ARE WE BORN WITH A SIN NATURE?

This is the question of “original sin,” and it involves several questions. Are we born:

·       Guilty of Adam’s sin?

·       Under the wrath of God?

·       Without the ability to choose God?

·       Are we born with a sin nature?

Even though these questions divide Bible-believing Christians, we cannot ignore them. Too much is at stake:

·       It seems to undermine God’s righteousness if He condemns those who had no choice but to reject Him.

·       It also seems to undermine the Bible’s teaching about our culpability, if we were born sinners without a chance to come to God.

Because of the weightiness of the stakes, we have to carefully examine the Bible’s teachings about the impact of Adam’s sin and the Fall upon humanity. When we examine Genesis 3, we do not find any explicit evidence for the first four assertions. Instead, we observe the advent of sin and death and banishment from the perfectly sustaining environment, the Garden of Eden.

We don't find any explicit evidence from this account that humanity would now inherit a sin nature or that they are born guilty of Adam’s sin. Certainly, Adam and Eve did not need a sin nature in order to sin. Rather, they willingly sinned. 

Even after the Fall, God informed the sinner Cain that he is accountable for his sins, and that he must correct them:

• "Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it." (Genesis 4:6-7 ESV)

According to God, Cain was fully responsible for his behavior. Nor did Cain respond:

• God, you really can't blame because it was you who imposed on me a sin nature.

In fact, James warns us against using such an excuse to justify our sin:

• Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God," for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his OWN desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. (James 1:13--15)

God didn’t instill us our evil desires. Instead, we have to take responsibility and flee from them. Nor were we born dead in sin. Instead, James claimed that death only occurs once our own desire gives birth to sin.

Therefore, we should not rationalize our sin, thinking "Adam or my upbringing made me do it." Instead, we have to fully confess our responsibility.

Is it possible that we are born incapable of choosing God and even doing what is right? It seems that Scripture also deprives us of this excuse:

• For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Romans 1:18--20)

We are without any excuse for rejecting God. Consequently, we cannot dismiss our guilt for rejecting God:

• I was born with a sin nature. Consequently, it was not possible for me to choose God.

In fact, Israel had many excuses, but they never resorted to this excuse. It was even on their radar. Why not? It must have been unthinkable.

Even ignorance of the law is only a temporary excuse, at best. For one thing, the law is written on every heart (Romans 2:14-16). 

For another thing, the law had been recorded in the Mosaic Law. Consequently, after the Israelite had become aware that he had sinned unknowingly, he was not let off the hook. He was still required to sacrifice an animal and to make reparations.

In addition to this, God had often claimed that He had given us everything we needed for blessedness:

·       “Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?” (Isaiah 5:1-4 ESV)

God claimed that there was nothing more He could have done for Israel. Besides, Israel never complained that God had created them to be sinners and had withheld from them the freedom to choose God. 

According to Scripture, each one of us is at fault and not God. The consistent message of Scripture is that we deserve His condemnation:

·       Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. (Romans 2:1-2)

Lastly, we are without excuse because Jesus brought light into the world and confirmed it through His miracles:

·       “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin [of hating Jesus?]. Whoever hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: 'They hated me without a cause.'” (John 15:22-25)

Also, it seems that we were born free from His wrath and not spiritually dead:

• And I was alive apart from the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died; and the commandment, which was unto life, this I found to be unto death: for sin, finding occasion, through the commandment beguiled me, and through it slew me.” (Romans 7:9-11; 6:16)

Paul, speaking for all humanity, claimed that he had been spiritually “alive” at the time he was born – no indication that he had been born under God’s wrath. Only later did sin spiritually slay him.

The problem verses

Psalm 51:5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

It is impossible to understand this verse literally that David was blaming his mother. Instead, it should be understood hyperbolically. David is merely confessing that he had been sinning from the earliest.

Ephesians 2:3 Among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

This verse does not say that we were born “by nature children of wrath.” In keeping with the context, it would seem that we had become “children of wrath.”

Romans 5:18-19 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. (also, 1 Cor. 15:22)

These verses are not explicit about how Adam’s sin led to our condemnation and death. In keeping with the parallel Paul draws between Adam and Jesus, it seems best to apply the NT pattern:

Jesus’ Atonement - through our receiving this gift - Justification

====================

Adam’s sin - though our endorsing his sin through our own sin - Death, Condemnation

Paul seems to endorse this parallel between Adam and Jesus:

·       Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— (Romans 5:12)

Death came to us because we embraced Adam’s sin through our own sins.

I prefer this understanding because it doesn’t impugn God’s righteousness and places the entire blame on us, where it belongs.

Besides, the skeptic claims:

·       God has no right to judge me for rejecting Him. He had stacked the deck against me.

This challenge gives the skeptic a formidable excuse. I think that, in love, we must deprive him of this unbiblical excuse.

Do these verses prove that we are all born as “children of wrath” with a sin nature and without the ability to come to God?

·       Romans 9:19-23 You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?”  Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—

I don’t think so. Instead, we need to understand them contextually in terms of Pharaoh, who God had raised up to accomplish His purposes. Was he a “vessel of wrath prepared for destruction?” The answer must be “Yes!” When? Indeed, it seems like he was prepared for this fate before he was born. However, this places Pharaoh in a very different category from the “vessels of mercy.” This distinction claims that certain people are born “vessels of wrath” and others “vessels of mercy.”

Consequently, this distinction undermines the idea that we are ALL born under sin, and by nature, children of wrath. Clearly, Pharaoh was in a different category.

Did this mean that Pharaoh did not have the freewill to choose God? I don’t think so. While the original account speaks about God hardening Pharaoh’s heart, it also speaks about Pharaoh hardening his own heart.

So what does it mean to be “prepared for destruction?” Did God bring Pharaoh into the world with an evil heart but the “vessels of mercy” with good hearts? Certainly not! Instead, God had chosen the least worthy among us, otherwise, we would have a reason to boast of our superior heart (1 Corinthians 1:26-29).

Then how did God prepare Pharaoh “for destruction?” By allowing him to choose His own sinful ways, hardening his own heart, and God then helped and directed him in his chosen course (Romans 1:24-28).

OMNISCIENCE AND FREEWILL

If God is omniscient and knows all future events, He knows exactly what we will do before we do it and, therefore, we could not act otherwise. If we could, it would mean that God is not omniscient, something the Bible rules out. Therefore, it would seem that if God is omniscient, we do not have freewill and are not morally responsible.

To demonstrate this alleged conflict within the biblical faith, one atheist stated it this way:

·       PREMISE #1 – God knows every future event.

·       PREMISE #2  - We cannot act in a way contrary to how God knows we will act.

·       CONCLUSION #1 -  We do not have freewill.

·       CONCLUSION #2 -  God is not just in judging us, since we could not act otherwise.

However, there is a problem with PREMISE #2. Instead, of “we CANNOT act otherwise,” this phrase can just as easily be rendered “we WILL NOT act otherwise” to preserve our freewill. The difference in meaning is enormous! The last phrase suggests that we do have freewill even though we act in accordance with God’s omniscience – that we COULD have acted otherwise but WILL NOT do so. Therefore, God remains omniscient and we remain free moral agents.

IS ELECTION/PREDESTINATION UNJUST?

Paul gives us a very clear “No”:

• Rebekah's children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad--in order that God's purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls--she was told, "The older will serve the younger." Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." (Romans 9:10-15)

But wasn’t it unjust to choose Jacob over Esau? Doesn’t God illegitimately discriminate? Jesus addressed this very question in a parable. The vineyard owner (God) hired several in the morning to work his vineyard. Throughout the day, he hired more workers. However, at the end of the day, he gave everyone the denarius he had promised to give the first workers. However, these were angry with the owner that he had given everyone the same, in light of the fact that they had worked the longest. However, the owner responded:

• "But he answered one of them, 'Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?'” (Matthew 20:13-15)

Certainly, we also have the right to be merciful to only those to whom we want to show mercy. If you only invite your friends to your party, a neighbor would not charge you with being unjust for not inviting him.

If the owner had only given the first workers half a denarius, he would have been unjust by violating the terms of their agreement. But he gave them the agreed-upon wage.

The question then is not about justice but about mercy. While justice cannot discriminate, mercy certainly can and does!

However, for many, the doctrine of election is appalling:

• It is the ultimate act of cruelty to condemn those of us who want to be saved to damnation, simply because we are not among the elect.

In fact, it might even appear that this is what God is doing:

• It [salvation] does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. (Romans 9:16-18)

It seems that even before the unfortunate Pharaoh had been born, God had damned him and hardened his heart. However, when we examine the Exodus account, we find that God didn’t harden the heart of an innocent man but one who had already hardened his own heart (Exodus 3:7-10). Besides, the account also reads that “Pharaoh hardened his heart (8:15). The fault then doesn’t belong to God but to Pharaoh and to all who reject His mercy.

Sadly, all humanity rejects God (Romans 3:10-16) and are “without excuse” (Romans 1:18-20) in refusing to come to Him (Matthew 23:37). Therefore, if God acted according to what justice required, we would all be killed. (This might be hard to see, but consider, perhaps we are only seeing superficially!)

It is not a matter that there are seekers who want God, but this “unmerciful” God turns them away. Instead, He cries out for His people to return to Him:

• “Go, proclaim this message toward the north: "'Return, faithless Israel,' declares the LORD, 'I will frown on you no longer, for I am merciful,' declares the LORD, 'I will not be angry forever. Only acknowledge your guilt-- you have rebelled against the LORD your God, you have scattered your favors to foreign gods under every spreading tree, and have not obeyed me,'" declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 3:12-13)

However, coming into the light and acknowledging our guilt is precisely the thing that we will not do. However, God remains merciful to all who call upon Him:

• For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile--the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." (Romans 10:12-13)

In light of this, the fault is not with God’s elective decisions to save some of the unworthy but with the unworthy themselves, who have rejected God! Salvation is entirely a gift from our merciful Savior. And this is something that is necessary to acknowledge for the sake of our spiritual maturity – our relationship with our Savior.

Once we take credit for choosing Him – the credit that God alone deserves (Eph. 2:8-9; 1 Cor. 1:26-29; John 15:16) – we distance ourselves from Him.