Living Water of Washington DC. A Christian Outreach Ministry.

The Sinful Nature of Mankind

When asked who killed Jesus, Mel Gibson said, "The big answer is, we all did.”

To sin is to fall short of God’s holy standards, which are best known by their codification in the Ten Commandments. Without a remedy given to us from outside of ourselves, we remain under God’s wrath because we fall far short of His standards (John 3:36; Eph 2:3). Unless we are saved, we are born condemned to physical and spiritual death and eternal separation from God (Ps 51:5; Rom 5:16). Condemnation is the Bible’s word for the second death (Rev 20:14-15), the final penalty for all sins. Such condemnation will take place for all who have not placed their trust in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior when the day of God’s righteous judgment comes (John 12:48).

We know that in God’s infinite wisdom, which is sovereign and exercised over all things in the universe, He created man with free will. He had the power to do this and, likewise, the power to decree punishment for those who exercise their free will in rebellion against Him. But this being the case, the difficult question arises: If God is sovereign and in control of all things, including man’s sin, then how can God blame man for his sin?

Job understood the eternal truth that he, as a man, was to blame even though he was blameless by human standards. “Though I were innocent, I could not answer Him; I could only plead with my Judge for mercy… Even if I were innocent, my mouth would condemn me; if I were blameless, it would pronounce me guilty” (Job 9:15, 20). Job understood that he lacked innocence compared to the holy perfection of God. Job was guilty in the face of a holy God and could do nothing to avoid the judgment of God. That is why he rested on God’s mercy, just as the apostle Paul rested on God’s mercy according to Romans 9, saying, “It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy” (v. 16). The Good News, of course, is that Christ is the fulfillment of God’s mercy. Job pleaded years before the advent of Christ, “If only there were Someone to arbitrate between us, to lay His hands upon us both, Someone to remove God’s rod from me, so that His terror would frighten me no more” (Job 9: 33-34). Thank you Jesus!

A man is not made prone to sin by the actions of another; a man is prone from birth because of his own sinful nature. A man never knows the good news of the love of God until he knows the bad news first: that his sin is ugly in God’s sight and that he is completely accountable for it. Then comes the good news: that God, with tremendous love, provided a way out through the blood of Jesus Christ. The new covenant is all about being motivated by the particular love that is engendered when one comes to know these things. Without knowing these things, a man cannot know the depth of the love of God and will never serve God with gratitude.

Romans 1:20 declares that all men are responsible for their sin, that “they are without excuse.” Excuses make the cross of Christ unnecessary. By the grace of God, the thief on the cross who was saved from hell came to terms with this Truth and made no excuse. He exclaimed on his cross “We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve” (Luke 23:41). The man came to terms with his depravity in the face of a holy God and accepted his responsibility for it, knowing that his penalty was just. But the man repented and believed in Jesus as his Lord and Savior, knowing that Jesus saved him from the penalty he deserved.

Satan has been creating all sorts of false belief systems that turn people away from the cross of Christ. These belief systems have important common themes. For example, the false teaching of Islam shares a theme that is rampant in Western secularism: that all men are born good and that sin is the result of external influence and intruding factors. Ultimately, an issue facing Muslims is the same issue facing most unbelievers including those in the West: the need to be convicted of their utter depravity in the face of a holy God, their own responsibility for such depravity, and their total helplessness to remedy the situation without the grace of Christ. Muslims deny what king David confessed in Psalm 51, namely that man is born sinful and steeped in a dilemma of cosmic proportions from the very start of his life. Without such conviction, there is no need for a substitutionary, perfect sacrifice on the cross. Satan has created religions such as Islam to woo sinners away from the battlefield of the cross of Christ, where Satan lost. However, Islam differs from Western secularism in that Muslims believe in a Judgement against all unrighteousness, whereas the Western secular system rejects the notion of judgment. For example, consider the courtrooms of America, where all sorts of defenses have cropped up over the years shifting blame away from the criminal and toward his upbringing, genetic makeup, or the acts of others people. Or consider modern psychology, which has also dished up countless excuses, explanations, and rationalizations for what the Bible clearly identifies as sin deserving of the wrath of God. Being absolved of responsibility for sin at the hands of secularism and psychology, individuals lose the need for the only real defense that God mercifully provided and accepts: the defense of the blood of Christ (see Heb 9:11-28). The devil’s modus operandi is clear. Since Adam and Eve, he has been telling humans in one clever way or another that if they disobey God, they will surely not be blamed - they will not die (Gen 3:4).

As a Christian, I’m very concerned about the introduction of unbiblical concepts such as a men’s “wounds” (from John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart ) intended to replace the sinful nature of man described in the Bible. The central problem that is identified for us in the entire Bible, the problem that affects all people, is sin. With Eldredge as well as with many other writers, there is preoccupation with causes of sin in the lives of men, as if the Fall in Eden were not an explanation. Writers like Eldredge come along and not only diagnose the problem, shifting blame away from the sinner, but also prescribe their own solutions. In Eldredge’s teaching, it is a man’s personal “wounds” that cause him to sin. Like so many other beliefs of secular society, such teaching is diametrically opposed to what the Bible teaches. It must be said that Eldredge’s silence on the dangers of the message (his affirmation of the message, in fact) from secular sources such as the Hollywood movie Good Will Hunting is clear evidence that he endorses its view, and the views of modern psychology and popular culture, over sound biblical principle. In the movie, Robin Williams, playing the psychologist, tells his patient Will Hunting, “It’s not your fault!” as he holds up a folder filled with records of all of Will’s numerous crimes. The Bible teaches that each man is created free to make the right choices and that each is responsible for his own sin. One of the clearest statements about this is found in the book of Ezekiel:

“The word of the LORD came to me: ‘What do you mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel: ‘The fathers eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge?’ As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel. For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son—both alike belong to me. The soul who sins is the one who will die.” (Ezekiel 18:1-4)

God does not blame the actions of a man’s father or the external influences that surround a man for a man’s sin. No, God blames the man. Sadly, the myriad of lies that are advanced by Hollywood, modern psychology and countless world religions may temporarily remove the blame, but they can never remove the guilt. Indeed, all human beings who have not come to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ are under a burden of their own guilt, whether or not they care to admit it.

We are each created free to make right and wrong choices and to suffer the consequences of those choices. The Bible contains examples of men who have made the right choices even though they had miserable parents who made miserable choices that affected their children’s lives.

Consider King Josiah the book of 2 Kings. We are told that Josiah’s father, Amon, walked in the ways of his father, Manasseh, who did evil in the eyes of the LORD including the sacrifice of his own son in fire. Surely, Josiah was subjected to all sorts of “wounds” at the hands of Amon his father. Perhaps Josiah himself nearly escaped being sacrificed in the fire at the hands of his own father. Whatever happened, there’s almost no question that Josiah must have been deeply affected from the time spent with his wicked father. However, by the grace of God, rather than finding himself reacting in his later years with rage and sin, Josiah chose to do what was right and good in the eyes of the Lord. The Bible says of him: “Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the LORD as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength” (2 Ki 23:25). Josiah knew that God had created him free to make choices different from those of his father and grandfather, in spite of the choices his father and grandfather made. Josiah knew the gravity of sin against the LORD and knew that regardless of what had happened in his past, he would be held accountable for any sins against God. Josiah is an example for us, from God, that we are not captive to our environment and upbringing, that we are created free to repent and believe, and then to obey God out of gratitude.

Man’s freedom is given to him by sovereign God. This freedom is unfortunately abused. Some writers have proposed causes of sin that remove any personal responsibility. They project doctrine that maligns the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which teaches that the only way to salvation is through repentance. While the faithful Christian evangelist sows the seeds of the Gospel of repentance unto salvation through Jesus Christ, false teachers sow the seeds of one of Satan’s many false gospels of the world, that we are not responsible for our actions, rather, we are just victims of our upbringing, our genetics, and the environment. While this false gospel may liberate temporarily, it will not secure eternal life for its adherents, absent God’s merciful intervention.

Even the apostle Paul struggled with his own sinful nature, which for him was a constant reminder of how great was Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, and how great a debt of love he owed to our loving God (Rom 7:14-25). Paul knew he had not obtained perfection yet, he knew that he had not fully reaped the promise of the new covenant. To argue that we have half a clean heart, a whole clean heart, or some combination of the two, is to miss the point here. Quite simply, walking with God is obedience to God’s will. Jesus, who had the cleanest heart ever, knew that His purpose in His earthly ministry was to do His Father’s will. Indeed, He had to check His will against the Father’s in Gethsemane.

It’s not surprising then that writers such as John Eldredge have had to eliminate words such as “obedience” and “duty” from their vocabulary and erect garrisons designed to defend against “legalists” and “doctrine Nazis”. They’ve laid a foundation that does not rest on the deep love of God and that comes only from knowing Christ’s amazing sacrifice, which moves all believers to do the right thing. Unless a man recognizes the totality of his own depravity, the man cannot appreciate the greatness of Christ’s sacrifice.

Many false teachers believe that any conviction of sin (also known as “guilt”) is an attack from the Enemy and is plain wrong. This belief is not Biblical. These false teachers ignore core truths of the Bible when they say that God does not convict us of our sins through the work of the Holy Spirit. Now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:1), but there is most certainly conviction and discipline (Heb 12:7-11).

The theology of the false teachers has removed the whole notion of a perfect Father administering discipline that sometimes involves painful consequences. In doing so, they continue to build the foundation of “another gospel”. Discipline is meant to spur us on and to train us to be more holy, like Him. This is another truth of the Christian faith that is ignored in the “other” gospel.

Barring the bona fide defense of Christ’s atoning blood, all men face punishment for their individual actions. The punishment that was due to us was accomplished on the cross of Christ for those who repent and believe in Christ’s propitiation. When the Holy Spirit of our perfect God enables us to pursue His holy laws, and when we know that there is no ultimate punishment for breaking those laws because we are covered by the blood of the perfect Christ, this is freedom in Christ. Consider: “I run the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.” (Ps 119:32) or “I call out to you; save me and I will keep your statutes.” (Ps 119:144) Eliminate or water-down God’s holy standards and the Christian is turned away from the perfect character of the One and Only, who poured out His blood for him, and from the joys and witness and freedom that come with giving lives of obedience to Him.

Ryan George

Originally published in The Living Water Letter, February 2004,
by Living Water of Washington DC.

Last revised: February 27, 2004.