John Calvin Commentary Psalms 51:5

"Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity; And in sin did my mother conceive me." — Psalms 51:5 (ASV)

Behold, I was born in iniquity, etc. He now proceeds further than the mere acknowledgement of one or of many sins, confessing that he brought nothing but sin with him into the world, and that his nature was entirely depraved. He is thus led by the consideration of one offense of peculiar atrocity to the conclusion that he was born in iniquity, and was absolutely destitute of all spiritual good.

Indeed, every sin should convince us of the general truth of the corruption of our nature. The Hebrew word יחמתני, yechemathni, signifies literally, has warmed herself of me, from יחם, yacham, or חמם, chamam, to warm; but interpreters have very properly rendered it has conceived me. The expression intimates that we are cherished in sin from the first moment that we are in the womb.

David, then, is here brought, by reflecting on one particular transgression, to cast a retrospective glance upon his whole past life, and to discover nothing but sin in it. And let us not imagine that he speaks of the corruption of his nature merely as hypocrites will occasionally do, to excuse their faults, saying, “I have sinned, it may be, but what could I do? We are men, and prone by nature to everything which is evil.” David has recourse to no such stratagems for evading the sentence of God, and refers to original sin with the view of aggravating his guilt, acknowledging that he had not contracted this or that sin for the first time lately, but had been born into the world with the seed of every iniquity.

The passage affords a striking testimony in proof of original sin entailed by Adam upon the whole human family. It not only teaches the doctrine, but may assist us in forming a correct idea of it. The Pelagians, to avoid what they considered the absurdity of holding that all were ruined through one man’s transgression, long ago maintained that sin descended from Adam only through force of imitation.

But the Bible, both in this and other places, clearly asserts that we are born in sin, and that it exists within us as a disease fixed in our nature. David does not charge it upon his parents, nor trace his crime to them, but places himself before the Divine tribunal, confesses that he was formed in sin, and that he was a transgressor before he saw the light of this world.

It was therefore a gross error in Pelagius to deny that sin was hereditary, descending in the human family by contagion.

The Papists, in our own day, grant that the nature of man has become depraved, but they extenuate original sin as much as possible, and represent it as consisting merely in an inclination to that which is evil. They also restrict its seat to the inferior part of the soul and the gross appetites; and while nothing is more evident from experience than that corruption adheres to men through life, they deny that it remains in them after baptism.

We have no adequate idea of the dominion of sin unless we conceive of it as extending to every part of the soul, and acknowledge that both the mind and heart of man have become utterly corrupt. The language of David sounds very differently from that of the Papists: I was formed in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. He says nothing of his grosser appetites, but asserts that sin cleaved by nature to every part of him without exception.

Here the question has been raised: How is sin transmitted from parents to children? This question has led to another regarding the transmission of the soul, with many denying that corruption can be derived from the parent to the child, except on the supposition that one soul is begotten from the substance of another.

Without entering into such mysterious discussions, it is enough for us to hold that Adam, upon his fall, was despoiled of his original righteousness, his reason darkened, and his will perverted. Being reduced to this state of corruption, he brought children into the world resembling himself in character.

Should any object that generation is confined to bodies, and that souls can never derive anything in common from one another, I would reply that Adam, when he was endowed at his creation with the gifts of the Spirit, did not act merely as a private individual but represented all mankind. They may be considered as having been endowed with these gifts in his person. From this view, it necessarily follows that when he fell, we all forfeited along with him our original integrity.