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).

Love: It’s Nature, Requirements, and Costs

How is it that the Bible demands justice for the innocent and the guilty, and yet, we all guilty before God (Rom. 3:10-20, 23)? Similarly, we are to love and forgive all, but yet our God – our role-model – has ordained a punitive justice system:

• For he [the magistrate and the criminal justice system] is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. (Rom. 13:4)

Many Christians are confused by this dilemma and consequently reject one of these two seemingly opposite positions - usually justice and its “sword.” However, this leads to unbalanced decision-making. We might forgive our attacker not press any charges. However, when the attacker attacks again, it will bring our faith into disrepute. The next victim will understandably accuse us: “Because you didn’t bring any charges, this enabled him to attack me! How foolish you are!”

How then can we rationally embrace what seem like irreconcilable opposites - love and justice? They are different yet complementary truths. If we love our children, we will punish them. If we fail to train them up in this manner, they fail to learn valuable and necessary lessons. If we fail to bring charges against our attacker, we neither love the attacker or our neighbor.

Sometimes, love requires causing discomfort. If our friend wants to take crack cocaine, love would require us to warn even if it will cause discomfort and charges that, “You are judging me!” If our neighbor is creating a fire hazard on his property, love might require us to warn of the potential consequences or even call the fire marshal to take punitive action.

Love requires justice, and justice requires love. However, the biblical teachings on the subject might sound contradictory. For example, Jesus had taught that forgiveness was both conditional and unconditional:

• CONDITIONAL: “So watch yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.” (Luke 17:3)

• UNCONDITIONAL: “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins." (Mark 11:25)

This “contradiction” is resolved when we understand that there are two aspects of forgiveness (as love also takes many forms). While we should always pray for the offender and have a heart ready to forgive, restoration to fellowship (church) is a very different matter. Jesus taught that, unless the offender repents, he should not be restored:

• And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. (Mat. 18:17)

Restoration requires repentance. If you have a friend who has spread malicious lies about you, indeed, pray for him but do not reconcile until he repents. To do so would be to enable more of the same. This would not be love. Restoring a sinner to church without confession and a determination to leave behind the sin is not love but enablement.

God has established role distinctions. He has ordained the justice system to bring His wrath upon the evildoer.  Because God will punish through the courts, we need not be concerned about this task. This frees us up to love, as Paul had written:

• Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse…Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men.  If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.  Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath [Rom. 13:4]; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.” (Rom. 12:14, 17-19)

Because God “will repay,” we need not take justice into our own hands. After leaving wrath with God and the criminal justice system, we are freed to think about how we might be a blessing to the offender.

Although we are all guilty before God and therefore require His mercy, this doesn’t mean that we are guilty of a punishable criminal offense. Therefore, it is appropriate to talk about innocence and guilt – a critical distinction that God Himself makes (Exo. 23:7; Num. 5:31; Deut. 16:19; 19:10; 21:8; 25:1). He even insists that allowing the guilty to go free is no less an offense than convicting the innocent (Prov. 17:15).

This issue of love, and whether it entails warning and punishment is today on the cutting edge. We are called “hated-filled bigots” if we resist the gay agenda. However, we can lovingly respond that:

• If I would warn a friend against crack cocaine, should I not also warn against embracing the gay lifestyle, which is patently filled with many physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual costs? How does this make me a bigot?

If this reasoning is rejected, we find ourselves in the company of all of Israel’s Prophets and our Apostles and all the other righteous who had been vilified. But at least we know that we are walking in His light. Paul had warned:

• In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. (2 Tim. 3:12)

Therefore, do not be intimidated and pray that you might remain faithful.

Saving Predestination #3: Justice and Mercy Meet

 Even if a Martian could speak perfect English, we still would have great problems trying to understand him/it/she if he spoke about his own Martian experiences. There are many hard sayings in the Bible. If the Bible had been merely a human document, there wouldn’t be so many hard sayings, since the writers would have been writing from a human perspective. However, the Bible also represents a foreign and divine landscape. Therefore, we shouldn’t demand that everything is amenable to our understanding. When we do make such a demand, we stop being teachable.

The multitudes demanded that Jesus speak in a way that made sense to them. However, He instructed them that if they didn’t drink His blood and eat His flesh, they would have no life within them. Consequently, many of His would-be disciples rejected Him and wandered away (John 6:60).

The doctrine of “predestination” or “election” can be a troubling doctrine. However, there are so many verses that claim that God has chosen us, and not the other way around, that we need to listen and not wander off.

Jesus explicitly informed His disciples that “You did not choose me, but I chose you!” (John 15:16). He claimed that His disciples had been given to Him from the Father (John 6:37; 17:6). Although we must choose God, ultimately the choice was His:

• Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. (John 1:12-13)

Coming to Christ wasn’t primarily our decision. It was God’s, and, according to Paul, this decision was made even before God created the world:

• For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will. (Ephes. 1:4-5)

These verses inform us that there is no basis for the idea that we chose God, since the choosing took place even before our existence. However, God also says that He wants everyone to be saved (2 Pet. 3:9), and He does, but we all have rejected Him and have gone our own way (Isaiah 53:6). Clearly, God doesn’t ordain and cause everything that He desires. He wants us not to sin, but allows us to sin. He wants us all to confess our sins, but He doesn’t force us to do so. Therefore, wanting everyone to be saved isn’t the same thing as causing everyone to be saved.

Others argue that He chose us based upon foreknowing that we would be worthy of His choice, and that we would choose Him back.

However, this theory is at odds with God’s plan and concerns. God had purposely intended that salvation would be an absolutely free gift, not dependent upon any of our merit, so that none would be able to boast (Eph 2:8-9). However, the understanding, that God’s choice depends on His finding merit within us even before we existed, puts boasting back on the table! This would enable us to think, “God found something meritorious in me and therefore He chose me.”

However, the opposite is true. God purposely selected the outcasts – the low-life - to preclude any boasting:

• Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things--and the things that are not--to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. (1 Cor. 1:26-29)

Predestination-based-on-our-merit actually contradicts God’s purposes by suggesting that those whom God chooses are actually the deserving ones. However, Paul argues that the chosen are actually the least deserving ones. The temptation to boast is so great, that choosing the least esteemed would minimize this danger.

Consequently, God clearly chooses us apart from any merit on our part, and He wants us to understand this:

• [He] has saved us and called us to a holy life--not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time. (2 Tim. 1:9; 2 Thess. 2:13; Titus 3:5)

Paul explained that God had purposely chosen Jacob over his brother Esau before they were born to vividly demonstrate that the choice was God’s and not theirs:

• 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." It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. (Romans 9:11-18)

The fact that God had revealed, before the twins were born, that He chose Jacob demonstrated the mercy of God and ruled out the possibility that election depended on “man's desire or effort.”

Paul asked the rhetorical question, does predestination make “God unjust?” He answers that God can have mercy on whomever He wants. There is nothing unjust about this. The fact that we all had rejected God and refused His overtures justly required our condemnation (Romans 6:23). Consequently, there was only thing we deserved from God – damnation.

Granted, these are offensive words, but there is no question of any injustice on God’s part. We not only sinned repeatedly against Him, but we also had repeatedly refused His offer of remediation. What then was God to do? Justice required damnation! However, God wanted to be merciful, even though we didn’t deserve the slightest smile from Him.

Predestination is an expression of His mercy – His determination to save some of those who had rejected Him. There is nothing unfair at all about this. Jesus told a parable about a vineyard owner who had hired workers at the beginning of the day through the days end. However, He paid all the workers the same wage. The ones who had worked the longest complained that this was not just. However, the landowner reminded them that He had given them the very wage that they had decided upon at the beginning of the day:

• "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

Predestination is the generosity of God to those who had hated Him (Rom. 5:8-10; 8:7). We might question why the landowner was merciful to the last workers, but there is no basis to question His fairness. The landowner had the right to be merciful to whomever he pleased. He can throw a party and invite anyone He so chooses.

We might protest that he should have invited everyone. However, none of those that He didn’t invite will cry out, “Forgive me Lord and have mercy upon me.” The Rich Man who died with Lazarus never cried out for forgiveness or salvation when he found himself in a place of torment. He had no interest in being with God. Instead, he merely sought less discomfort (Luke 16:19-31). Ultimately, everyone goes where they want to go (John 3:17-19). Consequently, there is no account in Scripture where someone sincerely asks the Lord for forgiveness and is turned away.

Well, don’t we have to exercise faith? Yes, but it’s a faith that He gives us. In keeping with the idea that salvation is a free gift, faith also is a free gift:

• For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- not by works, so that no one can boast. (Ephes. 2:8-9; also 1 Cor. 12:9; Rom. 12:3; Phil. 1:29; Acts 16:14; 18:27; 13:48; 3:16; 1 Peter 1:20)

There are just too many verses that claim that God chooses us. If we ignore or modify them, we do so at our own peril. God chose the cruel Assyrians to bring judgment upon Israel. However, Assyria claimed credit for their military victories:

• "By the strength of my hand I have done this, and by my wisdom, because I have understanding. I removed the boundaries of nations, I plundered their treasures; like a mighty one I subdued their kings.” (Isaiah 10:13)

Therefore, God was angry with Assyria and would bring judgment upon them:

• Does the ax [Assyria] raise itself above him [God] who swings it, or the saw boast against him who uses it? As if a rod were to wield him who lifts it up, or a club brandish him who is not wood! Therefore, the Lord, the Lord Almighty, will send a wasting disease upon his sturdy warriors [Assyria]. (Isaiah 10:15-16)

Assyria refused to acknowledge that her achievements were accomplished because God had chosen them. Accordingly, they suffered judgment.

I think that the same principle applies to us. When we refuse to acknowledge, in the face of so many verses, that God gave us salvation by choosing us, we take credit for this choice and bring His displeasure upon ourselves.

One last thought: Some resent this doctrine because they want God but fear that they aren’t predestined. This fear is oxymoronic. If we want God and call upon Him in truth, we are predestined and will be saved:

• Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. (Romans 10:13)

• All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. (John 6:37 )

If we truly esteem the things of God, we are predestined:

• The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Cor. 2:14)

The non-predestined rejects the things of God as “foolishness.” If we esteem His salvation, it means that we are not non-predestined. What can be simpler!