What you all who deny the sin nature need to understand, is sin is not something that requires mental intelligence.
Sinful attitudes are a spiritual emanation of the heart.
In Psalm 51:5 David, acknowledging his (not his mother’s) sin, says:
“Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.”
And in Ephesians 2:3 it is declared that
“…we all…were by nature the children of wrath even as others.”
And this tallies with human experience. Parents, do your children have to be taught to tell lies, steal, do unkind things, etc.? Certainly not. They do all that naturally. You must teach them not to steal, lie and be unkind. But why is it that they so naturally do what is wrong? Simply because they are your children! They were born with sinful natures as you were.
“By ONE man sin entered into the world, and death by sin… through the offence of ONE many be dead…the judgment was by ONE to condemnation…by ONE man’s offence death reigned…by the offence of ONE judgment came upon all…by ONE man’s disobedience [the] many were made sinners” (Rom. 5:12,15-19).
It all began with one act of disobedience, after which Adam and Eve fled to hide, not from each other, but from God. As a result all their posterity became totally depraved—“wholly inclined to evil and that continually,” as the Westminster Confession has it. (This does not mean that man can do nothing that is good by comparison with others, but simply that nothing he does can be pronounced good by a perfect and holy God.)
In the reading of our Bibles we have scarcely passed the account of the fall of man when we find that
“God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5).
And in Acts 17:30 we read that “…God…now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.”
This, of course, implies that all men everywhere are sinners.
AND SO DEATH PASSED UPON ALL MEN FOR THAT ALL HAVE SINNED
There is, naturally, the constant effort on the part of fallen man to explain his condition so that the responsibility for it will not rest upon him. Even those who theoretically accept the Bible account of the fall, frequently protest: Why am I to blame? I cannot help it. I was born with a sinful nature.
Such have failed to observe what Romans 5:12 clearly states, that
“death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”
But some will object that we have just finished proving that death passed upon all because of the sin of ONE man.
Yes, but we were all in that one man when he sinned. We all sinned in Adam. It is too soon forgotten by some that all of us were once in Adam, were part of him, have come from him, and that the sins we are now tempted to commit by our own fallen natures are but the natural fruit of that original sin committed by us all in Adam when he was yet a free moral agent.
The fact that sin and death entered the world through Adam does not excuse us; it but increases and clinches our condemnation for all Adam’s posterity were in Adam when he sinned—“and so death passed upon all men, for that ALL HAVE SINNED.”
Short and sweet.
Shalom.
