saw[5] how great human wickedness had become on the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time…So the LORD said, I will wipe out the human race, whom I have created, from the face of the earth…” Genesis 6:5-7a

In order to cleanse the earth of its contamination of human evil and check the spread of sin, God used a deluge of water. By way of parallel, God also used water to cleanse the contaminated person with a skin disease and his clothing and to check its further spread.

Observe the striking connections in the flood story in Genesis 6-8 with God’s instructions to deal with a skin disease or mildewed house.

Just as Noah’s Ark was plastered inside and out (Gen 6:14), so also the mildewed house was plastered (Lev 14:41-42). Noah had to wait 7 days at the door of the Ark (Gen 7:4). The priest also had to wait 7 days at the door of the house (Lev 14:38). Two birds were used in both cases (Gen 8:7-9; Lev 14:7-8). Sacrifices were offered at the conclusion in both accounts (Gen 9:20; Lev 14:10, 21).

Finally, at the conclusion of both the flood story and the cleansing of the skin disease instruction, God established a covenant and provided a sign of the covenant in the cloud (Gen 9:14-15; Lev 16:2; 26:44). The regulations about skin diseases were intentionally written to remind us of the flood story. It’s sort of a reenactment.

Let’s review. The Bible provides us three visual links in a chain to help us understand the spreading, contagious nature of human sin. Those three links are: first link, the contaminating, spreading nature of the evil of sin in Adam and Eve to their children, requiring quarantine from God’s presence and forgiveness through sacrifice; second link, the story of God cleansing the earth from the spreading contagion of evil by the waters of flood, requiring prolonged quarantine[6] for Noah and family and a sacrifice; and third link, his instructions for dealing with the spread of infectious skin diseases on a person and mildew in a house, requiring quarantine, the washing with water for those infected, and a sacrifice.

So, with those three links connected together to form one large picture, how, then, do we explain the abstract concept of sin to children, disciples, and students? What pictures and ideas can we use to clearly communicate its deadly nature? Scripture provides us with a timely, relevant, and understandable analogy. God’s view of the nature of sin is the ugly picture we need to grasp and communicate.

Using the present phenomenon of Covid-19 as an illustrating backdrop, we can teach our children that sin is a deadly, contagious pandemic. It results in our quarantine from fellowship with God and puts us outside his camp. Sin’s very nature is to spread. It is contagious 100% of the time. Sin spreads its contaminating, deadly infection from family to family. The result is worldwide death. Sin remains the worst pandemic in human history. Hand-washing and masks just won’t solve our problem. We need God’s redemptive cure.

Sin’s contaminating effects requires quarantine from God’s holy presence, cleansing[7] to check its spread, and also a sacrifice—the substitutionary, sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross--enabling us to re-enter God’s mountain-top presence and return to a place inside the camp.

Peter’s words provide us with an explanation about the saving role of Jesus to end our quarantine and restore us to a place in his camp.

18 Christ himself suffered on account of sins, once for all, the righteous one on behalf of the unrighteous. He suffered in order to bring us into the presence of God. Christ was put to death as a human, but made alive by the Spirit. 19 And it was by the Spirit that he went to preach to the spirits in prison. 20 In the past, these spirits were disobedient—when God patiently waited during the time of Noah. Noah built an ark in which a few (that is, eight) souls were saved through water. 21 Baptism is like that. It saves you now—not because it removes dirt from your fleshly body, but because it is the avowal of a good conscience toward God. Your salvation comes through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who is at God’s right side. Now that he has gone into heaven, all angels, authorities, and powers are in subjection to him. 1 Peter 3: 18-22

Thank you for reading.

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[1] The characters in both Old and New Testaments who are cast as seeds of the serpent are exposed by their response to the voice of the Lord. Cain refused to obey the voice of the Lord. Even God could not talk him out of his sin. The Jews who believed Jesus in John 8:31-59 are cast as seeds of the serpent because they do not hold to Jesus’ teaching and because they want to kill him. Jesus states that they are like their father the devil, a murderer, one who did not hold to the truth.

[2] The entire Bible is written this same way. This pattern is called a canonical approach to studying the Scripture. Each major unifying theme of the Bible (the fatherly care of God, listening to His voice, worship, to see, to walk, to eat, soil, dry ground, Promised Land, quarantine, water as a barrier to God’s provision, east, mountains, trees, trees of testing, water, sleep, fruit, male, female, priesthood, royalty, temple, food, meals, marriage, family, guilt, clothing, nakedness, wisdom, serpent, etc.) is present in seed form in Genesis 1-3. The rest of the story of the Bible, the story of redemption, continually uses these same unifying themes to help us keep track of the story and also to see the big picture. For example, Adam was the first sleeper. That theme is raised again with Abraham, Jacob, Jonah, various Psalms such as Psalm 3, Peter, James, and John (2x), and the daughter of Jairus. These sleepers are all connected to the first sleeper, Adam.

[3] The Garden located in the eastern part of Eden is the first holy of holies in the Bible, the first earthly location of God’s presence. There are multiple linguistic, lexical, and theological connections between the tabernacle and the Garden located in Eden. The author is showing us that the tabernacle is God’s temporary provision to restore what was lost in Genesis 3.  

[4] Credit for the seed bed of these canonical connections goes to the late John Sailhamer, PhD, my doctoral supervisor. See his book, The Pentateuch as Narrative (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), pp. 336-339.

[5] The act of “seeing” is a major unifying theme of both the Pentateuch and the entire Bible. The vision of what God saw in Genesis 6 is a major contrast with the good which he saw in Genesis 1:2-31.

[6] Noah and his family remained in the Ark for 372 days, just over a year.

[7] The washing away of earth’s evil with water at the flood, followed by sacrifice, and the cleansing with water of skin diseases, followed by sacrifice, partly explains the association of water baptism with forgiveness of sins in the New Testament. “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, so that your sins may be forgiven.” “Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.” Acts 2:28; 22:16; ‘He saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit.” Titus 3:5 Baptism, of course, does not save. But the NT writers often use shorthand when depicting how sinners are saved. They will use terms such as “call upon the name of the Lord,” “repent,” “believe,” “be baptized,” “turn,” “calling on his name,” etc.